# Narsimha (1991 film)

Narsimha is a 1991 Indian Hindi-language action drama film directed, produced, written, and edited by N. Chandra. The film stars Sunny Deol, Dimple Kapadia, Ravi Behl, Urmila Matondkar and Om Puri in the lead.
For his performance, Puri received a nomination in the Filmfare Award for Best Villain category.

## Plot

Narsimha, a young and capable man, lives a middle-class life with his family in a quiet neighborhood. He gets his beautiful sister married to an eligible young man in their vicinity. On the occasion of his sister delivery, he returns home to find a communal conflict arise in his neighbourhood, which spreads to the whole city. He seeks refuge in a dwelling nearby only to return and find out his whole family has been murdered. With no aim left in life, Narsimha turns to crime and alcohol and works for a man called Suraj Narayan Singh, aka Bapji, a cruel landlord and capitalist, who controls the crime, law and order of the city and rules over it using muscle power and his immense wealth. Bapji is delighted to get hold of a man like Narsimha, who has wits and also muscle power, but has lost the desire to live and hence Narsimha executes his most difficult tasks which others can't accomplish. Bapji believes that he has become invincible and nobody can dare protest him since he has the city under his complete subjugation. He considers Narsimha as a weapon which can unlock his most difficult problems and Narsimha accomplishes them without asking any questions. Narsimha remains drunk all day and only comes when summoned by Bapji to execute Bapji's assignments and receive his payments.
However, all humanity is not lost in Narsimha and he occasionally helps out people in distress. But he remains drunk most of the time and leads life solely on the money provided by Bapji. Bapji openly declared to the city that since he is so powerful, influential and rich, hence nobody can kill him, not man or animal, neither by weapons nor any device, not in day neither in night, just like the Hindu King Hiranyakashyap, who had obtained the same boon from Lord Brahma after a long penance. Hence Bapji asks the people of the city to consider him as their Lord since he completely controls the money and the good force of the city and practically rules the city as per his own wish. When Bapji discovers that his daughter Meenu has fallen in love with her college mate Ravi, he asks Narsimha to destroy Ravi's family and kill Ravi. Witnessing the revolutionary honest character of Ravi's sister Anita, humanity rekindles in Narsimha and he vows to protect Anita's family. Gradually, Narsimha and Anita fall in love with each other. Narsimha then joins forces with Anita and Ravi to force Bapji to get Meenu married to Ravi. Narsimha openly conflicts with Bapji as he is the only one smart and strong enough to take on Bapji and is aided by his few loyal friends and Anita. The conflict escalates and Anita, with Narsimha's help, is successful in rousing local help and support against Bapji's Oppressive and illegal rule. Bapji tries all the tricks in the book to curb this rising opposition using his goons, muscle men etc. but is thwarted every time by Narsimha. Narsimha even kills Bapji's famous wrestlers in Bapji's private court in front of the entire city and showed the whole city that Bapji was afraid for the first time and hence they need not obey Bapji from now on. Bapji was later arrested by police due to his illegal activities after being pressured by the people of the city led by Narsimha and Anita. While being taken by the police, Bapji was humiliated by the people of the city who were fed up with his long tyranny and oppression. However, later he gets released on bail using his money and employing the best lawyers.
Bapji forcibly decides to marry Meenu and locks her up. He finally captures Narsimha and brings him to his palace. There Bapji informs Narsimha that it was him, who planned the communal riot which killed Narsimha's family since riots were necessary to keep the mob afraid and weak and hence aided Bapji in controlling the entire city. He then stabs a fuming Narsimha in his abdomen using his sword and wounds him fatally. Then he orders his men to bury a half-dead Narsimha inside a pillar of his palace and plaster it up. Next morning, when he tries to forcibly wed Meenu, Anita and Ravi arrive with their friends to stop the wedding. However, Bapji releases the prisoners of the jail and hands them weapons to control the mob. When Meenu refuses to marry and instead comes to Ravi, Bapji orders both Meenu and Ravi to be plastered alive in his palace wall while their helpless friends watch being guarded over by armed criminals and prisoners freed by Bapji. Suddenly, a wounded Narsimha breaks the pillar inside which he was plastered up, thus fulfilling his name which is synonymous to the fourth reincarnation or avatar of Lord Vishnu who broke out of the pillar to kill the demon Hiranyakashyap when called by Hiranyakashyap's pious son Prahlad. Similar to Lord Vishnu's 4th avatar, Narsimha breaks out from the pillar and takes on the goons of Bapji while his friends and people also join hands to help Narsimha. He vanquishes the goons with the help of his friends and rescues Meenu and Ravi by breaking the wall in which they were plastered up. Breaking of the pillar and walls by Narsimha disturbs the foundation of the palace and its roof and other walls start crumbling down. Lastly, Bapji gets killed by the arms of the tower clock of his palace which breaks down and falls on him. Ravi and Meenu are together now. Finally, Anita and Narsimha unite and peace returns to the city.

## Cast

* Sunny Deol as Narsimha
* Dimple Kapadia as Anita Rastogi, Vinod's daughter and Ravi's sister
* Ravi Behl as Ravi Rastogi, Anita's brother and Vinod's son
* Urmila Matondkar as Meena Singh, Bapji's daughter
* Om Puri as Suraj Narayan Singh "Bapji", Meena's father
* Johnny Lever as Tempo Dada
* Satish Shah as Anil Saxena, Seema's husband
* Shafi Inamdar as Inspector Vinod Rastogi
* Usha Nadkarni as Mrs. Rastogi, Vinod's wife
* Dinesh Hingoo as Tempo Dada Real Poison Seller
* Shail Chaturvedi as Seema's father
* Om Shivpuri as Ramlal Saxena
* Achyut Potdar as Employee Dharampal in Saxena's Company
* Virendra Saxena as College Principal
* Subbiraj as Doctor Sujan Singh
* Nivedita Joshi-Saraf as Seema, Anita's friend
* Sharat Saxena as Ghasiram
* Mahavir Shah as Jailor Arvind Shinde
* Kamaldeep as Thakur Ajit Khanna
* Guddi Maruti as Telwala's wife

## Production

Ayesha Jhulka was initially cast as lead, in what was to have been her debut film, but she was later replaced by Urmila Matondkar.

## Music

The soundtrack was composed by Laxmikant–Pyarelal and the lyrics were penned by Javed Akhtar. According to Box Office India, with around 18,00,000 units sold, this film's soundtrack was the year's tenth highest-selling album.
Track list
* "Chup Chaap Tu Kyon Khadi Hai" – Alka Yagnik, Mohd Aziz
* "Hum Se Tum Dosti Kar Lo" – Alka Yagnik, Udit Narayan
* "Jao Tum Chaahe Jahan" – Alka Yagnik, Amit Kumar
* "Lekin Mohabbat Badi Hai" – Alka Yagnik, Mohd Aziz
* "Pakad Pakad Kheench Ke Pakad" – Sudesh Bhosle, Jolly Mukherjee, Kavita Krishnamurthy
* "Tum Ho Ajnabi To" – Alka Yagnik, Laxmikant
* "Yaad Karoge Wahan" – Alka Yagnik, Amit Kumar

## Reception
### Critical response

India Today wrote, "Despite the irresistible lead duo of Sunny and Dimple, this is an Om Puri film. Playing the bad man, Puri gives evil an unforgettable face. Chandra's script is trite, and the anger, cliched."