Coolie

<p>In 1953, Zafar Khan, a wealthy yet evil man, fell in love with a girl named Salma and wanted to marry her, but she and her father refused. Zafar was arrested for various crimes and imprisoned for 10 years, but when he is released after his term, he saw that Salma was married to a good man named Aslam Khan. Enraged, Zafar murders Salma’s father and plots his revenge by flooding the region in which Salma lives, nearly killing Aslam and injuring Salma, causing her to lose her memory. During this catastrophe, Salma is also separated from her young son Iqbal. On a railway platform, Iqbal attempts to run after her on foot while Salma is on a train but he slips and the train leaves the platform. Zafar abducts Salma and tells the world she is his wife. He also adopts an infant from an orphanage in Kanpur, a boy named Sunny, for Salma to raise on the advice of a psychiatrist. Meanwhile, Iqbal is reunited with his uncle, who has lost his wife and son in the flood. In the process of a heated fight, Iqbal’s uncle has lost his right arm, to which Iqbal tells him he will serve as his uncle’s right arm from the present onward. The uncle will raise Iqbal as his own, as they have no more family. 20 years later, Iqbal and his uncle work as coolies. Iqbal has grown up to be a dashing, confident young man, and is considered the leader of the local coolies. During an incident with a man named Mr. Puri, a coolie is beaten up badly, to which Iqbal is infuriated. Mr. Puri is beaten up, but Iqbal is wrongfully imprisoned for his actions. On the same day, however, he is set free. He organizes a labor strike, which brings the station to its knees. Sunny, a young, budding reporter, is covering the story. While speaking to Sunny, Iqbal sees a picture of Sunny’s mother who turns out to be Salma. In another attempt to get Salma back, Iqbal rushes to her house to bring her back after all these years, but, to his horror, Salma does not recognize him. Zafar is infuriated at Iqbal’s trespass. His crooks, disguised as police officers, near-fatally beat Iqbal, while he takes Salma to the psychiatrist to administer electric shocks on her so that her memory never returns. Sunny threatens to publish all of Zafar’s crimes in the newspapers the following day if he does not return Salma to him. Iqbal and Sunny become friends, and both find love; Iqbal with a Christian girl Julie D’Costa and Sunny with his childhood sweetheart, Deepa. Meanwhile, Aslam has been imprisoned for a crime he did not commit. When he is finally let out, Julie tries to kill him in a graveyard because she thought he had murdered her father, John D’Costa, but, as the revolver is empty, she cannot fire. Aslam explains that Zafar had murdered her father, and framed Aslam, to which Julie believes him. Things are looking up, but the coolies uncover a banking and housing scandal against them. After a series of run-ins with the corrupt parties, Iqbal finds himself in a fight to the death with Zafar. Salma returns at a very pivotal scene in the film, during the election standoff between the communist workers under Iqbal and the capitalist lords under Zafar with her old memories intact and she publicly testifies against Zafar and how he destroyed her family. In the crowd is an old man, who turns out to be Iqbal’s long-lost father Aslam, while Iqbal’s uncle recognizes a birthmark on Sunny, proving that Sunny was indeed the son he thought he had lost in the great flood. The family is reunited, much to the fury of Zafar, who then proceeds to shoot Aslam but accidentally kills Iqbal’s uncle. Zafar then abducts Salma. Iqbal and Sunny both chase after the evildoers, killing Mr. Puri (who dies from a heart attack due to the mental pressure of the chase) and Vicky (who falls out of Zafar’s car and is run over by an oncoming truck) in the process, until Iqbal corners Zafar at . The holy from the flies onto Iqbal’s chest, and Iqbal defiantly faces Zafar with the belief in God’s protection from harm with His name on his chest. He is shot several times by Zafar, but he continues to chase Zafar up the , saying a part of the with each shot. With the last of his strength, he cries the and pushes Zafar off the , killing him instantly, and Iqbal collapses into his mother’s arms. Coolies from all faiths pray hard for his recovery, and Iqbal recovers from his injuries to the joy of all. The script was written by , who also stars as the film’s antagonist. In addition to having Bachchan play a protagonist, Khan incorporated elements of Islamic mysticism into the script, including various Sufi motifs and references. The film gained notoriety even before its release when was critically injured on 26 July 1982 in the intestines while filming a fight scene with co-star at the Bangalore University campus, which almost cost him his life. In the fight scene, Bachchan was supposed to fall onto a table but mistimed his jump. This resulted in an internal abdominal injury. He was transferred to a Mumbai hospital, where according to the actor, he went into a “haze and coma-like situation”, and was “clinically dead for a couple of minutes”. While he was in the hospital, there were reports of widespread mourning, and prayers were offered by many Indians in the country and abroad. According to reports, cancelled a trip to the United States to be with him. Bachchan received 60 bottles of blood from 200 donors, one of whom was carrying the virus. Bachchan recovered from the accident but discovered in 2000 that the virus had resulted in of the liver, which damaged about 75% of his liver. Bachchan later spoke out about his experience to raise awareness about the Hepatitis B vaccine. Despite the critical injury, Bachchan recovered remarkably and resumed shooting on 7 January 1983. In the final cut of the film, the fight scene during which he was injured was frozen and a message appears marking the scene as the one in which he was injured. Manmohan Desai did this on Amitabh’s wish. Due to Bachchan’s injury, the ending was also changed. The original script showed Amitabh dying after Kader Khan shot him. But later on, after the injury-and-recovery episode, , thinking that this would have a negative impact on the movie as well as a bad feeling in the audience, decided to change the ending. The modified ending has the hero recover after his operation. Shabbir Kumar, whose voice was similar to , Manmohan Desai’s preferred singer, was used to provide playback to Amitabh Bachchan. All lyrics are written by ; all music is composed by . It was the highest grossing Bollywood film of 1983, with (US$17.76 million) in gross revenue. It was declared “super-hit” by in 2009. The film made over (US$986,397.58) per territory, a rare achievement for the time and was a huge blockbuster. In 1984, it was estimated that the film had sold 70 million tickets.</p>