Amar Prem

Plot synopsis:
Pushpa (Sharmila Tagore) is expelled from her house by her husband and his new wife. When she refuses to leave, her husband beats her and throws her out. She goes to her mother for help but her mother too, disowns her. When she tries to commit suicide, she is sold to a brothel in Calcutta by her village-uncle, Nepal Babu (Madan Puri). On her audition at the brothel, Anand Babu (Rajesh Khanna), a businessman seeking love, is attracted by her singing. Anand Babu is unhappily married and lonely and becomes her regular and exclusive customer as love blossoms.
Later a widowed man with his family, from the same village as her, moves in close to Pushpa's place. The new neighbour's son, Nandu, does not get any love at home, as his father works all the time and his stepmother does not care about him. Nandu's father learns about Pushpa's new life and forbids her from interacting with him and his family as he fears what people would say. However, Pushpa starts treating Nandu as her own son when she realises that he is mistreated at home, and often goes hungry. Nandu also comes to love Pushpa and starts to regard her as his mother. He visits her every day and comes upon Anand Babu who also becomes fond of him becoming a father figure, calling him Pushpa's son, seeing the way Pushpa loves the child.
One day, Anand Babu's brother-in-law comes to see Pushpa and demands that she tell Anand Babu to stop visiting her. With great reluctance, Pushpa agrees and she turns Anand Babu away when he comes to see her. It is then that businessman realises that he is in love with Pushpa. When Nandu suffers from fever and his treatment is too expensive, Pushpa asks Anand Babu for help and he secretly finances the treatment and does not let anybody know. When the doctor asks him why is he so keen on helping Nandu, he replies some relationships have no names. However, when Nandu's father asks the doctor who paid for the treatment, the doctor says that his mother did. Then Nandu's father discovers that it was Pushpa who saved her son's life and he thanks her and gives her the sari that he had bought for his wife, telling her that it was gift from a brother to a sister. A touched Pushpa accepts.
Nandu's family has to move to the village and Nandu plants a sapling of nigh-flowering jasmine (Harsingaar or Parijat) at Pushpa's home, making her promise to always take care of it. Pushpa cries and agrees.
Several years later, Nandu grows up to become a government engineer posted in the same town. Anand Babu meets Pushpa, now working as a maid servant who is ill-treated and they both reconcile. Nandu unsuccessfully searches for her and gives up after inquiring in the neighborhood. Nandu's son gets sick and they go to the same doctor. Meanwhile, having met Pushpa, Anand Babu decides to catch up with all his old friends and meets the doctor. During conversation, he reveals he has stopped drinking and visiting brothels once he left Pushpa. He also tells him that he is now divorced/separated due to his wife's partying ways but is finally at peace and is happy with Pushpa's love and affection in his heart. They talk about Nandu and the Doctor informs him that Nandu is in town. Nandu meets Anand Babu when he comes to meet the doctor to ask regarding the medicine, who takes him to meet Pushpa. Both of them, unable to see Pushpa ill-treated, stand up for her and in the end Nandu takes Pushpa home with him, like a son who is reunited with his long lost mother with Anand babu looking on, crying happily.

Tags: romantic

Review:
but if someone was pick up one film, as a beacon, as an example of the great emotional and spiritual waves that flow though India, it would be this one.A poignant yet everlasting drama of love and the power of compassion and humanity.
it tells the story of a woman (Pushpa), who is ostracized and eschewed by society and its establishments, to rot away on the notorious fringes of it.
Yet within the brothel she resides, she builds a temple of love and care for those two people that come to see her.
Nandu and Anand are members of society, yet only ostensibly, yearning for the compassion that their families fail to provide them, and in search, they come to Pushpa, whose abundance of love and human sympathy far overshadows her disreputable social standing.
They alone see her inner beauty, while society maligns her, yet as the director points, cannot provide the qualities of love, happiness and tranquility for members like Nandu and Anand.
Pushpa's relationship with Anand is certainly one of the most beautiful you will see.
Theirs is a purely platonic relationship, which succeeds where the social union of marriage - for both - fails.As they continue to meet, their bond grows, and beyond their own socially certified families, they create a little family of true love, depth and care.
They receive from each other the love they so desire - motherly love for Nandu, a true companion for Anand, and a child and husband for Pushpa - though their relationship with each other has no social legitimacy.
Samanta succeeds in creating a cynical presentation of society as one that compels people to stay within the confines of its social institution of family yet cannot provide for the very emotional, and spiritual ingredients that constitute it.
