Virasat

About the film

Virasat (transl. Inheritance) is a 1997 Indian Hindi-language action drama film, directed by Priyadarshan. The story was written by Kamal Haasan and remade after the success of the Tamil film Thevar Magan. Mushir-Riaz duo produced the film. It stars Anil Kapoor, Tabu, Amrish Puri, Pooja Batra, Milind Gunaji and Govind Namdeo. The music was composed by Anu Malik and S. P. Venkatesh, with the former composing the songs and the latter composing the score. The film marked the comeback for Priyadarshan in Hindi cinema. Music director Annu Malik reused some of the original tunes of Ilaiyaraaja from Thevar Magan. Tabu has done beatboxing in this movie for the song "Payale Chunmun".

Virasat received sixteen nominations at the 43rd Filmfare Awards, including Best Film, Best Director for Priyadarshan, Best Actor for Kapoor, Best Actress for Tabu, and Best Supporting Actress & Best Female Debut for Batra, and won in seven categories, including Best Film (Critics), Best Actor (Critics) for Kapoor, Best Actress (Critics) for Tabu, Best Supporting Actor for Puri, and Best Story for Haasan.

Plot

After completing his studies in London, Shakti Thakur (Anil Kapoor) returns to his ancestral village in India. Accompanying him is his girlfriend, Anita (Pooja Batra), whom he is in love with and wants to marry, much to the disapproval of his family. After a few days, Shakti starts to feel that nothing much has changed in his hometown and longs to leave. He tells his father that he wants to sell his share of the family's property and open a chain of restaurants. His father, the zamindar Raja Thakur (Amrish Puri), urges Shakti to stay in the village and help it progress by virtue of the latter's education, saying "A man gets an education not to become a selfish being but to uplift his uneducated brothers and society". Shakti disagrees with his father and decides to leave. He is unable to bear the animosity amongst the townspeople, particularly between his dad, Raja Thakur, and rival his younger brother Zamindar Birju (Govind Namdeo) (Shakti's disabled uncle) and his son Bali Thakur.

The entire village suffers from this longstanding family feud as most of the village and its surrounding areas is divided between the brothers. Since Bali Thakur holds a grudge and always tries to one-up Raja Thakur, it puts them at loggerheads with each other.

Shakti spends time in the village with his girlfriend by re-visiting his childhood memories including a game of sticks with Bali Thakur men, which he wins. They come across an old temple which has been closed off on Bali Thakur's instructions. He insists on entering and his friend and servant Surkhiya breaks open the lock for them to look around. Bali Thakur hears of this and a brutal riot is started among the two village factions. Raja Thakur, in order to quell the situation, contemplates apologising to his opponents. Shakti feels it should be him or Surkhiya who should apologise. When Shakti asks for Surkhiya, he learns that Bali Thakur's men have cut off Surkhiya's hand as punishment for opening the temple and Raja Thakur's men burn down the homes of Bali Thakur villagers in retaliation. To prevent a further escalation of the situation Shakti, with permission from his father, enlists the help of his friend in the government and opens the temple for all legally. Slighted by this, Bali Thakur hires goons to break a dam protecting a part of the village faction that supports Raja Thakur. Although a female villager spots one of the goons near the dam, she does not think much of it.

Production

Kamal Haasan initially planned to remake Thevar Magan film in Hindi with himself in the lead role, and approached Dilip Kumar to play the role portrayed by Sivaji Ganesan in the original. Kumar's refusal prompted Haasan to become disillusioned with the project, and led him to offering the script to Anil Kapoor.

Music

The songs featured in the movie were composed by Anu Malik, while the lyrics have been penned by Javed Akhtar. Virasat album has 7 songs sung by Jaspinder Narula, Kumar Sanu, Udit Narayan, Hariharan, K. S. Chithra, Abhijeet, Anuradha Sriram, Vinod Rathod, and Kavita Krishnamurthy. Most popular songs in album "Tare Hain Barati", "Payalay Chunmun Chunmun", "Dhol Bajne Laga", etc.

Key details