1976 Indian Hindi film directed by Yash Chopra
Kabhie Kabhie (translation: Sometimes) is a 1976 Indian Hindi-language musical romantic drama film written by Pamela Chopra and directed and produced by Yash Chopra under the production banner of Yash Raj Films. Released on 27 February 1976, the film stars an ensemble cast of Waheeda Rehman, Shashi Kapoor, Amitabh Bachchan, Rakhee Gulzar, Rishi Kapoor and Neetu Singh. This was Yash Chopra's second directorial film with Bachchan and Shashi Kapoor in the lead roles after Deewaar (1975) and was particularly noted for its soundtrack compositions by Khayyam. The film received widespread critical acclaim upon release, with high praise directed towards its story, screenplay, direction, dialogues, soundtrack, and performances of the ensemble cast, and is regarded as a cult film over the years.
Kabhie Kabhie released on 27 February 1976 and earned an estimated ₹40 million at the box office, becoming the eighth-highest grossing Hindi film of the year.[3] At the 24th Filmfare Awards, Kabhi Kabhie received a leading 13 nominations, including Best Film, Best Director (Yash Chopra), Best Actor (Bachchan), Best Actress (Raakhee), Best Supporting Actor (Shashi Kapoor) and Best Supporting Actress (Rehman), and won a leading 4 awards, including Best Music Director (Khayyam), Best Lyricist (Sahir Ludhianvi) and Best Male Playback Singer (Mukesh), the latter two for the song "Kabhie Kabhie Mere Dil Mein".
Plot
The film begins on a gentle, lyrical note with a short-lived romance between a budding college poet, Amit Malhotra (Amitabh Bachchan), and Pooja (Raakhee Gulzar). Amit meets Pooja when he recites his poetry in his college campus in Kashmir, but destiny has other plans as Pooja's parents arrange her marriage with an architect, Vijay Khanna (Shashi Kapoor), without her consent, and Amit advises Pooja to abide by her parents' wishes. Pooja reluctantly ends her relationship with Amit on a final request that he continues his poetry which he refuses to. Pooja and Vijay get married and are blessed with a son, Vikram, who is also known as Vicky, while a heartbroken Amit returns home and takes over the quarry company of his elderly father (Iftekhar).
20 years later, spanning over to the next generation, Pooja is shown to have become the host of a television interview program, and one of her guests surprisingly happens to be Amit, who has become famous since the anthology he gifted Pooja on her wedding night. When asked why he stopped writing poetry, Amit responds by recalling how his sorrow drove him away. Vijay, seeing Amit and Pooja together afterwards, reveals that he is a big fan of Amit's poetry and accurately deduces that his discontinuance to poetry was caused by heartbreak, causing Amit to angrily storm off. On the other hand, the now-grownup Vicky (Rishi Kapoor), Pooja and Vijay's son, falls in love with Pinky (Neetu Singh), his college friend and the daughter of Vijay's physician, Dr. R. P. Kapoor (Parikshit Sahni),
and good wife, Shobha (Simi Garewal). However, before Pinky and Vicky can tie the knot, Dr. Kapoor and Shobha shockingly reveal to Pinky and that she is adopted and was born out of legitimacy, causing a shattered Pinky to sever ties with Dr. Kapoor and Shobha and decide to track down her biological single mother, and find out the truth about her birth and abandonment. Pinky's search takes her to the snow-clad hill station of Kashmir and is finally able to meet with her biological mother, Anjali (Waheeda Rehman), who, as fate would have it, happens to be none other than the wife of Amit.
While secretly acknowledging Pinky's existence and showering her love on her reunited daughter, Anjali does not reveal their relationship to Amit and their daughter, Sweety (Naseem), terrified of losing them both, and reluctantly introduces Pinky as her distant niece from Delhi, anguishing Pinky as Anjali would not let her address her as her mother. To add to Pinky's miseries, Vicky, after being encouraged by Vijay, arrives in Kashmir in an attempt to support her emotionally, but an angry Pinky requests him to maintain his distance from her. However, Vicky charms his way into Amit's household by flirting with the susceptible, giddy-headed Sweety, so that he can continue to meet Pinky. Sweety requests Amit to give Vijay a job in his company, so that he can sustain himself while living in the town. Pinky begins working as Amit's secretary while Vicky is given a job as a trolley operator by Rambhajan (Deven Verma), Amit's construction site supervisor. The situation further backfires when Sweety falls in love with Vicky in a tug-of-war between her and Pinky.
