Hindi Movie - Kati Patang (Rajesh Khanna, Asha Parekh) - Released in 1971

In the space of a few years, the late Rajesh Khanna became a superstar, enjoying a level of adulation that is difficult to achieve for anybody after him (even the level of success of Amitabh Bachchan soon after him did not reach the amount of crazed fandom that Rajesh Khanna achieved), giving a consecutive series of 15 hit films, something that nobody has managed to do since. This stardom lasted a few years, but made Rajesh Khanna a name that would forever be remembered. One of the movies released during this duration was 'Kati Patang', which also became a huge hit. The movie was produced and directed by Shakti Samanta, and was the second in a series of 9 films they made together. The movie earned a number of Filmfare nominations, but the only award won by the movie was for Asha Parekh as the Best Actress, and the movie did seem to have a focus on Asha Parekh as the person on whom the movie revolved around. The music of the film, by RD Burman was very well liked and appreciated, and Kishore Kumar sang most of the songs for the movie (Kishore was the usual singer for Rajesh Khanna). The movie was actually based on a novel by the name of "I Married a Dead Man," by William Irish (real name of the author being Cornell Woolrich, with William Irish being the name under which the novel was published) and was made into English and French language movies as well.

The movie was an emotional movie, based on the struggle of a woman who took a decision in her life that impacted her again, in an amazing coincidence. Like many people of the current age, the heroine of the movie Madhavi (Asha Parekh) took a decision that you would consider right. She was an orphan and when her uncle arranged her marriage to somebody whom she did not know, she ran away from there to her lover rather than get married to somebody she did not know. Unfortunately, she found that she had been deceived, since her lover Kailash (Prem Chopra) was only playing with her, and she found him with another woman Shabnam (Bindu). Hurt and betrayed, she returned home to find that her uncle had died. With this distressing situation, she ran away and ran into her friend Poonam who was with her small child. Poonam had married her husband against the wishes of his family and they had never met her. However, she was now returning to his family after the death of her husband, and yet, in another tragedy, Poonam dies although her child and Madhavi both survive, with Madhavi now having to take care of the child.
Madhavi decides to travel to Poonam's inlaws, and since they have never seen Poonam, Madhavi takes on the guise of Poonam, living as their widowed daughter-in-law. And then she runs into the person who has suffered an emotional turmoil, Kamal (Rajesh Khanna). Kamal's would be wife ran away before the marriage, something that affected him terribly emotionally. Madhavi is very distressed to hear about this, since she was the one who had caused such pain to Kamal. However, when Kamal starts to get closer to her, she resists since she does not want her truth to come out. And then the complication happens, with Kailash and Shabnam re-entering the scene and twisting things around so that she is liable to get blamed. How does she handle this and who supports her ? Watch the movie.

Music from the movie: Video from Youtube, Lyrics, MP3 on Amazon: Na Koi Umang Hai (link) Yeh Jo Mohabbat Hai (link) Mera Naam Hai Shabnam (link) Yeh Shaam Mastani (link) Pyar Deewana Hota Hai (link) Jis Gali Mein Tera Ghar (link)