Add the fact that it is society after all that created the brothel, where unquenched desires can be fulfilled, and what you have is a representation that makes Pushpa's relationship with Nandu and Anand all the more 'holy'.This film tackled a theme that was very much taboo in Indian Cinema, and succeeds in presenting a mature, yet never over-the-top, nor didactic story that ultimately every Indian household can identify with.
Where it succeeds is in teaching you about human relationships and that it is love, togetherness and understanding that makes family, and not a social ceremony or some legal document.
This is a film for all generations who appreciate human relationships and its power to transcend social boundaries..
The poignant story and sarcastic representation of the life and moral values of the sub-continent's red light area is captivatingly pictured in this great movie.The movie underlines the stark facts that depict how a poor and young woman gets entangled in the evils of prostitution.
But something is common in both, i.e., they have been rejected from their homes and yearn to find shelter (physical for the poor and psychological for the rich).The song "Chingari Koi Barhke" is a classic masterpiece shrouding the excellent screenplay and cinematography coupled with heartrending acting of Rajesh Khanna who has proved that he is a SUPER STAR given his spellbinding screen presence.
The lyrics and music of this song can reverberate the emotions of even an extremely self centered person.
The trio of Rajesh Khanna, Kishore Kumar and Shakti Samantha supercharged the movie with this magically hypnotic song.
THIS IS THE HIGH POINT IN Indian MOVIE MAKING.
Believe you me, the direction, music, acting and cinematography in this song is very unlikely to be equaled in near future, given the prevailing temporal, crazy, puerile, showy, cheap, vulgar and synthetic direction, acting and main theme of the movies.Some of the very subtle and bitter human values and sentiments creep at the climactic end of the movie underlying the quintessential lesson for mankind to "do good and earn virtue"..
Kabuliwala is another such great movie to be based on a Bengali story.Sharmila Tagore is superb, Vinod Mehra plays the grown up Nandu with great sincerity.
Rajesh Khanna lends a lot of credibility to Anand-babu despite having turned a major superstar during the making of this movie.
R.D.Burman and Kishore Kumar top it all off with the great music!.
Rajesh Khanna took his last breath in Aashirwaad (his residence) today (18.07.2012).
Fondly known as Kaka, Rajesh Khanna commanded an era in Bollywood, a short but unforgettable era during 1969-1971.
Amar Prem (immortal love) is based on a Bengali story - Nishipadma penned by Bibhuti Bhushan Bandhyopadhyay.
It's is the story of Pushpa (Sharmila Tagore) who gets expelled from her Sasuraal (in-law's home) and has to struggle a lot in her life.
However the judgmental society is not ready to differentiate between the two.Among the visitors to Pushpa's Kotha, there's a tender-hearted businessman - Anand Babu (Rajesh Khanna) who is an alcoholic due to the lack of peace in his family life.
He and Pushpa comes pretty close in the platonic way.
There appears one more source of happiness and enthusiasm in Pushpa's dry life in the form of a little boy Nandu who is the son of her neighbour (Sujit Kumar) and always remains distressed through the bad behaviour of his step-mother (Bindu).
He does not stop visiting Pushpa despite being prohibited from his home for that because he is getting motherly love from that lonely woman.Anand Babu's family's coming to know of his visits to Pushpa and Nandu's family's leaving the place snatch these small joys too from Pushpa and she falls lonely again.
However, years later she happens to come across both Anand Babu and adult Nandu (Vinod Mehra) and her loneliness and agony ends at least in the dusk time of her life when Nandu takes her to his home as his mother.The character of Pushpa is the soul of the movie and the spectator's journey through the entire movie runs alongside her only.
Anand Babu's character is not essential for the main story but the thing is that it only infuses the colours of life into the dry narrative.
Partly, it's conveyed through the character of Anand Babu and that's the beauty of this movie and the relationship between the lead pair.
However Shakti Saamanta could not do complete justice to the classic story.
Let me discuss its music first which contains lyrics penned by Anand Bakshi and tunes composed by R.D. Burman.
Bada Natkhat Hai Re Krishna Kanhaiya which is touching song filled with motherly love.
However the music of this movie is better known for three invaluable gems in the voice of Kishore Kumar - 1.
The supporting cast has done well, the child artist playing the role of young Nandu has delivered a heart-conquering performance and Vinod Mehra as adult Nandu is also up to the mark in his cameo.
The character of Pushpa is the heart and soul of the story and Sharmila Tagore has delivered one of the best performances of her career in this movie.
