By Taran Adarsh, December 16, 2000 - 15:21 IST
Producer Dr. D. Rama Naidu's latest offering in Hindi is Aaghaaz - The Beginning, starring Sunil Shetty, Sushmita Sen, Namrata Shirodkar and Suman Ranganathan in lead roles with Sharad Kapoor in a special appearance. Remake of a Telugu hit, Aaghaaz - The Beginning also marks the beginning for Yogesh Ishwar, for whom this is the first film as an independent director.
The film begins in Mumbai city, Dahisar to be precise, but the story goes into a flashback in a village in Punjab, where Sudha (Sushmita) is a police officer in love with Govind (Sunil Shetty). Girika (Namrata) is a city girl who is also in love with Sunil and Suman is the girl whom he is eventually forced to marry due to circumstances.
The story takes a dramatic turn in the second half when Sunil's sister is raped. Unlike every other film, the hero does not go out trying to kill the rapists. There are five hundred people in the basti who have quietly watched the incident taking place and it is these people that Sunil takes to task. In the end, all of them get together and take the villains to task.
Sushmita Sen plays a cop for the first time in her career. She is made of sterner stuff, someone who can bash up ten guys at a time. On the other hand, the character is also an intense one of a girl from Punjab who rises from the ranks of a Sub-Inspector to Inspector to A.C.P.. Her personal life also undergoes a vast change when she loses the man she loves, only to find him again in different circumstances.
Suman Ranganathan, who plays Sunil's wife in Aaghaaz - The Beginning, also has an equally interesting role. She is the daughter of Sunil's guru. Sunil marries her to protect the reputation of her family, when she gets pregnant with another man's baby. But since he is in love with Sushmita, Sunil does not treat her as his wife. Suman confronts Sushmita and also asks her brother, Sharad Kapoor, to intervene, who warns Sunil of dire consequences.
But Sharad is unaware of the fact that the baby Suman is carrying is not Sunil's, but someone else's. When Sharad learns that Suman has lied and Sunil is not to blame, he is shattered and feels that Suman has no right to live, because she is also responsible for their father's death, apart from creating a tussle between Sunil and him. So on Karwa Chowth, Sharad poisons the food and feeds Suman with his hands.
What happens next? Do Sunil and Sushmita come together?
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