Ghajini

Ghajini (Tamil: கஜினி) is a blockbuster 2005 Tamil psychological thriller film directed by A. R. Murugadoss released on 29 September 2005. The film stars Surya, Asin, Nayantara, Pradeep Rawat and Riyaz Khan. It was remade into a Hindi film by Murugadoss again, starring Aamir Khan with Asin Thottumkal playing the same role. The film's concept is inspired by Christopher Nolan's Memento.^[2]

The film's story is around a rich business entrepreneur falling in love with an ad film actress. The entrepreneur and the actress fall in love, though she does not know that he is an entrepreneur. When she successfully saves a bunch of children who were in danger, she is brutally murdered by a gang leader and the entrepreneur himself gets hit hard on the head when he tries to save his lover, eventually leading him into a state of short term memory loss. He is later studied about and helped by a psychology student to take revenge on the one who murdered his lover.

Plot

The story centers on Sanjay Ramaswami (Surya), a rich businessman who owns a cell phone company named Air Voice and the events surrounding his relationship with Kalpana (Asin).

Kalpana Shetty, an advertisement model, meets with representatives from Sanjay's company who come to request a business agreement and ends up telling her advertisement crew that she is Sanjay's love interest - after the crew mistakenly thought that the executives were sent by Sanjay to ask for her love. She has never met him, but soon exploits popularity from her "relationship" with him and inadvertently gives an interview for a magazine. Sanjay, who reads the article, goes to confront her. On his way, he catches a fleeting glimpse of Kalpana (whom he doesn't know yet) helping handicapped children to cross a street, and falls in love. He moves on to confront Kalpana at her advertisement studio and is pleasantly surprised to find that she is the same woman he saw a while ago. He chooses to hide his true identity, takes the name Manohar, so that he can get to know her. Kalpana eventually falls in love with him.

Once, while on a train to Mumbai, Kalpana saves a group of young girls from abuse by a group of goons led by Lakshman (Pradeep Rawat).

After a few days, the same goons come to Kalpana's house in order to avenge their embarrassment. Incidentally, Sanjay arrives at the scene and fights off the goons, but during the ensuing fight, Kalpana is murdered. Kalpana never finds out that he is Sanjay. Lakshman then strikes the downcast Sanjay on his head severely with a metal rod. Sanjay survives the blow, but suffers a short-term amnesia.

His condition makes him forget everything that happened every 15 minutes. The only memory he has is of Kalpana's murder, though he cannot remember the murderer. He embarks on a quest to avenge her. Despite his condition, he succeeds in finding and killing Lakshman's men. Chitra([Nayantara]), a medical student, takes interest in Sanjay's case and meets him. Sanjay, reluctantly, adds her to his photo collection labeling her as a friend so that she could meet him and talk later. Later, Chitra finds his intention to murder Lakshman and squeals on him.

Lakshman is amused that a man with short term memory loss is trying to kill him. Nevertheless, he destroys all the information Sanjay collected, all his photos and even shaved the tattoos Sanjay had off so that he will forget his quest. However, Chitra finds and reads Sanjay's journal and become sympathetic to his cause. She tells Sanjay who murdered Kalpana.

In the final confrontation, Sanjay fights with both Lakshman and his twin brother and kills them.

Cast

• Surya as Sanjay Ramaswami a.k.a Manohar, .

• Asin as Kalpana.

• Nayanthara as Chitra.

• Pradeep Rawat as Lakshman and his twin brother Ramdev.

Production

Casting

Initially, Vijay accepted the role and the film was to be titled Mirattal and also photo session took place but subsequently dropped out. Then the role finally went to Surya who grabbed it and it turned out to be one of the biggest commercial successes in his career.

Meera Jasmine was the first choice to play the role of Kalpana. But she dropped the project and later replaced by Asin which helped her to establish as the top lead actress in Kollywood.^[3]

Allegations of plagiarism

Aamir Khan noted "Murgadoss had heard about a film called Memento and the concept had really [fascinated] him. Without having seen the film he went ahead and wrote his own version of the script and screenplay. Having finished his script, he then saw Memento, found it very different from what he had written, and went ahead and made Ghajini."^[2]

Soundtrack

The soundtrack features 5 songs composed by Harris Jayaraj.

1. Oru Maalai - Karthik
2. X Machi - Mathangi, Nakul
3. Sutrum Vizhi - Sriram Parthasarathy, Bombay Jayashree
4. Rahathulla - Anupama
5. Rangola Ola - Shankar Mahadevan & Sujatha

Awards

2006 Tamil Nadu State Film Awards

• Won - Best Film — Ghajini^[4]
• Won - Best Actor — Surya Sivakumar^[4]

2006 Filmfare Awards South

• Won - Best Actress — Asin Thottumkal^[5]
• Won - Best Editing — Anthony^{[citation needed]}
• Won - Filmfare Best Male Playback Singer — Karthik

References

1. ^ http://www.livemint.com/2009/10/02211011/Suriya-Bollywood8217s-hott.html?pg=4
2. ^ ^{a b} Aamir Khan (Friday, 29 June 2007). "Ghajini". The Lagaan Blog. http://www.lagaandvd.com/blog.php?topicid=33. Retrieved 2009-03-02. 
3. ^ Gopika - Asin accept Meera's rejects
4. ^ ^{a b} "Tamilnadu Govt. awards". http://in.movies.yahoo.com/070907/85/6kgna.html. 
5. ^ "The 53rd Film Fare Awards". http://www.tamilworld.com/hot-news/the-53rd-film-fare-awards.html. 

External links

• Ghajini at Allmovie
• Ghajini at the Internet Movie Database
• Ghajini: The Original-A review
• Gajini movie photos
• Listen to Songs Online