Aulad (1987)

keeping this blog is becoming more of a challenge but still, i'm committed to the cause, apologies for my short absence. The fourth film in Sridevipalooza is a remake of a bollywood classic i reviewed a while ago, follow the plot write up and see if you're able to guess correctly

Wealthy and successful Anand is under intense pressure to get married from his Uncle (Saeed Jaffrey) he takes poor street dancer Devki (Sridevi) as a pretend bride, the two fall in love and Anand marries her


Following their marriage and while on honeymoon in Kashmir, their intimate moments while romancing in a garden is cut short by torrential rainfall, both couples take refuge in a nearby house which belongs to another newly married couple Vikas (Vinod Mehra) & Yashoda (Jaya Prada), both couples become friends


Upon returning to Bombay Devki finds out she's pregnant, simultaneously in kashmir Yashoda finds out she's pregnant too. Months later and Devki gives birth, following the doctors orders to take their new born away from the hustle and bustle of Mumbai, they catch a train to Kashmir, also on their way to Mumbai are Vikas and Yashoda. In a weird case of coincidence both trains crash into each other which claims Vikas's life, Devki is also feared dead

Nevermind the accident made use of Toy train models


Anand and Yashoda end up in the same hospital, Yashoda gives birth to a still born, and Anand not wanting to break her heart further seeing she's just lost her husband decides to give her his own son, he asks the doctor (Ramesh Deo) to keep this a secret betweeen them


Years go by and Anand starts visiting Yashoda just so he'll be able to see his son, the boy is now named kishen and Anand becomes increasingly attached him and Yashoda which leads to her mother in law speculating about a possible relationship, she's warned not to drag the family's name into disrepute (but surely she's now a widow, shouldn't she be allowed to see other men na?)


She's warned not to see him again, this new decision proves difficult as kishen is already developing a strong bond with Anand whom he sees as a father figure

The sweet Baby Guddu as Kishen

Meanwhile Devki who had been feared dead turns up alive at Anand's house, its revealed the accident had left her with memory loss but she had regained them upon seeing a speeding train which clearly reminded her of her accident (easy, isn't it...lol)


Anand is shocked and equally scared as Devki asks about their child, without hesitating Anand lies saying he had died in the train accident


Poor Devki is distraught, but decides to move on, hopeful she might bear another child, but as destiny would have it, she's receives another bad news when the doctor tells her she will never be able bear another child again


Devki accepts her destiny but later becomes suspicious of Anand's clingy behaviour towards Kishen, plus she notices they seem to share some traits, she confronts Anand about this and he confirms Kishen is indeed her son


Thus begins a custody battle between Devki and Yashoda on who gets the child


If the story of this film sounds familiar, that's because it's an uncredited remake of 'Chirag kahan Roshni kahan' (1959) which i've reviewed here, Chirag Kahan Roshni Kahan is by far the superior film, this 80's knock off just doesn't have the restraint & melodramatic goodness of the original plus the songs in this are nowhere as fab. Some twists have been added to the story here, but 'Chirag kahan Roshni Kahan' still comes out on top in my opinion.

Now Aulad is still a decent watch if you're in the mood for some 80's style melodrama, the perfromances are decent albeit in that melodramatic 80's kind of way, Jaya Prada definitely had big shoes to fill as she reprises Meena Kumari's role in the original, now God forbid i compare Jaya to Meena but she does a decent job, she even did the whole Lady in white sari thing a la Meena. Overall watch Aulad (Child) if you're a fan of any of the actors or if you're in the mood for some 80's style melodrama


Some More Screencap goodness


bahut khoob bahut khoob


Stunning Jaya


Ramesh Deo still so handsome despite all that Grey hair



Rather average songs from Laxmikant Pyarelal, but as i said they just couldn't match Ravi's outstanding soundtrack in Chirag kahan Roshni Kahan, highlights are 'Tan tan ghadie main' a nursery rhyme style song clearly modeled after 'Tim tin karte taare' from Chirag kahan Roshni kahan' and 'Raste kamal saste' my favourites of all the songs is 'Dhak dhak dhadke jiya'




