1998; COL; Hindustani; 35mm; 4576.89 Mtrs; 15017 Fts; 167 Mins; 15 Reels CC.No.MU-39 Dated: 12/08/98; Catg: A

BANNER
India Talkies

CREDIT TITLES
Direction, Story & Screenplay: Mani Rathnam
Dialogue: Sujatha, Tigmanshu Dhulia
Cinematography: Santosh Sivan
Audiography: H. Sridkar
Editing: Suresh Urs
Lyrics: Gulzar
Art Direction: Samir Chanda
Music: A.R. Rahman
Dance: Farah Khan
Action: Allan Amin
Re-recording: S. Sivakumar, H. Sridhar
Costume Designers: Pia Benegal, Manish Malhotra, Shabina Khan, Sai Vaishali Pechauri Make-up: Sundaramoorth, Ravi Indulkar (Shah Rukh Khan), Uday Shirali Stills: Murali-Suresh Processed At: Gemini Colour Laboratory Records: Venus Records & Tapes Pvt. Ltd.

PLAYBACK SINGERS
Sukhwinder Singh, Sapna Awasthi, Lata Mangeshkar, M.G. Sreekumar, AR Rahman, Anuradha, Anupama, Sonu Nigam, Kavita Krishnamurthy

CAST
Shah Rukh Khan (Amar Kant Varma)
Manisha Koirala (Meghna)
Preity Zinta
Malaika Arora
Gautam Bora
Raghubir
Yadav
Zohra
Sehgal
Arundathi Rao
Sabyasachi Chakravarthy
Piyush Mishra
Aditya Krishnakanth
Ken Philips
Sanjay Mishra
Mita Vasisht

SYNOPSIS
Amar Kant Varma is a programme executive at the Delhi All India Radio office. To mark the 50th year of Indian Independence, he travels all over the country conducting interviews of the common folk. He father was an honoured army officer and he lives with his mother, grandmother, sister and family in Delhi.

While in the North-East, at a railway station he meets a girl. He does not know her name but falls in love with her instantly. He tries to talk to her but she does not respond. He tells her jokes to make her laugh and finally she tells him she wants a cup of tea. He rushes out of the station to get it. Her train comes and she leaves along with a few men who fetch her into the train.

Amar in his travels goes to another state in the North-East. While he interviews the people there the station director becomes a close friend of his. Amar has the opportunity to interview the leader of an insurgent group. He tries to convince the station director to let him do it, when he sees this girl again. He goes up to her and introduces himself. She refuses to recognize him. He feels he may be mistaken, but when he calls her by the pet name he had given her, she responds. This confirms her identity.

Amar meets her again in the post office and this time she tells him to leave her alone. He still follows her and tells her that he loves her and will come the following day to get her response. The following day, she tells him she cannot accept his love because she is married. He is stunned. The following day, some men take Amar to a lonely spot and tell him to leave her alone. When he refuses, they beat him up and leave him to die.

He is discovered by the station director and patched up. The next day he goes to her house to find out that they have vacated the place. He wants to find her but cannot. He goes to the post office to call home when he suddenly remembers that the last time he met her she was making a phone call. He finds out the number from there and discovers it is a Ladakh number. He travels to Ladakh in search of her. He does not find her. In Ladakh, during the Leh festival, a terrorist is shot and Amar sees her in the crowd. He searches all over the place and finally finds her in a bus going to Kargil. He gets into the bus.

They find themselves in a monastery in Leh and again she shrugs off his ardent advances. He reconciles himself and finally comes back home to Delhi and agrees to marry a girl of his family's choice (Preity Zinta). But soon this mysterious girl and her cohorts come to Delhi with the plan to blow up the Independence Day parade. It is decided that Meghna will be the human bomb. She asks Arun for a place to stay and he puts them up in his family home.

When he finds out about their plans and what she is about to do he follows her to the parade. The film ends abruptly heroically embraces her blowing both of them up to smithereens.