Damini – Lightning

''Damini'' () is a 1993 Indian Hindi-language crime drama film directed and co-written by Rajkumar Santoshi. It stars Meenakshi Seshadri in the title role with Rishi Kapoor, Sunny Deol and Amrish Puri. Aamir Khan makes a special appearance. The story revolves around Damini who witnesses her housemaid being raped by her brother-in-law and his friends. Despite facing many obstacles, she strives to get justice for herself with the help of her husband and Govind, a lawyer. The film is considered one of the best woman-centric films ever made in Bollywood.

Besides being critically acclaimed, the film also became the sixth highest grossing of the year and was declared a "hit" at Box Office India.Box Office 1993
Box Office India. ''Damini â€“ Lightning'' marked Meenakshi Seshadri's career best performance that was highly acclaimed.

It is considered a cult feminist film and is still regarded as an all-time classic female oriented film and important for portraying women empowerment in cinema The pathbreaking film was praised for breaking social taboos and handling the subject of rape with sensitivity; a rarity in Bollywood at the time.

The movie is highly memorable for Sunny Deol's portrayal of an alcoholic lawyer and the role gained him a Filmfare as well as National Film Award for Best Supporting Actor for 1993. It strengthened his Bollywood he-man image. His dialogues in the film "Tarikh Pe Tarikh" ("date after date") and "Dhai Kilo Ka Haath" ('Two-and-a-half kilogram hand') became iconic and pop-culture references. The film was a milestone in the careers of Sunny Deol, Meenakshi Sheshadri and Amrish Puri, who gave some great hits like '' Ghayal'' (1990) and '' Ghatak: Lethal'' (1996) together. Aamir Khan acted in a special appearance in the stage show dance song. He also promotes his upcoming film ''Andaz Apna Apna'' (1994) which was also directed by Rajkumar Santoshi.

''Damini'' is the recipient of a number of accolades. At the 40th National Film Awards, Deol won Best Supporting Actor. In addition to other awards, the film received seven nominations at the 39th Filmfare Awards including Best Film, Best Actress for Seshadri, and Best Villain for Puri. It won a 4 leading awards — Best Director for Santoshi, Best Supporting Actor for Deol, Best Story for Sutanu Gupta, and Best Sound for Rakesh Ranjan.

Plot

Shekhar Gupta (Rishi Kapoor) is the elder son of wealthy industrialist Kedarnath Gupta. He falls in love at first sight with Damini (Meenakshi Seshadri) 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 (Sunny Deol), 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.

Cast

The cast is listed below:

Production

Rishi Kapoor suggested Santoshi to cast Sridevi in the title role whereas Sunny Deol thought that she would be a misfit for the role. Deol suggested to cast Dimple Kapadia 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 Madhuri Dixit who turned it down because of her date issue. Meenakshi Seshadri was then finalized to portray the role.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack of this movie was composed by the music duo Nadeem–Shravan and the lyrics were penned by Sameer. The soundtrack was released in 1993 on Audio Cassette and Audio CD in His Master's Voice Music Made in India and EMI Made in England, Which consist 5 Songs. The full album is recorded by Kumar Sanu, Alka Yagnik, and Sadhna Sargam.

The song "Gawah Hain Chand Taare Gawah Hai" is based on the Swahili folk song "Malaika".

Critical reception

Pranay Bhagat wrote: "If there is one modern film which signifies the importance of truth it has to be ''Damini''. 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 ''Telegraph India''; 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 ''News18'' hails the film as a "cult feminist film" and states "''Damini'' -- 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 ''Damini'' 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 ''Raazi ''and ''Pink'' were made in Bollywood, Rajkumar Santoshi's ''Damini'' gave us a HIT feminist movie with a female central character, who fights against all odds to bring justice to another woman."

Accolades

Remakes

''Damini â€“ Lightning'' was remade into Odia as ''Nari Nuhne Tu Narayani'', starring Sidhanta Mohapatra and Rachana Banarjee, in Tamil as ''Priyanka'', starring Revathi as the title character, in Telugu as ''Urmila'', starring Suman and Malashri, and in Bangladesh as '' Sottyer Bijoy'', starring Manna and Moushumi, directed by F.I. Manik. ''Box Office India'' declared the film a super hit. The rights of the movie were owned by Shah Rukh Khan's Red Chillies Entertainment, which were transferred to Sunny Deol who plans to remake the film with his son Karan Deol.

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Damini - Lightning
1993 films
1993 crime drama films
Films scored by Nadeem–Shravan
Films directed by Rajkumar Santoshi
Films featuring a Best Supporting Actor National Film Award–winning performance
Hindi films remade in other languages
1990s Hindi-language films
Indian crime drama films
Indian legal drama films
Indian courtroom films
Films about rape in India
1990s legal films
Hindi-language crime drama films