Her on-screen chemistry with Rajesh Khanna was amazing and that's why she made one of the most popular on-screen pairs with him.Rajesh Khanna is at his mannerismic best in this movie.
No other actor can be imagined in the unforgettable character of Anand Babu.This movie is a treat to watch for lovers of golden oldies.
Kaka is no more but Anand Babu will live forever.
People have said a lot about Kaka's failure in later years but I repeat for the departed soul - Kuchh To Log Kahenge, Logon Ka Kaam Hai Kehna ....
Heartwarming is a word which would best describe Shakti Samanta's Amar Prem.
The film is about love, humanity, compassion, and how all these terms are condemned by the cruel society of those times.
This is the story of Pushpa, a young woman who runs away from her husband's house after the latter marries again and starts abusing her.
That's her new job, and there she meets Mr Anand, a young bitter and unhappily married man whose wife does not even care about.
Another man from the same village she comes from named Sharma resides close to Pushpa's house.
A great relationship grows between Pushapa and Anand, and even a greater mother-son relationship grows between Pushapa and Nandu.
But the cruel society won't leave it at that.Amar Prem is a melodramatic movie, but it is a beautiful and sincere melodrama, not a clichéd one.
The relationships in this movie are superbly portrayed, my favourite relationship being the one between Pushapa and Nandu.
The film is good in writing, dialogues, music and acting.
Where acting goes, this is Sharmila Tagore's movie and she kind of reprises her role in Aradhana, that of a selfless and caring woman, who epitomises Indian feminine beauty.
Rajesh Khanna is excellent as Anand and does particularly well in the film's final sequences.
Amar Prem is a worthy film.
This movie is a re make of an old Bengali classic starring Uttam Kumar.
The role of Uttam Kumar has been played by Rajesh Khanna in this Shakti Samanta movie.
However, the performance of Super Star Rajesh Khanna, Sharmila Tagore and the music of Rahul Dev Burman are a life a time effort and they have created magic in this movie.
The movie will be remembered for its 6 nos- 3 by Kishore Kumar, 2 by Lata and 1 by S D Burman.
The story is a classic and the movie deserves more than what share it has got in last 38 years and is a timeless classic and is life time effort of all the cast and crew.
Dialogue of the movie "Pushpa I hate tears' is immortal.
A must see to see how the magic of Rajesh Khanna, Kishore Kumar and Rahul Dev Burman worked in the early 1970s to be later spoiled by Amitabh Bachchan and his trend of action movies.
It is true people forget good things like Amar Prem and remember all the bad things.
Amar Prem will go down in history as one of the best Indian films ever made.
It is superbly directed by Shakti Shamantha (his best effort).The film takes a look at how society views women who have been forced into the sex trade.
Their sensitivities, insecurities etc., are so beautifully touched upon.The music of the film is by R.D Buraman, a Kaka favorite.
Specially the "Chingari koi badke" song.Sharmila tagore has mentioned how Kaka had so masterfully performed in this song in the very limited space they had i.e in a small boat.It is a lifetime role for sharmila tagore & she makes full use of it.
She surely deserved the national award & it is a wonder how she missed it.The supporting star cast of Madan Puri, Vinod Mehra & Om Prakash are adequate.Coming to the hero of the film, the eternal superstar Rajesh khanna.
Such was the popularity Rajesh commanded.In spite of his super stardom, as is his wont, he did not think twice about accepting this role knowing fully well that this film centers around the heroine.
The end scenes specially show kaka at his best.Definitely a film which comes in the top 3 of kaka's films & eternally loved by Rajesh khanna fans.Watch it over & over again.
The world has to be created again by God and only than this kind of movie can be made.
This film also shows Indains have talent and qualities as these people were born and brought up in India and were Indian by heart.I admire Mughl-e-Azam but in Mughal-e-azam there is king, armies, and glamour to support the story line and creenplay but Amar Prem is purely natural and close to common man therefore it is a lesson and a great satire on our society specially in the subcontinent..
best love story ever.
This movie has showed me what is true love.
Rajesh Khanna and Sharmila Tagore had unconditional love.
Movie is free of love among blood relationships.Movie scores century in every area weather it is acting, script, direction or music.
Both Rajesh and Sharmila has done a great job.After Anand this is Rajesh Khanna's best acting at the end of movie i had tears in my eyes..
Jai Amar Prem Ki. Well how should I describe this movie...
both son and father namely RD Burman and SD burman and the excellent sharmila Tagore will make you cry in the song.............
Well you will take a long time to recover from the movie after watching it ....
