Paheli

 

Paheli is an Indian Hindi fantasy film released in India on 24 June 2005. It is a remake of the 1973 Hindi movie Duvidha by Mani Kaul based on the short story written by Vijayadan Detha in Rajasthani and was partially inspired by the 1997 Kannada movie Nagamandala based on the play of same name by Girish Karnad. It was directed by Amol Palekar and produced by Juhi Chawla, Aziz Mirza, Sanjiv Chawla and Shah Rukh Khan, who also plays the male lead. It tells the story of a wife (Rani Mukerji) whose husband (Shah Rukh Khan) goes on a business trip as is the practice of business communities, and visited by a ghost, disguised as her husband, who is in love with her and takes her husband's place. Sunil Shetty, Juhi Chawla, Rajpal Yadav and Amitabh Bachchan have supporting roles in the film.

The movie opened the ninth Zimbabwe International Film Festival at the Libertie Cinema Complex in Harare. It was also screened at both the Sundance Film Festival and the Palm Springs International Film Festival. The working title of the movie was Ghost Ka Dost (translates to Friend of a Ghost ). Paheli was India's official entry to the 2006 Oscars.

Detha's story which had earlier been adapted into the 1973 film by Mani Kaul is folkloric in origin. Though Paheli diverges from its source material and the earlier adaptations in giving the plot and its lead female character a more feminist agency.

Plot

The movie is narrated by two puppets, voiced by Naseeruddin Shah and Ratna Pathak Shah.

Enthusiastic young Lachchi (Rani Mukerji) is to be married to Kishan (Shah Rukh Khan), the son of the rich merchant Bhanwarlal (Anupam Kher). Kishan is a dutiful son who honors his father's wish to start a new, far-away business on a predetermined auspicious date, which happens to be the day after the wedding ceremony. On the wedding night, Kishan turns away from his wife to finish his bookkeeping, and in the early morning hours sets off on a business trip that is to last five years. Lachchi is devastated; Gajrobai (Juhi Chawla), her husband's sister-in-law, consoles her, empathizing on the grounds that Gajrobai's husband Sunderlal (Sunil Shetty) has also disappeared. The next day, a ghost appears, having taken Kishan's shape and voice because of his own attachment to Lachchi.

Lachchi is thus presented with a dilemma between the representation of all of her desires in the form of the ghost who has taken the form of her real husband. She takes this newfound, sensual, magical, social, self-confident version of Kishan as hers. As Kishan, the ghost befriends all of the real Kishan's family and keeps Bhanwarlal happy by providing him with magical, possibly illusory, gold coins. His only blunder is in his treatment of the messenger Bhoja, who is perplexed by the idea that Kishan has sent a letter from his business trip only to receive it himself in his own house and offended when the ghost (who appears as Kishan) does not offer him a drink of water. Lachchi's bliss goes on until four years later when she is pregnant and the real Kishan returns to see if the rumours about his wife's pregnancy are true. He returns to find the ghost in his (Kishan's) own form. Kishan's family is unable to determine which of the doppelgangers is the real Kishan (the ghost refusing to confess). They decide to visit the king so that he can arbitrate.

On the way to the king they meet an old shepherd, Gadariya (Amitabh Bachchan) who helps them out. He asks the real son of Bhanwarlal to pick up hot coals, asks the real husband to gather the sheep, and asks Lachchi's real paramour to enter a water-bottle. The real Kishan is found out and everyone returns home. Lachchi is devastated over the loss of the ghost. In the very end, it is revealed that the ghost has escaped the bottle and taken control of Kishan's body to live with her. By now Lachchi has given birth to a daughter, Looni Ma, by whom the ghost exposes his identity to Lachchi. The puppets end the story, remarking that this is a very old folk tale.

Cast

·         Shah Rukh Khan as Kishanlal/The Ghost as Prem(Double role)

·         Rani Mukerji as Lachchi

·         Anupam Kher as Bhanwarlal, Kishanlal's father

·         Aditi Govitrikar as Kamli

·         Rajpal Yadav as Bhoja

·         Dilip Prabhavalkar as Kanwarlal, Bhanwarlal's brother

·         Palak Jain as a cousin of Kishanlal (Child artist)

·         A.K. Hangal as Jeevraj

·         Naseeruddin Shah as male puppet (voice)

·         Ratna Pathak as female puppet (voice)

·         Amitabh Bachchan as Gadariya (special appearance)

·         Juhi Chawla as Gajrobai (special appearance)

·         Suniel Shetty as Sunderlal, Kishanlal's brother (special appearance)