Mumbai, August 28: There is more in common between Manoj Kumar’s 1967 paean to patriotism “Upkaar” and Sohail Khan’s “Kissan” .The song “Mere Desh Ki Dharti” for which Sohail has officially taken the rights from Manoj Kumar.
The two films share a common theme as well, so that the basic plotting of the two films is almost the same.
“Upkaar” is a film about a mother Radha (Kamini Kaushal) from an agricultural family in a village. She can only afford to send one son for education to the city. While Bharat (Manoj Kumar) grows up as an uneducated patriotic son of the soil, his brother (Prem Chopra) returns from the city burdened with corrupt idea of progressive living with no respect for the mother land.
In “Kissan” where Kamini Kaushal’s character is replaced by farmer father Jackie Shroff who can afford to send only one son for education to the city. Prem Chopra from “Upkaar” transforms into Arbaaz Khan who lives in city while Sohail Khan is the son who stays back in the village to be a farmer with his father.
Sohail Khan is quite pleased to have elements from Manoj Kumar’s ‘Upkaar’ in his upcoming “Kisan”.
Sohail Khan says, “‘Upkaar’, ‘Mother India’, ‘Deewaar’ and now ‘Kissan’, they’re in the same mould. I’m being asked why I have chosen to produce a film that has a village and a farmer family at its background. It seems our filmmakers have forgotten that a majority of India still lives in the villages. I’ll be proud of “Kissan” for as long as I’m a filmmaker.”
—–Agencies