Shakti Da has this great capability of making you cry by his character's plight and on the top of that the music matches the atmosphere of the movie bit by bit....
RD Burman was at his best in this movie....
the songs are incorporated in the movie to carry the viewer into the mind of the character.the lyrics are marvellous.
Don't have words to express how he acted in the movie.
As for Sharmila Tagore, she was the same as rajesh khanna..
Look at the way the song "BADA NATKAHT HAI" is used in the background when Vinod Mehra returns to search pushpa..
I recommend this movie to all who haven't seen what Indian directors are capable of.
I don't know how I somehow missed Amar Prem when it first released in the early seventies.
The music is of course, legendary.I kept watching it in parts when it showed on TV but again never had the time to see the entire movie.
What a movie, certainly deserving of the classic tag.I am not sure whether today's youngsters would relate to this typical dark Bengali drama of those times.
I hope they do, for it is superbly depicted by Rajesh Khanna and Sharmila Tagore.
Vinod Mehra was the only actor who did not do justice to his role but the veterans more than made up for it.The pathos conveyed in this movie was a typical outcome of society mores of that time, perhaps still extant in parts of rural India.
I will not narrate the story line, this is a superb film worth watching more than once.
One of the Best movie of Rajesh Khanna.
A real image of the society showed by the director in this movie,Hats off to the plot,not even a single minute bored me,Om Prakash gave a good performance as always,The lyrics and music of all the 6 songs were best,Amar Prem movie makes it place amar in the history of bollywood cinema..
Dear IMDb,Going through your site on the Movie "Amar Prem" I regret that the name of the Child Actor who portrayed "Nandu" as a child has been completely omitted.
Needless to mention, this Child Actor has appeared in some other movies as well.
Anand is married but he finds peace with Pushpa.
She tries to find some love from the family but is too contaminated for a 'respected' society now.
The film is broadly about how every human-being long for 'love' and still how rare it is to be loved.
Pushpa and her longing for love is just too heart breaking.
The paradox of the situation is very interesting because through out the film you see young Pushpa as a prostitute.
The way Shakti Samantha has handled the death of her husband scene is brilliant.
Nandu is the high point of the film.
Pushpa cannot have a family and so she tries to find a son in Nandu who is ill-treated by his step mom.
Pushpa shares the pain of longing for a son with Anand who is supposed to be her lover but obviously they can't marry and have children.
The character of Anand is also brilliant as he is not just a neutral character.Rajesh Khanna is brilliant in this film but it's a Sharmila Tagore film.
Rajesh Khanna has also given an Oscar performance.
Must mention the name of the genius because of who this film is sure to go down in the history of Indian Cinema.
Amar-Prem is unarguably the best Indian soundtrack ever recorded.
Kishore Kumar in his prime, opening credits by SD Burman and poignant poetry by Anand Bakshi.
Amar Prem is a film directed by Shakti Samanta which is itself a remake of a Bengali film Nishi Padma.
This film stars Sharmila Tagore, Rajesh Khanna, Om Prakash, Bindu, Vinod Mehra and a host of other actors.
This film is considered as one of a classics till today.
At first seeing the title, I thought it was a romantic film (seeing the name 'Amar Prem' meaning eternal love).
But I didn't know that love could be depicted in this way a s shown in the film.
And I had a great time watching this film.Plot: Pushpa is thrown into the world of prostitution after being thrown out of home by her mother and husband.
There she finds happiness in Anand Babu (one of her customers) and Nandu (one of the children recently shifted to the neighborhood).Story and Direction: Like they say 'Old is Gold'.
I thought at first that this was a Rajesh Khanna film.
But no it is the story of Pushpa.
At the time, when heroes dominated the cinema world, a story having a female protagonist was very rare.
From Anand Babu's frustration about his marriage to people seeing prostitutes as someone not fitting in a normal society.
Also, the relations between Nandu and her step-mother and Pushpa is shown with reality.
The climax was also justified in every way.Performances: Sharmila was very good as Pushpa.
Rajesh Khanna, who dons a more supporting character in this film was also great.
Om Prakash does a really good comic act for the amount of time he is in the film.
Vinod Mehra appearing in the final scenes of the film also left an impact.Music: R D Burman creates some very good music in the film.
There are 3 scenes in the entire film where the dialogue was said.
Also the climax where Anand stands up for Pushpa was great.Final Verdict: Amar Prem satisfied me in every way.
I couldn't fault this film in any way.
Any person who loves Indian films, this film is a must watch.I give it a full score of 10.