Parallel Cinema – Raaz Ki Baatein

(Every new film has some echoes in the past, and this column attempts to make the links. The writer tries to draw a para­llel between the new film and one or more films of the past.)

After this week’s release, Raaz – The Mystery Continues…, one can flashback to the 1967 Raaz directed by Ravindra Dave, that gave Rajesh Khanna his big break (after the small Aakhri Khat) and also introduced Babita.

The old film (written by Satish Bhatnagar), apart from sharing the new film’s title also shared the genre – suspense and mystery.

Kumar (Rajesh Khanna), living in Africa, has recurring dreams about a place called Viran Nagar – where he sees the railway station and the name of the town – in India, so he comes down with his friend, Ricky (I.S. Johar), to try and figure out why this is happening.

When they arrive, Kumar is surprised and disturbed to find the place exactly as he had seen it in his dreams. He is even more surprised to see people darting away from him in fear, as if they had seen a ghost. The friends decide to get to the bottom of this raaz.

Kumar meets a pretty girl, Sapna (Babita), who says she is happy to see him and that she had known all along that he would come back to her one day. She tells him that they were childhood sweethearts, who had planned to get married when they grew up.

The befuddled Kumar is later told by a villager, Bansi (Asit Sen), who looks scared of him, that he (Bansi) had seen him (Kumar) being killed and buried a few years back, and that’s why everyone was so frightened at seeing him there. They believe he is a ghost.

As Kumar tries to dig deeper, to find out who was killed and by whom, he finds that his life is in danger and he doesn’t know who the hidden enemy is. The film kept up the suspense till the end, but maybe because the stars were new, or because the public was not in the mood for a film like this, it did not do well.
But soon after Raaz, Rajesh Khanna gave a series of hits, became a superstar and acquir­ed all his peculiar mannerisms.

The film had some good songs composed by Kalyanji Anandji – like Akele hain chali aao, Dil sambhale sambhalta nahin, Sochta hoon ki tumhe maine kahin dekha hai, Pyar ne di sada.

- Deepa Gahlot

Issue dated Jan 25 – 31, 2009

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