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Even the biggest stars have faced low points in their careers, and for Shah Rukh Khan, one of the darkest moments came with the 1995 film Trimurti. Despite a dream team behind and in front of the camera, the film turned out to be a colossal box office disaster.

The Build-Up: All the Right Ingredients

Directed by Mukul S. Anand and produced by Subhash Ghai, Trimurti had everything going for it—an ensemble cast featuring Shah Rukh Khan, Anil Kapoor, Jackie Shroff, and Priya Tendulkar, along with high expectations from both audiences and critics. The budget was massive for its time, and the hype was real.

With Ghai’s banner Mukta Arts backing the film, Trimurti was seen as a sure-shot blockbuster in the making. Shah Rukh Khan was already riding high on the success of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, released just months earlier. Everything pointed to another box office hit.

Welcome to a multi-part series on the History Of Hindi Cinema. Through individual films and the larger oeuvres of some Hindi filmmakers, we’ll explore the highlights of 70 years of cinema, starting with 1950, just three years after India won its independence from British rule, and ending in the 2010s.

(Due...

Close-Up is a feature that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Shyam Benegal's Ankur (1974) is now showing in the series A Journey into Indian Cinema.I go back to my middle school Biology lessons to find the scientific word for the Hindi word, ankur. Epicotyl: The part of the seed that becomes the leaves and stems of a new plant; the first rebellious sign of life that raises its fist above the earth to proclaim its existence. The title of Shyam Benegal’s 1973 debut film, Ankur, has been officially translated to The Seedling and its story tells of a society raising its first fist of resistance against the ceiling, colliding against it to break across a divide that seems impenetrable.Benegal, born in 1934, grew up near the city of Hyderabad in the south Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. He was around 12 when the Telangana Rebellion broke out in 1946. Led by the Communist Party,...