Saturday, May 16, 2015

Aur Ek Prem Kahani (released in 1996) - Starring Ramesh Aravind and Revathi

Once in a while a movie comes along, that is forgotten by most people after it has come and gone, but something remains in the memory. I had seen the movie, but had forgotten the details of the story; what I remembered was this lovely song, "Naina Bole Naina". This was a delightful song, sung by the melodious voice of Asha Bhosle, and with music by Ilayaraaja. I am sure that a number of people would remember the movie for this song (although the proportion of people who would also remember this song would not be too high though, since it has been almost 20 years since the movie and the song, and even though it is a delightful song, it did not get very very popular even then).
This was a movie that saw a number of South Indian stars, such as Ramesh Aravind, Revathi Menon, Heera Rajgopal and Sudhir Ahuja. The movie was directed by another South Indian director, Balu Mahendra, who also made the original Kannada movie 'Kokila' on which this movie was made. The movie was produced by Mahesh Bhatt and Amit Khanna and the music for the film was not original music by Ilayaraaja; he instead took tunes from other movies of his as the tunes for these songs.
The movie is a love triangle, with the sharpness of reality thrown into the cauldron, The responsibility that a person has to bear for his actions is also highlighted in the movie.



What is the movie about ? In the southern city of Madras, there is an engineer Ranganathan (played by Sudhir Ahuja) who lives with his wife Kamala (played by Sushma Ahuja) and his college going daughter (medical student) Kokila (played by Heera Rajgopal). And they have a maid Manga (played by Revathy). A sudden shock comes to the family  when Kamala suffers a stroke (mild stroke, but it can still be a calamity). Since Ranganathan has to travel frequently, this is a problem. Somebody is needed in the house just to ensure that if there is some problem, it can be handled. So they decide to get a tenant, a male tenant, who can be asked to help in case of some emergency.
They finalize on Sathyamoorthy (played by Ramesh Aravind), he seems dependable. And life continues; but a make entrant to the house can change conditions. And they do change. Kokila and Sathya fall in love, and decide that they will seek consent of her parents to get married. But, things change (or maybe just a single incident happens). On a night where only Manga and Sathya are in the house, it so happens that they make love; but this was a one-off incident. Kokila and Sathya are still in love, and Kokila of course is not aware of this incident. Manga knows about this love, but nothing more. However, one fine day, when Kokila is away on a college trip, Manga breaks the calm around Sathya and tells him that she is pregnant, and she expects that he will do what is right.
He of course looks rationally, and thinks that maybe her getting an abortion is the right next step. This was not what she was thinking in terms of the right step, and she leaves the household. When Kokila comes back, she sees Sathya missing, and he remains missing. Years later, when she is a doctor and goes to some village as part of her medical duties, she comes across them. They have a daughter, whom they have named Kokila.

Aur Ek Prem Kahani (released in 1996) - Starring Ramesh Arvind and Revathi