Paisa Vasool rating: 5/10

Aulad is available with English Subtitles in 21 parts on Youtube

Mawaali (1983)

Second film in line for Sridevipalooza is Mawaali (Loafer) this is yet another film where Sridevi didn't get much to do, but these films still helped lay foundations for her status as the No.1 heroine of the '80's she was to become

Mr Goyal (Sreeram Lagoo) lives in his wealthy mansion with his gorgeous daughter Nisha (Jaya Prada) & relatives from hell Ajit (Kader Khan), Shobha (Aruna Irani) & their son Ranjit (Shakti kapoor)

Ajit is one of the trustees of Mr Goyal's business, he carries out dodgy deals but Ramesh (Jeetendra) an honest employee always restores things

Check out that highly volumised hair

When Ramesh falls for Nisha, Ajit isn't too pleased as he wants his son to marry Nisha & hopefully become heir to Mr Goyal's fortune. When Mr Goyal hears about Nisha's romance with Ramesh , he's none too pleased with the news given his status as a labourer at his factory, as a result Ramesh is fired

One night while rushing to her father's room following a huge scream let out by her dad, Nisha bumps into who she thinks is Ramesh, he hurries out immediately. Upon arriving at her fathers room Nisha realises he's dead and none other than Ramesh is linked to the crime

During the court trial Ramesh pleads his innocence but Nisha's claim that she saw him on the night leads to him being convicted and sent to prison to await death at the gallows

the utterly beautiful Jaya Prada, what a face

In prison Ramesh is surprised when he finds a doppelgänger of himself Gangu

Did Ramesh (or should we assume its Gangu) really kill Mr Goyal? If not who did? What exactly was he doing at Nisha's house at that time of night?

I was tempted to describe this film as camp, but then camp is too kind a word to describe this outrageously wacky film, this film can only be fun if you have a sense of humour to appreciate the outrageous, the editing is bad, the wafer thin plot full of holes bigger than a colander dish manages to stretch itself out till just under 3 hours.

In fact i was wondering whether to bother writing this up or not but i conjured up the courage, it just had to be done, these films whether we like it or not are a part of Hindi film industry, they drew in the crowds and became blockbusters while gems like The Burning train, and many other great films failed miserably. Thus for all the abuse and shtick 80's bollywod gets, seems the audiences were the ones affecting the demand.

Just like in Justice Chaudhury which i reveiwed yesterday, Sridevi's presence is felt only in the song and dance numbers and in fact that's the only thing i enjoyed about this film, indeed Bappi Lahiri's folky disco type tunes must have been part of the major draw for audiences

Rumour has it both Jaya & Sridevi couldn't stand each other, there are a couple of stories i've heard especially the one below, which according to imdb goes like this

"Sridevi and Jaya Prada didn't exchange a word during the shooting of the eight or nine films they co-starred in. While shooting "Maqsad", their co-stars Rajesh Khanna and Jeetendra apparently locked the two women up in the same room. An hour later when they peeped in, they saw them sitting quietly in two corners of the room"

Can anyone confirm how true the above might be, i'll really like to know

As usual the music in these southern style films are always hilarious from the fun 'baap ki kasam' & 'rama rama rama re' the hilarious 'Jhopdi mein charli' with lyrics such as 'A cot in a hut is nothing without a man in it' the song i've chosen to embed today is the whacky 'Ek , do, teen, char' i guess this song and the picturization pretty much sums up this movie

and of course the highly catchy 'Ui Amma Ui Amma (Mushkil yeh kya ho gayi)' which has recently been gaining popularity due to the 'Oohh la la tu hai meri fantasy'song from the 'The Dirty Picture' movie sampling it.

