Directed by Ravi Tandon (Raveena Tandon's father), the movie had an all-star cast featuring veteran Rajesh Khanna, National-award winning Smita Patil and newish to Bollywood Sridevi. Released 38 years ago today, it was sensuous and stunning Sridevi who stole the show. The film premiered a month after the tragic death of Smita Patil and there was tremendous media fuss over the film as it was supposed to be a clash of the female titans; Smita, parallel cinema's emblematic actress, and Sridevi, the national craze of commercial cinema. In those days, the lines were distinctly made. (Rekha was one of the few who balanced both commercial and parallel cinema with sari-clad and lipstick stained ease!)
The melodramatic plot, based on the novel by Gulshan Nanda, had several twists and turns that kept the audience engrossed, if not the critics, who were not in favour of Khanna's overacting and the commercial elements of the movie. In retrospect with today's enlightened lenses, dark-skinned Sridevi finding herself as the object of desire only when she's light skinned... er Ok. A rather questionable scene where the rain washes off her tan and wows Rajesh Khanna is all too bizarre a plot point to make sense in 2025. But then the sensibilities of cinema have changed much since the dire decade that was the 1980s in Hindi cinema!
A series of images of gorgeous Sridevi on the set of the film.
Left: A collage of images from the film set of Nazrana. Looking at the images, couldn't but help think of Raj Kapoor's unrealised project Ghunghat Ke Pat Khol.
Back in 1988, Raj Kapoor was planning to offer the film to Sridevi but it never came to fruition. The title has been making the news lately, even though the phrase comes from a popular song sung by Geeta Dutt back in 1950. Ghunghat Ke Pat Khol was made by Ananth Mahadevan circa1998/1999 (a different project but with the same title).
Raj Kapoor died in the summer of 1988, by then Sridevi was firmly established as the Number One star. Wonder what they could have created together if the project had met its potential? Earlier had mentioned that perhaps Sridevi would have refused the film as Raj Kapoor's sense of sensuality and eros was a bit beyond her comfort zone until a fellow writer pointed out, Raj Kapoor had made Prem Rog without a hint of erotica and a social message. Ah coulda woulda shoulda...
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