Mere Apne

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 (Vinod Khanna) and Chhenu(Shatrughan Sinha) who were in constant fight with each other. The movie ends with her death from an accidental gun fire in one such clash.

Cast

Production

After Apanjan directed by Tapan Sinha based on a story of Inder Mitra, was both a commercial and critical success, screenwriter Gulzar 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 producer N. C. Sippy, who till then was assisting Bimal Roy and Hrishikesh Mukherjee and penned screenplays of Khamoshi (1969) and Anand (1971), to make 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.

Meena Kumari was roped in for the lead role of grandmother, she was ailing at the time, and worked through her bad health in the film. The shooting was completed in 40 days, and she died within a few months of its release.

Soundtrack

All lyrics written by Gulzar; all music composed by Salil Choudhary.