Seeing Sweety happy alongside Vicky, Anjali and Amit bring forward the idea of marriage between the two, causing Pinky to storm off angrily to the guesthouse in which Vicky is staying and order him to not play with Sweety's life and betray Amit and Anjali's trust in him. Anjali notices Pinky leaving from Vicky's guesthouse and questions her to which Pinky admits that Vicky is her fiancée. Shocked at learning that Pinky and Vicky are in love and already due to get married, Anjali attempts to convince Amit to marry off Pinky instead of Sweety to Vicky, but Amit responds by accusing Anjali of favouring Pinky over Sweety. Realising that Pinky is more than just a "niece" to Anjali, Amit demands to know the truth about Pinky's identity, forcing a distraught Anjali to confess that Pinky is her illegitimate daughter, and that Pinky's biological father was a test pilot for the Indian Air Force. Anjali was engaged to him when he died in an airplane crash and she was pregnant, forcing Anjali to give Pinky away for adoption to Dr. Kapoor and Shobha.
A horrified Amit becomes furious with both Anjali and Pinky and punishes them with sullen silences for concealing their past misdeeds from him. Amit goes on to meet with an architect on his site, who happens to be Vijay, Pooja's husband. As Amit stops by to pick Vijay and Pooja up for dinner, Pooja and Amit reflect on their past love for each other, which Vijay overhears, and is shocked to realise that Amit's mysterious aforementioned heartbreak was none other than his own wife, Pooja. On the drive over, Vijay finds out that Pooja and Amit studied together and that Amit had written poetry in that period. At home, after a drink, an angry Vijay tells Amit that a man degrades himself by thinking about the past affairs of a woman who bore his kids and spent 20 years of her life with him. In a way, Vijay accepts Pooja and shows Amit that he is being unreasonable towards Anjali, which is overheard by both Anjali and Pooja. Realising that Amit also had a past just like she did, Anjali apologises to him for hiding the truth about Pinky from him for so long, but Amit angrily refuses to forgive her past, and a hurt Anjali decides to leave Amit.
Meanwhile, Sweety witnesses an intimate moment between Vicky and Pinky, and still in love with Vicky and unaware of his engagement, she cries and has a fit, causing Amit to slap her and call her a spoiled brat. Feeling neglected by everyone, Sweety decides to commit suicide by riding her horse into one of the dynamite explosions in the quarry. Vicky chases after her on horseback, while Amit and Pinky follow close behind on Amit's jeep, and Vijay on his motorbike. A spark from the explosion catches a pile of dry twigs, igniting a forest fire. Sweety dismounts and runs into the fire, followed by Vicky who attempts to dissuade her, revealing that he and Pinky are already engaged, causing her to drop her anger. Amit rescues Vicky and Sweety, while Vijay rescues Pinky, and they all embrace. After the near-death experience, Amit realises his mistake and that he was wrong, and races home to stop Anjali from leaving the house. He arrives just in time, and they both tearfully reconcile, admitting that they do love each other. Amit and Pooja put the past behind them and become friends anew, while Pinky and Vicky get married.
Production
The film's concept came to Yash Chopra while he was reading a poem by his longtime friend (and also the film's lyricist) Sahir Ludhianvi. The movie was shot in Kashmir, and Yash Chopra has claimed this to be one of his happiest experiences and he described the production as a "honeymoon", since the entire cast worked together as a family.[4] The film also led to the reinvention of Amitabh Bachchan as a romantic poet who loses his love, which was a major departure from his earlier "angry-young-man" roles such as Zanjeer (1973), Sholay (1975) and Deewaar (1975). The film had been written with Raakhee in mind, and she had agreed to do it during the making of Daag: A Poem of Love (1973) but before production started she married lyricist Gulzar, who wanted her to retire from acting. However, after some persuasion from Yash Chopra, Gulzar let her do the film.[5]
Crew
