In Satyam Shivam Sundaram, director Raj Kapoor cast his younger brother Shashi Kapoor as Rajeev, an engineer obsessed with perfection, who comes to build a dam in a small rural town. He falls for Roopa, a beautiful, voluptuous young woman in extremely skimpy clothes who always hides one side of her face from him. It is only on their wedding night that he discovers that half her face was burned in an accident as a child. he rejects her, and instead starts an affair with a mysterious other woman who always keeps her face veiled and is, of course, his wife in disguise. When his wife becomes pregnant, he freaks out and accuses her of cheating on him, only realizing that he truly loves her when the dam he built breaks, and he has to save her.
Tropes include:
- Bed Trick: Roopa's decision to stay involved in her husband's life by becoming his mistress.
- Flat "What": a common response to the developments of the plot
- Idiot Ball: something Rajeev spends a lot of time grabbing
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: another Rajeev specialty
- Mistaken for Cheating: what happens to Roopa after she becomes her own husband's mistress
- Wet Sari Scene: For a film staring a supposedly ugly girl with a theme about inner beauty Kapoor sure loves long, lingering shots of Zeenat Aman frolicing under a waterfall in a skimpy white sari.
- What Do You Mean It's Not Heinous?: Rajeev's
hilarious overreaction to anything he sees as ugly. He freaks out when he sees his face distorted in a funhouse mirror, and has a total breakdown when he sees Roopa's facial scar.
