Arjun Pandit

About the film

Arjun Pandit is a 1999 Indian Hindi-language epic gangster film directed by Rahul Rawail and produced by N. R. Pachisia. It stars Sunny Deol and Juhi Chawla.

The film is a remake of the 1995 Kannada-language film Om. The film is also remembered for its song Kudiyan Shehar Diyan, sung by Daler Mehndi and performed by Chawla. Upon release, the film was a box office success, grossing ₹20 crore against a production budget of ₹9.5 crore.

Plot

Arjun Pandit, a Mumbai-based gangster, is obsessed with a model named Nisha. He has his men kidnap her to celebrate her birthday, but she declares she hates him. When she attempts to marry someone else, Pandit and his henchmen disrupt the wedding and kidnap her, only to let her go after a car chase. Meanwhile, Pandit's friend Shiva is captured during the chase and arrested, but is shot in police custody. He reveals that Pandit is not who he seems to be and begins to tell his backstory.

A flashback shows Pandit as Professor Arjun Dixit, a peaceful, God-fearing Sanskrit academician in a university in Haridwar. He fell in love with Nisha when she arrived in his town to research the Sanskrit language in the university. However, she despises his meekness when he refuses to stand up to Sanjay, the rogue son of a woman MLA, who bullies them both. Nisha challenges Arjun to prove his manliness by confronting Sanjay, which leads Arjun to publicly beat Sanjay black and blue. A vengeful Sanjay and his henchmen later attack Arjun while he is with Nisha. The ensuing fight nearly ends in Arjun's death before Nisha throws him a sword and tells him to use it. Arjun kills Sanjay, but when the police arrive, Nisha lies, claiming Arjun killed Sanjay as the latter was trying to apologize to her. Once Arjun is arrested, Nisha testifies against him and reveals she is the sister of Sangita Chopra, Arjun's former student who was raped by Sanjay and committed suicide because Arjun couldn't testify against Sanjay, who had threatened to kill Arjun's own sister. Arjun regrets his inaction and tries to apologize in vain. However, Sanjay's mother, who denounced her son's acts, secures Arjun’s release from prison for doing what was ultimately right. He then goes to Mumbai to meet Nisha. Along with Shiva, he goes to a concert to find Nisha, where he sees a man talking about her vulgarly and …

The man he beats turns out to be the brother of a powerful don named Raman Kaalia, the rival of another criminal named Haldiraam. Haldiraam gets the brother killed, and tells Arjun that Kaalia has burnt Nisha's home down, thus pitting Arjun and Kaalia against each other. Arjun attempts to kill Kaalia in a shootout; the attempt fails, but transforms Arjun into the ruthless gangster known as "Pandit."

Music and soundtrack

The lyrics of the film’s songs were penned by Javed Akhtar and the music for the songs was composed by Dilip Sen–Sameer Sen. The background score of the movie was composed by Aadesh Shrivastava.

The song Kudiyan Sheher Diyan from the film was quite popular and was recreated again in the 2017 film Poster Boys.

Reception

Suparn Verma of Rediff.com wrote, ″Rawail, who displayed excellent cinematic sense in Arjun, does not highlight either his technical finesse or style in this film. The story outdated and the attempted twist in the tale does not work as it is in total variance Nisha's character and convictions.″

UP gangster Vikas Dubey was reported to be an ardent fan of this film. He was rumoured to have watched it over 100 times. Inspired by his love for this movie, he had earned the monicker Pandit.

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