Kudrat

I am shocked to see 7.2 rating on Imdb for this classic cult by Chetan Anand. i mean c'mon what is wrong with indian audience and critics. This movie deserves to be in TOP 5 hindi movies ever. Direction, Story, Sceenplay, Music & most importantly Acting be all the legends in this movie is beyond perfect.

Highly recommended to everyone who is reading this review.

The finest film-makers have, at times, taken the most mundane of stories and have presented them in such a novel manner that they have left the audiences spellbound. They have proved that though the plots may be limited, the possibilities are endless. And this is what essentially Chetan Anand did in his 1981 feature Kudrat starring Rajesh Khanna, Hema Malini, Vinod Khanna, Raajkumar, and Priya Rajvansh in principal roles.

Kudrat is Chetan Anand's intricate version of Madhumati set entirely in the serene locales of Shimla. It begins with Chandramukhi (Hema Malini) and her family returning to the place of her birth, Shimla, after twenty years. Even though the twenty years haven't seen the twenty something Chandramukhi return to Shimla, she starts finding a lot of things about the city very familiar. Just two days into their stay, she meets Dr. Naresh Gupta (Vinod Khanna), a family friend, and they start dating all over the city. Just when things look like they couldn't go any better, Chandramukhi runs into Mohan Kapoor, a city advocate who has the city's richest man Choudhary Janak Singh (Rajkumar) for his guardian. Although Mohan Kapoor is a stranger to her, she feels a quaint pull towards him, as if they had been romantically involved at some point in their lives. For his part, even Mohan seems a bit perturbed when Chandramukhi is around him, despite having Choudhary Janak Singh's daughter and his fiancée Karuna (Priya Rajvansh) with him.

Over the next few days, Chandramukhi starts getting flashes of her past life triggered by her visiting the places she used to visit with Madho (Rajesh Khanna) in her previous birth. Not only this, she starts getting nightmares that leave her feeling utterly depressed and scared. To help her, Naresh, also a psychiatrist, decides to do a past life regression on her and through it he discovers that what Chandramukhi was claiming was absolutely the truth. She and Mohan Kapoor had been lovers in their past lives and had lived in the very city in which they were present at that point of time. He relays all this to Mohan Kapoor who refuses to believe the story. But soon, even he starts getting convinced about Chandramukhi's claim. In fact, she makes him recall something more sinister. He and Paro (Chandramukhi in her previous birth) had been separated in their past lives because of a terrible crime. Paro had been raped and killed by an otherwise honorable man who turns out to be none other than Choudhary Janak Singh. What follows next is a riveting courtroom drama in which Mohan Kapoor accuses the most reputable man in Shimla (and also his beloved guardian) of a crime that he had committed twenty years ago. What adds more drama to the proceedings is that the man is defended by none other than his own daughter Karuna, who refuses to believe that her father could commit such a ghastly act.

Chetan Anand laces the screenplay with some brilliant sequences that are truly one of their kinds in Hindi cinema. The past life of the two actors is set in the pre-independence era when Shimla was the summer capital for the Britishers. The past-life regression is done very authentically and the way it has been shot is way ahead of its times. The entire court-room battle and the superb culmination are captivating, and in fact haunt you till much later after finishing the movie. Also, the scene of the crime and the subsequent few minutes, are shot in a style that is not usual for the Hindi cinema. The inherent drama in the script is accentuated by superbly designed situations and some wonderful dialogues. The performances by all the actors complement the brilliantly written screenplay. Hema Malini has the most complex role of all and she does well while looking absolutely gorgeous throughout the movie. Vinod Khanna and Rajesh Khanna are able, while Rajkumar is his usual flair and glory. Priya Rajvansh looks a misfit in the cast as despite the tons of make-up she looks far from the young lady she plays (But then she and Chetan Anand were romantically linked and he used to cast her in all his movies). Even Aruna Irani has a critical role which she performs well.

The entire feel of the movie is of melancholy and suspense. The setting is akin to an old English mystery drama- and rightly so for Shimla is indeed a Victorian town in many ways. What adds to the whole atmospherics is a wonderful tune by RD Burman, who is at his best in the movie. The tune which forms the song 'Humein Tumse Pyaar Kitna' comes more than once in the film and complements the soul of the story wonderfully well. The other memorable song in the enterprise is 'Tune O Rangeele' which is like a beautiful show-reel of both Shimla's beauty and Paro and Madho's romance. The other songs too are good, though not as fondly recalled.

Parting Note: Kudrat is an excellent suspense-mystery-reincarnation-drama movie that boasts of some remarkable sequences and some memorable songs. Although its story seems to be a homage to Madhumati, it has its own uniqueness and own charm which is a result of the brilliant screenplay and direction by Chetan Anand.

For more such write-ups on lesser talked about Hindi movies, visit moviesandnomore.blogspot.in

A very well made movie with its brilliant story and editing being its hallmark. All of the melodious songs carried the story forward and were beautifully inserted at the right times. An evergreen movie which has stood the test of time even after 41 years.

8/10 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

Director chetan anand also features in the movie at duration 14:11 and 14:51 wearing a coat.

