Roti

Plot

Mangal Singh has been a career criminal and he is finally sentenced to be hanged due to the murder of a man for the sake of roti. Underworld don, Suraj who raises him as a criminal, plans his escape from jail and is followed by a police inspector. He escapes on a train when he throws a fellow passenger Shravan Kumar off the train. Mangal Singh lands up in a small village in Northern India and becomes a school teacher with the help of a local restaurateur, Bijli. He takes on the identity of Ramu, a friend of Shravan, and goes to live with Shravan's parents, Lalaji and Malti who are blind, little knowing that they are the parents of a man he killed while escaping from the police.

Bijli falls in love with the reluctant Mangal, but she discovers the truth when inspector Jagdish Raj comes to search Mangal in the same village and informs the blind couple about Shravan's death due to Mangal. Finally, Mangal also learns the truth about Shravan's parents. Mangal reunites Lalaji's long-lost daughter with him, who thereby releases Shravan's house. Mangal takes Shravan's parents for a holy pilgrimage along with Bijli where he meets the alive Shravan again. He pardons him and allows him to escape from the police, but Bijli follows him. While in pursuit of Mangal, Suraj shoots Bijli, but he dies in the snow avalanche. Bijli dies and Mangal is shot by inspector Sujit. The inspector finds Mangal dying with a gun without cartridges asking none to deprive anyone of roti.

Cast

Rajesh Khanna as Mangal Singh

Mumtaz as Bijli

Nirupa Roy as Malti

Jagdeep as Khadak Singh

Pinchoo Kapoor as Suraj

Sujit Kumar as Police Inspector

Jagdish Raj as Police Inspector

Viju Khote as Doctor

Om Prakash as Lalajee

Vijay Arora as Shravan

Paintal as Headmaster

Asrani as Ramu

Jeetendra as Himself (guest appearance)

Jeevan as Lalaji

Pravin Paul as Mrs Lalaji

Kader Khan as Lawyer (voice only during opening credit)

Soundtrack

The songs were composed by Laxmikant Pyarelal. The lyrics were written by Anand Bakshi.

Box office

The film was a major box-office success of the year and considered to be a milestone in the formula-films made by Manmohan Desai. The film grossed ₹2 crore in India and ₹4 crore worldwide, which works out to ₹160 crore and ₹320 crore resp. in 2018.

Remakes

The film is loosely inspired by the 1959 American Western film Face of a Fugitive (an adaptation of the short story "Long Gone" by Peter Dawson), vast changes were made in the script of Roti. Later, Roti itself was remade in Telugu as Neram Nadi Kadu Akalidi, in 1976 starring N.T. Rama Rao. It was also remade in Bangladesh as Ek Mutho Bhat (lit. 'One Fist Rice') starring Zafar Iqbal, Babita in 1976.

Awards

Filmfare Best Editing Award – Kamlakar Karkani