Taal

<p>Tycoon Jagmohan Mehta arrives in , India for a long vacation with his extended family, including his son, Manav. He meets Mansi, the beautiful daughter of an impoverished folk singer, Tara Shankar Manhuja. As the owner of the Mehta & Mehta Group of Companies, Jagmohan is looking to invest in Chamba. Over time, Jagmohan and Tara Shankar become friendly with each other. Eventually, Mansi and Manav fall in love. Jagmohan is against their relationship due to Mansi’s poor socio-economic status. Tara Shankar is initially angry but later reaches to visit his journalist cousin, Prabha, and to meet the Mehta family for a marriage alliance. Unfortunately, they insult Tara. Deeply hurt, he leaves with Mansi, who breaks up with Manav. Mansi soon meets the famous music producer and director, Vikrant Kapoor, who happens to be a huge fan of Tara’s. She signs a three-year contract with him, and performs dance numbers and remixes of his productions and Tara’s songs. She begins to win awards and becomes a national sensation and celebrity. Slowly, Vikrant begins falling for Mansi. Meanwhile, Manav finds out that his family ill-treated Mansi and Tara. Manav goes to Mumbai in the hopes of apologizing to Mansi for his family’s behavior towards her and Tara. However, she rejects and refuses to see him, out of her pain for how her father was treated. Vikrant soon learns of Mansi’s past with Manav. Ignoring it, he proposes to her. She eventually accepts it. After winning an award in , Mansi returns to India to prepare for their wedding. Jagmohan and Tara patch things up after the former realises his mistake and apologises. On the wedding day, Vikrant realises Mansi still loves Manav. He assures her they can still be friends, and urges her to honour her love to Manav. Jagmohan and Tara also give their blessings; Manav and Mansi finally get married. The Mehtas take a family picture after the wedding. The soundtrack of the film was composed by with lyrics penned by . The soundtrack was released on 12 June 1999 and it became a major critical and commercial success. At a press conference, Ghai remarked, “I credit the name of the movie to composer A. R. Rahman. This film is a romance and I could have called it any thing – , , , but it was Rahman’s presence in the movie that gave me the confidence to call it . means music and music means . The whole credit goes to A. R. Rahman and Anand Bakshi. Rahman kept me awake many nights, but after listening to the songs, I felt it was worth all the trouble.” The soundtrack became a tremendous commercial success, and was sold more than 1.85 million units within a month of its release. It went on to sell 4 million units, becoming the best-selling album of the year. The soundtrack made the list of “Greatest Bollywood Soundtracks of All Time”, as compiled by . emerged as a major commercial success in India, netting 23 crore in India on a budget of 11.50 crore, and also performed well internationally. In the United States, it became the first to reach the top 20 on s box-office list. The final worldwide gross collection of the film stands at 51.16 crore, making it the . was premiered at the , and was screened as the “official selection” at the 2005 , and retrospectively at the in the Celebrating Dance in Indian cinema section. At the , received 12 nominations, including , (Ghai) and (Rai, who won the award for her performance in ), and won 6 awards, including (Kapoor) and (Rahman).</p>