''Mere Apne'' is a 1971 Indian

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

-language film written and directed by

Gulzar Gulzar (born Sampooran Singh Kalra; 18 August 1934) is an Indian Urdu poetry, Urdu poet, lyricist, author, screenwriter, and film director known for his works in Hindi cinema. He is regarded as one of greatest Urdu poets of this era. He starte ...

in his directorial debut and produced by Romu, Raj and N. C. Sippy. A remake of the 1968 Bengali film '' Apanjan'', it was the first movie of Vinod Khanna as Hero. This was also debut movie of Danny. The film stars Meena Kumari,

Vinod Khanna Vinod Khanna (6 October 1946 – 27 April 2017) was an Indian actor, film producer, and politician known for his work in Hindi cinema. He is regarded as one of the greatest actors of Hindi cinema. Recognised as a style and fashion icon, he wa ...

and

Shatrughan Sinha Shatrughan Prasad Sinha (born 15 July 1946) is an Indian actor and politician. He is a Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha from Asansol constituency as a member of All India Trinamool Congress (TMC). Earlier he was elected as Member of Parliament ...

in lead roles along with

Deven Verma Deven Verma (23 October 1937 – 2 December 2014) was an Indian film and television actor, particularly known for his comic roles, with Bollywood directors like Basu Chatterji, Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Gulzar. He also produced and directed fi ...

, Paintal, Asit Sen, Asrani, Danny Denzongpa, Keshto Mukherjee, A. K. Hangal, Dinesh Thakur, Mehmood and Yogeeta Bali. The music of the film is composed by Salil Choudhury. ''Mere Apne'' was declared " Hit " at the box office.

Plot

Anandi Devi ( Meena Kumari) 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 ( Sumita Sanyal), 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.

Cast

* Meena Kumari as Anandi Devi *

as Shyam *

as Chhenu *

as Niranjan, Anandi's deceased husband * Asrani as Raghunath, Chhenu's team mate * Danny Denzongpa as Sanju * Yogesh Chhabra as Pandey part of Shatrughan Sinha’s team * Paintal as Bansi * Dinesh Thakur as Billoo *Sudhir Thakkar as Ranbir *

Ramesh Deo Ramesh Deo (30 January 1929 – 2 February 2022) was an Indian film actor who worked in more than 285 Hindi films, 190 Marathi films and 30 Marathi dramas with over 200 showings in his long career. He also produced feature films, television s ...

as Arun Gupta * Sumita Sanyal as Lata * Mehmood as Sri Anokhelal * Asit Sen as Biloki Prasad * Abhi Bhattacharya as Freedom Fighter *

Leela Mishra Leela Mishra (1 January 1908 – 17 January 1988) was an Indian actress. She worked as a character actor in over 200 Hindi films for five decades, and is best remembered for playing stock characters such as aunts (''Chachi'' or ''Mausi''). She ...

as Gupta's maidservant * Shashi Kiran as Neelu * Keshto Mukherjee as Jattu *Dev Kishan as Shyam's father * A. K. Hangal as College Principal * Yogeeta Bali as Urmila *Kamaldeep as Urmila's father (as Kamal Deep) *Fatima as Julie *Amina Karim as Young Anandi

Production

After '' Apanjan'', directed by

Tapan Sinha Tapan Sinha (2 October 1924 – 15 January 2009) was one of the most prominent Indian film directors of his time forming a legendary quartet with Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak and Mrinal Sen. He was primarily a Bengali filmmaker who worked both ...

, 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 Bimal Roy and

Hrishikesh Mukherjee Hrishikesh Mukherjee (30 September 1922 – 27 August 2006) was an Indian film director, editor and writer. He is regarded as one of the greatest filmmakers of Indian cinema. Popularly known as ''Hrishi-da'', he directed 42 films during his car ...

and penned screenplays of '' Khamoshi'' (1969) and '' Anand'' (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 Nimmi in the grandmother's role. Gulzar however was keen on Chhaya Devi, who played that role in the original. It was Meena Kumari 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, ''Chand Katora Liye Bhikaran...'' 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. ''Mere Apne'' 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.

Soundtrack

Footnotes

References

Bibliography

* *

External links

* * 1971 films 1970s Hindi-language films 1970s Indian films Hindi remakes of Bengali films Films scored by Salil Chowdhury Films directed by Gulzar 1971 directorial debut films {{1970s-Hindi-film-stub