Kudrat (nature) starts with the arrival of Chandramukhi (Hema Malini) with her parents to Shimla and to the pleasant surprise of her parents, an old friend of her mother has also come over there with her young son, Dr. Naresh (Vinod Khanna) who is a psychiatrist. Naresh and Chandramukhi become friends and Naresh silently starts feeling love for Chandramukhi in his heart. However a trouble starts taking place with Chandramukhi. She starts experiencing nightmares. A dream that frequently occurs to her is her chasing someone and then getting entangled in the hanging roots of a huge banyan tree. Further, she finds many places and people as quite familiar to her though she has never been to Shimla before (except when she was just an infant as told by her parents). Besides, she gets fascinated to the public prosecutor in the city court - Mohan (Rajesh Khanna) and in a state of something like seizure, she starts calling Mohan as Maadho and herself as Paaro. As she is undergoing fits time and again, it's a challenge for her friend, Naresh to correctly diagnose her problem and then cure it.

Naresh uses hypnotism and makes Chandramukhi to revisit the bygone phase of her life. However by default, in that hypnotic state of hers, Chandramukhi reaches back to her previous birth when she was Paaro and was in love with Maadho (now Mohan in this incarnation). Maadho's sister, Satto (Aruna Irani) was her best friend and she was living happily with her father (Satyen Kappu) in a nearby village. Through this experiment and talking to Satto who is still alive, Naresh comes to know that she was raped and killed by someone. Besides, her beau, Maadho had died even before her death. Knowing that Mohan is none else but Maadho of the previous incarnation, Naresh seeks his help to cure Chandramukhi (who was Maadho's sweetheart Paaro in that birth). By meeting Chandramukhi frequently, Mohan feels himself as in love with her despite the fact that he is supposed to marry Karuna (Priya Raajwansh) who is a lawyer and the daughter of Mohan's godfather, Chaudhary Janak Singh (Raaj Kumar). When Mohan invites Chandramukhi and Naresh to a party thrown by Chaudhary Janak Singh (Raaj Kumar), she gets frightened like anything to see him and runs away with a terrible shriek.

Now Mohan and Naresh alongwith Satto who is still alive, starts digging the buried past related to Maadho's death and Paaro's going missing. By hypnotizing Chandramukhi again, they now know a lot about the crime and the culprit. But the problem is how to prove the guilt after so many years. There's a dismissed (and drunkard) police constable (Keshto Mukherjee) still alive who knows something significant about Paaro's death because her aggrieved father had lodged an FIR in the local police station for her disappearance and her dead body was never found. Satto, Mohan and Naresh also seek the help of a holy man (Raj Mehra) who tells some relevant things to them with the help of Bhrigu Samhita (the holy code supposed to have been written by the great sage, Bhrigu Maharaaj).

Mohan gets the case of Paaro's disappearance reopened and files a criminal suit in the local court against the supposed culprit on the basis of the evidences and the witnesses available with him. After a gripping court-room drama and many twists in the story, justice finally prevails and the love-birds of the previous birth get united in this birth.

This brilliant and intriguing story would have got messed up in the hands of an inefficient director. However fortunately, it was directed by one of the most proficient and respected directors of Indian cinema, Chetan Anand (the elder brother of Dev Anand and Vijay Anand) who has handled very well not only the intricate script but also the high profile star cast. He has done justice to the roles of all the actors including Raaj Kumar, Hema Malini, Rajesh Khanna, Vinod Khanna and Priya Raajwansh and presented the story on the screen in the most interesting manner.

Alongwith suspense, there is a good dose of romance also in the movie which gets enhanced by the melodious songs composed by R.D. Burman and penned by seasoned lyricists like Anand Bakshi, Majrooh Sultaanpuri and Qateel Shifaai. Hamen Tumse Pyar Kitna Ye Hum Nahin Jaante, Tune O Rangeele Kaisa Jaadu Kiya, Dukh Sukh Ki Har Ek Maala Kudrat Hi Piroti Hai, Saawan Nahin Bhaadon Nahin etc. are all very good songs. I will mention my two favourites from this album - 1. Chhodo Sanam Kaahe Ka Gham Hanste Raho Khilte Raho (sung by Kishore Kumar and Annette) which is a foot-tapper, 2. Sajti Hai Yun Hi Mehfil Rang Yun Hi Dhalne Do (sung by Asha Bhonsle) which is a soulful song and should be listened to peacefully.

The cinematographer has ably captured the beauty of Shimla and the picturesque scenes are a treat for the eyes. Besides, since the flash back (pertaining to the previous birth of the lead characters) belongs to the British rule in India, the milieu of that period has been very impressively brought alive on the screen for which the art director deserves a pat.

Chetan Anand has given all the principal actors ample opportunity to show their talent. Hema Malini and Vinod Khanna have emerged as the best performers. Raaj Kumar could not fully get rid of his mannerisms. Rajesh Khanna and Priya Rajwansh have disappointed. The court-room scenes have gone unnecessarily over the top due to Priya's unnatural performance. Aruna Irani, Deven Varma, Keshto Mukherjee, Satyen Kappu etc. have impressed in their supporting roles.

Summing up, this reincarnation based drama is a spellbinding musical suspense-thriller with a good dose of romance.