Cast: Shashi Kapoor, Sharmila Tagore, Shatrughan Sinha, Master Tito & Om Prakash Director: Manmohan Desai Manmohan Desai had said th...
Cast: Shashi Kapoor, Sharmila Tagore, Shatrughan Sinha, Master Tito & Om Prakash
Director: Manmohan Desai
Manmohan Desai had said that Aa Gale Lag Jaa (AGLJ) released on November 16. 1973, was his best film to date. And why it shouldn’t be? Devoid of any lost-and-found masala or double roles formula, it is a simple family musically rich film. Desai also introduced a new kind of fight choreography- fighting on skates. Definitely new for an early '70s film.
The music was composed by Rahul Dev Burman who was ruling the roost.
The songs Waada Karo, Tera Mujhse Hai Pehle Ka Naata Koi, Na Koi Dil Mein Samaya and Ae
Mere Bete Sun Mera Kehna all sung by Kishore Kumar are still popular even today
Shashi Kapoor plays Prem who wears his heart on his sleeves and falls in
love with a medical student Preeti (Sharmila Tagore). During a freak accident,
Prem needs to give his body heat to Preeti to revive her. Her father Heerachand
(a superb Om Prakash) becomes the villain of the piece and separates Prem and
Preeti. A pregnant Preeti is sent to a sanatorium where Prem’s mother is also
being treated. The child is born but Preeti is told that it is still born.
Crestfallen she leaves for Bombay with her father not knowing that Prem had
begged her father for his child and in return he would vanish from Preeti’s
life. A few years pass, Preeti is now engaged to Dr. Amar (Shatrughan Sinha)
and Prem is a skating teacher. His son Rahul (Master Tito) has polio.
Circumstances bring the characters together with a happy ending and Dr. Amar
sacrifices his love and also treats and cures Rahul completely.
Despite a stellar performance by Shatrughan Sinha, it was Shashi Kapoor
who charms the audience and dominates the proceedings playing a helpless and
hapless father and lover. Manmohan Desai brings this film to life despite it
defying logic but the audience is fully hooked and entertained.
This film was also one of Shashi Kapoor’s hits and finest films and although
not a classic it can be watched again and again. Much later in 1985 Aa Gale Lag Ja was rehashed as "Pyar Jhukta Nahin" starring Mithun Chakraborty and Padmini Kolhapure, another super hit with the evergreen "Tumse Milkar Naa Jaane Kyon" still ringing in our ears.
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