Duvidha

Duvidha () is a 1973 ghost movie directed by Mani Kaul, based on a Rajasthani story of the same name by Vijaydan Detha. The film stars Ravi Menon and Raisa Padamsee in lead roles. The film was critically acclaimed and won the director the National Film Award for Best Direction and Critics Award for Best film at the 1974 Filmfare Awards. This film was remade in 2005 as Paheli, starring Shahrukh Khan and Rani Mukherjee in the lead roles.

==Plot== The film is set in rural Rajasthan. It is based on a story by Vijayadan Detha, which relates a popular folktale from Rajasthan about a merchant's son. A young bride is left alone when her merchant husband Krishanlal departs on a long business trip soon after their wedding. In his absence, a ghost, enchanted by her beauty, assumes the form of the absent husband and begins living with her. The bride, caught between longing and societal expectation, accepts the ghost as her companion, and their silent, surreal coexistence unfolds with dreamlike detachment. As the lines between the real and the supernatural blur, the film poses a haunting moral and emotional dilemma (“duvidha” meaning “dilemma”) about love, agency, and the constraints of tradition.