Thayilla Pillai (1961)

The conservative Brahmin Patanjali Sastry severs relations with his modern brother-in-law Dr Bharati. When Sastry’s wife, who had had two miscarriages, finds herself pregnant, she goes to her brother to get medical aid and incurs the displeasure of her husband. The wife gives birth to a son but simultaneously adopts the son of a lower-caste woman who died in childbirth, creating some confusion for Sastry as to which baby is his son. Eventually the couple raise the adopted child while their own son becomes a rickshaw-puller. The two boys grow up and become friends. Following scenarist Karunanidhi’s anti-caste politics, the family is reunited in the end.