Mehbooba (1976 film)

Singer Suraj (Rajesh Khanna) was presented with a tanpura by his fiancée's father. Thereafter, he often listens to a haunting song at nights and observes that its name was "Ratna". One day, while going for a stage show, he gets stuck in heavy rain in an unknown place and goes to stay in a small motel, where he meets a woman named Ratna. During the night, he observes that Ratna, singing the same song he often hears at night, is going to a distant palace. He follows her instinctively and enters the abandoned palace. He tries to call out for Ratna, but learns from the old keeper of the palace that Ratna died more than a hundred years ago and people feel that she still haunts that place.

Later, a portrait of Ratna makes him remember their previous life. In the previous life he was Prakash, chief singer of royal court. He was in love with Ratna, a beautiful and talented court dancer. They fell in love, but failed to consummate their relationship as Prakash was already promised to Jamuna in his childhood and Ratna was to become a royal courtesan, At last, they decided to run away, but were killed on their way, promising each other that they would meet again.

Suraj, after coming to his senses, feels lonely and confused. Shortly thereafter, he meets a gypsy, Jhumri (also Malini), who is Ratna's reincarnation. Soon he makes Jhumri remember her past life and her love for Prakash. This angers Rita Malhotra (Asha Sachdev), Suraj's fiancée and Popatlal (Prem Chopra), who wants to marry Jhumri. Popatlal steals the portrait, and sets the gypsies against Suraj, ensuring a fight between Suraj and gypsies. But Suraj and Jhumri manage to overcome all the obstacles and consummate their relationship this time despite all odds.

Initially, R.D. Burman had made a draft song version of the song "Mere Naina Sawan Bhadho" and sent the recording tape to Kishore. R.D. Burman had informed him that there is female version of the song too to be picturised. Kishore thought he would not be able to do justice to the song. He asked R.D. Burman to give him the tape with Lata's version on it. R. D. Burman agreed. He listened to the song for 7 days before recording. Kishore Kumar had his version recorded only after this. Till date, his version is more famous than Lata Mangeshkar's. Lata Mangeshkar's version has a long alaap, which comes thrice in the song, in the beginning, after the first antara and in the end. Kishore's version has humming instead of this. There are some more alaaps and one more version of the song by Lata Mangeshkar, which comes in the movie. This song is based on "Raga Shivranjani". This song played an important role in the sequence continuity of the film.

Another song, "Gori Tori Painjaniya" is the most complicated one in the album. By this time, Kishore Kumar had established himself as the voice of Rajesh Khanna. However, Khanna decided that the previous birth in the film would have Manna Dey and the current birth would have Kishore.

• Director: Shakti Samanta
• Story: Gulshan Nanda
• Screenplay: Gulshan Nanda
• Dialogue: Akhtar Romani
• Producer: Mushir Alam, Mohammad Riaz
• Production Company: M. R. Productions
• Cinematographer: Aloke Dasgupta
• Editor: Bijoy Chowdhary
• Art Director: Shanti Dass
• Stunts: M. B. Shetty
• Costume and Wardrobe: Bhanu Athaiya, Jaya Chakravarthy, Dattaram, Shalini Shah, Shriman
• Choreographer: Suresh Bhatt, Gopi Krishna
• Music Director: Rahul Dev Burman
• Lyricist: Anand Bakshi
• Playback Singers: Manna Dey, Kishore Kumar, Lata Mangeshkar

The music of this movie was composed by R. D. Burman. The songs "Mere Naina Sawan Bhadon", "Mehbooba" (title track) and "Parbat Ke Peechhe" too, were popular numbers.

• Mehbooba at IMDb