Damini

<p>Shekhar Gupta ( ) is the elder son of wealthy industrialist Kedarnath Gupta. He falls in love at first sight with Damini ( ) after seeing her dance performance at a charity event. Damini belongs to a poor family but tends to raise her voice against injustices in society. Her sister eloped with an alcoholic mimicry artist Birju Moghe to Mumbai, in a bid to relieve her father from the onus of arranging dowry for her wedding. Damini and Shekhar get married and Damini moves into his luxurious bungalow. However, this irks Tolu Bajaj, the business partner of the Guptas who was planning to marry his daughter to Shekhar. He breaks his business partnership with the Guptas and begins to conspire against them. Damini befriends Urmi (Prajakta), a young maid-servant who was brought up in the house of Guptas. On the festival of Holi, she witnesses Shekhar’s younger brother, Rakesh (Ashwin Kaushal), and his friends, gangraping the maid-servant Urmi and rushes to tell Shekhar. Shekhar rushes over to prevent the sexual assault but it is too late. Later, Rakesh and his friends throw Urmi by the roadside. The Gupta family conspires to cover up this shameful incident. But Damini decides to inform the police. Shekhar tries to convince her to not say anything in front of the police. When the police visit her home and ask Damini about the incident she denies having any knowledge about it. Later it is revealed that it is Tolu Bajaj who has bribed the police department to escalate the matter in order to tarnish the image of the Guptas. The matter is taken up in court and Damini is asked to testify. Guptas then hire Indrajit Chaddha as the defence lawyer. At the first hearing, Damini is portrayed as a mentally unstable person by Chaddha, and confined in a mental institution for two weeks by judicial order. At this Shekhar gets upset with his family while the Guptas and Bajaj reunite. At the mental institution, Damini overhears Rakesh asking the doctor to deliberately make Damini mental or even kill her passing it off as suicide. Damini escapes and runs into a down-and-out alcoholic lawyer, Govind ( ), who saves her from the culprits chasing her. Govind decides to help her. He gets the rape case re-opened. Following this Guptas get Urmi murdered in hospital and try to show it as a suicide. At the second hearing, Govind cross-examines the driver of Guptas, and is successful in proving that even the driver knew about the incident. He also proves that the suicide note found by police near Urmi’s body was fake. Seeing situation going out hand, Chaddha fakes chest pain and asks the court for another date of hearing. Later that night, Chaddha meets Govind and asks him to settle out of court. However an angry Govind challenges him to face him in courtroom. Following this Guptas send goons to kill Govind but in a fight-off he defeats them. Damini goes out in public and gets support. Drivers, servant and other relatives being fed up of the incident leave the House of Guptas. At the third hearing, Guptas and Bajaj plan to kill Damini. This is overheard by Shekhar and he vows to stand by Damini come what may. Later he is attacked by goons on the road who kidnap him. This is seen by Mamaji, who goes to rescue him. Meanwhile, Bajaj along with his men tries to kill Damini going to court. However, they themselves get attacked by local people who shoo them off. At the court, Chaddha requests another date since he believes that Damini and Shekhar are both absconding. But sometime later Damini and Shekhar arrive, and both testify as witnesses to the incident. The court convicts Rakesh and his friends and also sentences the Guptas along with Bajaj and Chaddha as accused for covering up the case. Shekhar is spared for helping achieve justice and the court thanks Damini for her resilience and resolve, stating that she has set a historic example in the history of law and order. The cast is listed below: suggested Santoshi to cast in the title role whereas thought that she would be a misfit for the role. Deol suggested to cast instead. Kapoor on being informed that Deol suggested Dimple Kapadia to portray the role, at once declared that he would leave the project if she was cast. The role was then offered to who turned it down because of her date issue. was then finalized to portray the role. The soundtrack of this movie was composed by the music duo and the lyrics were penned by . The soundtrack was released in 1993 on Audio Cassette and Audio CD in Music Made in India and EMI Made in England, Which consist 5 Songs. The full album is recorded by , , and . The song “Gawah Hain Chand Taare Gawah Hai” is based on the Swahili folk song ” “. Pranay Bhagat wrote: “If there is one modern film which signifies the importance of truth it has to be . Though the movie is more remembered for the dialogues of Sunny Deol and his confrontational scenes with Amrish Puri, I feel the movie should also be appreciated for a tight bound script, the wonderfully directed courtroom scenes, good background music as well as a career best performance from Meenakshi.” Vineeta Sinha in her review praises the film for its tight bound script, courtroom scenes, music and above all the career best performance of Meenakshi. Sulagana Biswas of ; states the film despite being dated is still “eminently watchable” and also praising Sheshadri’s portrayal of the title role states “the film still holds its own due to the earnestness of Meenakshi Sheshadri’s performance”. Simantini Dey writing for hails the film as a “cult feminist film” and states ” — released in 1993 — is perhaps one of the most misunderstood films in Bollywood history. Despite receiving instant critical acclaim upon its release and having a successful run at the box-office, we as an audience have celebrated this film for all the wrong reasons. Yes, Sunny Deol’s punchy dialogues like, “Tarikh par Tarikh milti rahi hai, lekin insaaf nahi mila, my lord!” deserved all the claps and whistles it received, and the theatrics of the courtroom drama, wherein two lawyers Govind (Sunny Deol) and Mr. Indrajit Chaddha (Amrish Puri) exchange angry words and stares indeed make for a great Bollywood entertainer. But the real reason why was such an iconic film and deserves a cult status is the protagonist of the film — Damini (played brilliantly by Meenakshi Seshadri). Till date, Bollywood has not given us such a strong and beautifully written female character as Damini, who not only has a mind of her own, but also a conscience. Long before films like and were made in Bollywood, Rajkumar Santoshi’s gave us a HIT feminist movie with a female central character, who fights against all odds to bring justice to another woman.” was remade into as , starring Sidhanta Mohapatra and Rachana Banarjee, in Tamil as , starring Revathi as the title character, in Telugu as , starring and , and in Bangladesh as , starring and , directed by F.I. Manik. declared the film a super hit. The rights of the movie were owned by ‘s , which were transferred to who plans to remake the film with his son Karan Deol.</p>