Raanjhnaa

About the film

Raanjhanaa (transl. 'Beloved one') is a 2013 Indian Hindi-language romantic drama film directed by Aanand L. Rai and written by Himanshu Sharma. The film is produced by Krishika Lulla under the banner of Eros International. It stars Dhanush (in his Hindi film debut), Sonam Kapoor, Abhay Deol, Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub and Swara Bhaskar. The film was released on 21 June 2013 worldwide, while the Tamil dubbed version Ambikapathy was released a week later.

The background score and songs were composed by A. R. Rahman, and the lyrics of the tracks were penned by Irshad Kamil. Considered as a cult film, it received positive reviews from the critics and became a box office success . A sequel, titled Tere Ishk Mein, was released on 28 November 2025.

Plot

Kundan, the son of a Tamil Brahmin family in Varanasi, falls in love with Zoya, a Muslim girl, and tries hard to woo her. Due to his antics, Zoya's parents suspect that she likes a Hindu boy and send her away to Aligarh. In her absence, Kundan gets involved with and endears himself to her family. Zoya eventually goes to JNU in Delhi and falls for student leader Akram Zaidi.

Eight years later, Zoya returns home, reuniting with Kundan who asks her to marry him. She rejects him again and reveals her relationship with Akram. Kundan is furious but agrees to help convince her parents to let her marry Akram. He promises Zoya that he too will marry someone else and forget about her. He then goes to his childhood friend Bindiya, who’s been in love with him for years, and wedding preparations begin.

On Zoya's wedding day, Kundan finds out that Akram is actually Jasjeet, a Sikh man lying about his identity. Enraged, he reveals this to Zoya’s family. In the fallout, Jasjeet is brutally beaten up, causing Zoya to attempt suicide. While tending to them, Kundan misses his own wedding to Bindiya, and his family disowns him. Trying to redeem himself, he takes Zoya to Jasjeet's home. Upon their arrival, they discover that Jasjeet eventually died from his wounds, and Kundan runs away, overwhelmed with guilt.

Production

In late 2011, Shahid Kapoor and Sonakshi Sinha were signed as the lead pair for the film. Supposedly, they dropped out of the project to work on Prabhudeva's next R... Rajkumar. In late January 2012, actor Dhanush, making his Bollywood debut, signed onto the film for the character of Kundan. The actor reportedly underwent training for fluency in Hindi language to obtain the role. Actress Sonam Kapoor was signed on for the role of the female lead after March 2012 after failed negotiations with Asin. In April 2012, the actress and the director visited the JNU Campus of Delhi for the former to imbibe more for her role. Sonam also attended acting workshops with prominent theatre director Arvind Gaur to learn the nuances of street theatre. The director chose to cast actors who could also play younger versions of themselves. In an interview the director stated the film was an intense love story, and its characters would travel to Delhi, Punjab and Chennai, and that actor Abhay Deol would be seen in a special appearance in the film. Urmila Sharma, well known for her Hindi TV serial roles was signed to play the character of Kundan's mother in the film. Initially, Aditi Rao Hydari was supposed to play the role of Kundan's childhood friend but she opted out due to lack of availability, being replaced by Swara Bhaskar.

Dhanush Kundan who has a deep obsession with his hometown of Banaras and Zoya. It depicts him a young boy and a teen who turns into a sensitive adult. Sonam Kapoor quoted her character as, “'Zoya' is childlike and unpredictable. She can be cold and at the same time, objective. She has every quality that makes her desirable to a man." In an interview, Kapoor revealed that for playing the role of a school girl in the film, she drew inspiration from the character Jaya Bachchan played in the 1971 film Guddi. Actor Abhay Deol as Akram plays a secure yet confident university student, socialist and a budding politician.

After main casting announcements, filming was substantially delayed; the reason was speculated to be composer A. R. Rahman's music being denied outright by the film director. Filming officially began in Varanasi, India in early September 2012 and continued for 40 days in and around the city. As per reports, the leading duo were also seen playing the role of 17-year-old teenagers. In mid-September 2012, the schedule of filming was put on hold as actor Dhanush fell ill on the sets in Varanasi. While filming in October 2012, the actor injured his shoulder during the filming of an action sequence for his Tamil outing Maryan. The consequences led to the scheduled shooting of dance sequences to be postponed and were shot in Varanasi on 19 December 2012. On 4 November 2012, Sonam Kapoor and Abhay Deol shot the song "Tu Mun Shudi" at India Gate, Delhi, and their dialogue scenes were shot at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication campus in Delhi by early December 2012. Permission to shoot inside was denied to the director by the college authorities. So, the unit shot some scenes in Amity International School, Noida. To avoid footage leaks, over a hundred potential crew members were made present at the filming venue. Certain filming was also done in Gurgaon and Faridabad. The title track of the film was shot on 27 December 2012. The final schedule of filming began in Delhi on 7 Janua…

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