Mere Apne

<p>Anandi Devi ( ) is an old widow who lives in a village. One day, she is visited by a distant relative, Arun Gupta (Ramesh Deo), who persuades her to live in town with him, his wife Lata ( ), and a small child. She later realizes that they were looking for a maid, which results in her expulsion from the house and befriending a child beggar who takes her to his dilapidated home. Being good-natured and caring, she slowly earns the title of “Nani Ma” (maternal grandmother) among groups of youths led by Shyam ( ) and Chhenu ( ), who were in a constant fight with each other. At one time in the movie, she asks them why don’t they go to the “madarsa” to study, insinuating that a) colleges are not worth going since, as the movie-plot consistently points out, they witness strikes most of the time, and b) this killing of time could have been avoided. The movie ends with her death from accidental gunfire in one such response. After , directed by , is based on a story of Inder Mitra, was both a commercial and critical success. Screenwriter was called to Kolkata to translate the script for a Hindi remake. However, subsequently Sinha insisted on using the same cast, and dropped out of the film. Then, Gulzar, who till then was assisting and and penned screenplays of (1969) and (1971), made his directorial debut with the film. Gulzar bought the rights of the story, and rewrote the screenplay removing the portions he felt were too formulaic and commercial. , in an interview revealed that N. C. Sippy, the producer of the film, wanted actress in the grandmother’s role. Gulzar however was keen on , who played that role in the original. It was who was finally given the role of grandmother on Gulzar and Romu Sippy’s insistence. Kumari who was ailing at the time, worked through her bad health in the film. The shooting was completed in 40 days. Only the song, couldn’t be picturised on Kumari as she was in no condition to come to the sets, being on the last stage of her illness. was the last film she shot for and would often joke with the young actors, ‘This director is pushing you so hard, at least you can ask him to host you a beer party’. However, that party never happened as she died soon after the release of the film. All lyrics are written by ; all music is composed by . This article about a Hindi film of the 1970s is a . You can help Wikipedia by .</p>