Within the framework of lighthearted entertainment (with music, of course), Aar Paar takes some audacious swipes at class values and bourgeois (mis)conduct. Guru Dutt stars in the decidedly unheroic role of Kalu, an aggressive taxi driver thrashing about for a new career after serving time for a reckless driving conviction. His romantic involvement with the daughter of an employer and his cheeky attempt to elope with her were perhaps the mark of a new generation of post-independence Indians--India's own angry young men. But Dutt's portrayal also skillfully tempers rebellion with a strange innocence and, finally, warmth, a combination which made this the first of several acting triumphs. Dutt also introduced a westernized approach to the musical aspects of Aar Paar, as Shampa Banerjee writes in Profiles: "It was no longer necessary to confine a song to a particular character in the story. The passers-by joined in as if they had always belonged, extending reality into a fantasy...."