One evening Tina takes him to a party at Ranimaa’s house. Meanwhile (I am leaving a lot of fisticuffs and other general mayhem out for reasons of space and lucidity) Monty begins having flashbacks again, recognizing his surroundings and memories of his mother and sister. Kabira when he arrives gives his consent to the marriage. She says that she wants to wait until her Uncle Kabira returns from “abroad,” where he has been for some years, leaving her in the care of Ranimaa. Off to Ooty to find Tina! She gives him some token resistance and then succumbs to his charm. Peace and quiet at a hill-station is prescribed. Monty himself says it happened when he played the guitar “high nodes”. Their conclusion is that either he is seeing an episode from a previous life, or it is psychosis. Dayal takes him to the hospital where he is examined by doctors: Good thing I don’t, too, since halfway into this song (which is the movie’s signature tune) Monty begins to get flashbacks to Ravi’s murder, and faints. I want to fast-forward and yet I somehow cannot.
It is followed immediately by another song. Time for another song! It’s HMV’s Golden Jubilee (or Diamond - there are signs for both) and Monty sings another dreadful song while spinning around on a large record: His friend Dayal discovers that she is at a school in Ooty. But she disappears after it ends and Monty is left bereft. He sings a less atrocious (but still bad) song this time, “Dard-e-Dil” - and Tina is enchanted in her turn. At the party Monty spots a pretty girl (Tina Munim) whom he takes for a servant. Dayal convinces Monty to attend a party with him in order to help him impress his boss. Oberoi, who is fond of boasting that he is “the maker, the star-maker.” He grew up an orphan and feels the lack of a mother keenly. It’s one of those instances where Indian taste just baffles me. A word about the music here: the soundtrack was very popular.
He is the famous singer Monty, and he sings an atrocious song about money as strobe lights flash and Village-People-meets-burlesque dancers gyrate around him. It’s Rishi Kapoor instead of Mithun in the shiny outfit. I wonder for a minute if I have inadvertently replaced Karz with everyone’s favorite so-bad-it’s-good movie Disco Dancer.īut no. As Ravi’s heartbroken mother beseeches Kali to bring her son back, we are told that a man’s wish left unfulfilled will be fulfilled in his next birth…Ĭredits roll…Cut to 25 years later. Alas, his fiancee (Simi Garewal) is in cahoots withĪnd on their honeymoon trip home to Ravi’s newly restored property in Ooty, she runs him over and kills him next to a Kali shrine. Ravi is given his father’s tea estates and family home back. The story begins with a courtroom judgment being delivered in favor of Ravi Verma (Raj Kiran) and against a mute sinister figure (Premnath), whose name is referred to variously throughout as It veers crazily from one genre to another - is it a disco movie? a romance? a murder mystery? a supernatural thriller? - the answer of course is yes, all that and more besides! You might think from these comments that I did not care for the film, but I found it strangely enthralling. It also has a grandiose plot very characteristic of its director, Subhash Ghai. It has those ever-popular elements of reincarnation, deep spiritual connection to one’s mother, revenge and bad disco music. Karz was a smash hit in India when it was released.