A Romantic Comedy Bollywood movie released in 1968, Padosan (Neighbour) is the story of Man Child Bhola (Sunil Dutt) who falls in love with Girl Next Door Bindu (Saira Banu). He refers the matter to his guru (teacher, in this case music/drama) Vidyapati, played by comedy veteran Kishore Kumar. Vidyapati develops intricate schemes to catch her eye, quickly realizing that the key is to appeal to her love of music - fed by Master Pillai (veteran comic Mehmood in a Funny Foreigner role as a stereotypical South Indian), who we quickly realize is also infatuated with Bindu. The solution is obvious: Bhola can win Bindu's heart by serenading her. Unfortunately, his voice turns out to be only slightly better than the neighborhood donkey.

A second solution is immediately obvious: Bhola can mime singing, while Vidyapati hides in his room and sings on his behalf. This scheme - along with other schemes - works for a while, but eventually all is revealed. Bindu, upset at this betrayal, decides to marry Master Pillai after all, but a quickly rigged fake suicide works to prove that Bindu loves Bhola best, and the two of them end up married and happy.


Tropes used in Padosan include:
  • Complexity Addiction: While Bindu is admittedly fairly hard to please, Guru Vidyapati seems to go out of his way to come up with complicated Xanatos Roulette-ringed schemes to woo her.
  • Pairs: In-movie, Bhola and Masterji fight over Bindu. On screen, we have two highly respected comedians (Mehmood and Kishore Kumar) trying to one-up each other. In soundtrack, a Crowning Music of Awesome (Ek Chatur Naar) consists of a musical duel between populist singer Kishore Kumar and classically trained Manna Dey, both well-loved playback singers in Bollywood.