Paisa vasool rating: 4/10

Buy the dvd here

Tohfa (1984)

This is one of the superhit remakes of a South Indian film in the '80's, these southern type films were very melodramatic in nature and usually starred Jeetendra, Sridevi and Jaya Prada with the music being composed mostly by Bappi Lahiri. These potboiler melodramas became a winning '80's box office success formula with movies such as Himmatwala, Mawaali, Justice Choudhary, Maqsad, Swarag Se Sunder etc all becoming box office hits. Tohfa (Gift) is one of these films, it was a remake of the Telugu film Devatha (1982), the film became the highest grosser in 1984 at the Indian box office

Janki (Jaya Prada) is a self sacrificing person who always helps and keeps a smile on everyones faces

She even sacrifices her own education so that her sister Lalita (Sridevi) can attend college without worrying about fees

Even Ram ( Jeetendra) the first person in the village to gain a law qualification attributes this to Janki, as he could only study due to Janki's help caring for his mother

Things take a turn when Janki falls in love with Ram, but Ram on the other hand loves Lalita but Janki does not know this

Many villagers come to seek Ram's hand in marriage for their daughters, but Ram's mother wants Janki to marry Ram, while Ram himself had promised to marry Lalita

When the two sisters's realise they're both in love, they decide to tell each other and in a game of 'no you go first' Janki reveals to Lalita that she's in love with Ram and their marriage has been planned by his mother

When Lalita finds out she keeps schtum and doesn't reveal her feelings and the fact that she's been dating Ram to her sister

Lalita out of desperation and heartbreak then marries a local tout kamesh (Shakti kapoor) in an attempt to get rid of her feelings for Ram

When her sister finds out about her marriage to loudmouth Kamesh she's disappointed and when she voices her opinion, Lalita accuses her of jealousy. Janki disowns Lalita and the two sister's part ways

Ram is disappointed when he finds out about Lalita's marriage to Kamesh

Lalita moves out of the village with Kamesh, while on the train to Mumbai kamesh gets in a fight which results in murder, he's sentenced to 7 years in Jail

Also Lalita is now carrying Ram's baby but Ram does not know this. Following their marriage, Ram and Janki also move into the same town but they find it hard to have a child of their own

Soon enough Ram comes across his son Gopi but he doesn't know Gopi is his son, soon enough Gopi takes him home to introduce him to his mother Lalita

Will she reveal Gopi's identity to Ram? Will she and her sister ever speak again? Will Janki ever learn of lalita's baby with Ram?

This melodrama while entertaining in some way was quite annoying at times, i hated the self sacrificial nature Janki was often subjected and praised for, but i still i enjoyed the melodrama, i loved the way it explores the consequences of what we might think are our good actions often wrecks havoc in the lives of others. For instance Lalita thought that by keeping her love for Ram quiet she was giving her sister happiness, but of course this complicated their relationship even further and both of them were never truly happy in their various lives


The music by Bappi Lahiri is superb they all had a hindi peppy folk touch to them, the picturisations of the songs were amazing to behold, from the carefully arranged steel pots and carefully lined dancers in a Busby Berkeley kind way in the catchy 'Gori Tere Ang'

the Busby Berkeley style arrangements of steel pots and dancers

Sridevi and Jeetendra in karma sutra style pose close to the carefully arranged pots in 'Gori tere ang'
to the car with colourful balloons in the breezy tuneful 'Albela Mausam'

and my favourite picturisation of all has to be 'Tohfa Laya' where saris were draped to form tents and maypoles (see below) and as one imdb commenter cleverly puts it "the best sari exhibition you'll ever see in bollywood" The producers even made it a point to thank Bombay dyeing


Jaya prada and Jeetendra in the tent made of sari's

Jaya and Jeetendra in the Circular tent made with Sari's in 'Tohfa Laya'

And my other favouite is the peppy 'Ek aankh Marun toh' with Sridevi and Jeetendra's doing some amazingly synchronised even if somewhat cheesy dance steps


Total Score: 6/10 ( An entertaining even if somewhat annoying in parts hyper melodrama)