indian cinema heritage foundation

Kishen Kanhaiya (1990)

  • LanguageHindi
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Kishen and Kanhaiya were twins, born at the stroke of twelve on a Janam-ashtami night. Nature had bound them telepathically right from their birth. One's pain was the other's torment. A single job of a doctor's needle in one's flesh made the other scream in pain. Though they were so close mentally, yet they were separated bodily. Kishen remained in the ancestral haveli leading the life of slavery and misery under the menacing shadows of cruelty created by Genda Mal (Amrish Puri), Kamini (Bindu) Kishen's foster mother, and Mahesh (Dilip Tahil), the illegitimate son of Kamini, while Kanhaiya taken to the city by Bholaram (Sujeet Kumar) and his wife Leela (Shobha Khote), a servant in the haveli, becomesa golden hearted vagabond, dancing singing & acting like a filmi hero in life, making Anju (Madhuri Dixit) the oly daughter of a multi-millionaire Vidyacharan (Saeed Jaffrey) fall in love with him. At the ancestral haveli, Kishen is permitted by Genda Mal and party to get married to Radha (Shilpa Shorodkar), a cowherd's daughter, so that a low born girl can never raise her voice against them. In the city Kanhaiya loses Anju when the reality and the bitter truth is exposed by Sridhar (Ranjit) that Kanhaiya is nothing but a pauper and a slum dweller, who wears clothes borrowed from his laundry friend Lobo (Johny Lever). Kanhaiya is beaten brutally and his foster mother Leela killed in front of him by Sridhar, who thinks that Kanhaiya has stolen his money. The result is that Kanhaiya lies physically wounded, in the hospital, without any hope of survival.

On the other side, in the haveli, the long awaited day has arrived for Genda Mal and party as Kishen being of age is to get everything that has been willed to him by his paralysed father Seth Sunder Das (Dr. Lagoo). Genda Mal wants Kishen to hand over the entire property in his name. But Kishen gets warning signals from his ailing father and wife Radha and stubbornly refuses to put his thumb impression on the documents. He is beaten badly and is forcibly made to put his thumb impression on the documents. When this is done Genda Mal wants to kill him and starts beating him with lathies. He suffers pain and torture. Kanhaiya in hospital feels the pain through their unbreakable bond of telepathy and as Kishen screams and falls from the height, Kanhaiya rises from death bed with the energy of a resurrected man. Kanhaiya starts getting the images of the old ancestral haveli in his dreams, and hears voices asking for help. He belongs to the haveli, and may be his twin brother in trouble. Kanhaiya goes to the village and learns that his twin brother Kishen is killed by Genda Mal and party, and now Kanhaiya with fire of vengeance in his eyes enters the haveli as Kishen.
Is Kanhaiya accepted as Kishen by Genda Mal and party?

How does Radha take him?

What about Anju who has lost Kanhaiya but still loves him?

And last but not the least where is Kishen?

See yourself in "Kishen Kanhaiya".

(From the official press booklets)

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