Pooja has been brought up by her grandparents, and has no recollection of her mom and dad. She is told by her grandpa, Kantaprasad, that her dad had passed away. Years later, Pooja has now grown up. She starts getting mysterious phone calls from a male who merely says "I love you", and hangs-up. When her grandpa has these phone calls traced, the caller is Anand, Pooja's dad. Kantaprasad has him beaten up, and warns him against contacting Pooja again. When Pooja is being molested by a male in her apartment building, Anand comes to her rescue, and it is then Pooja comes to know that this shabby, alcoholic man is her dad. Will Pooja accept him, or will she follow her grandpa's advise and continue on with her life.
Acting
Anupam Kher's descent into pathetic desperation is genuinely haunting.
Direction
Bhatt mining his own alcoholism for maximum pain—uncomfortably autobiographical.
Writing
The phone call hook is pure soap opera gold, and it WORKS.
Director
Mahesh Bhatt
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
This launched Pooja Bhatt's career and cemented the 'troubled father-daughter' template Bhatt would recycle for decades. The 3.3 TMDB rating is criminal—this was massive in India.
Anupam Kher based his physicality on watching actual alcoholics in Mumbai streets; the shaking hands and desperate eyes weren't acting, they were research. Bhatt reportedly broke down on set multiple times.
IN
