Maine Pyar Kiya

Karan (Alok Nath) is a poor mechanic who lives in the countryside with his one and only daughter, the beautiful Suman (Bhagyashree). He decides to venture out and try his luck in business and travel to Dubai so that he can accumulate enough wealth to get his daughter married. Thus, he decides to leave his daughter with his family friend Kishan (Rajeev Verma). Kishan, a wealthy businessman, lets Suman stay at his house while her father is away as he cannot turn down his old friend's request. Suman is befriended by Kishan's son Prem (Salman Khan), who assures her that a boy and a girl can be platonic friends.

Prem takes Suman to a party organised by Seema (Pervin Dastur), who is the only daughter of Kishan's business partner, Ranjeet (Ajit Vachani).

Jeevan (Mohnish Behl), nephew of Ranjeet, is proud and arrogant and humiliates Suman and Prem (accusing them of falsely claiming to be "just friends"). This is the turning point in the story. Suman leaves the party in tears and distances herself from Prem. At that point, Prem and Suman both realise that they have fallen in love with each other.

Prem's mother Kaushalya (Reema Lagoo) probes deeper into Prem and Suman's relationship and approves of Suman as her daughter-in-law, but Kishan is unhappy with the relationship and asks her to leave his house. He feels that she has taken advantage of his hospitality. Karan returns from abroad and is enraged at Kishan's behaviour and Kishan accuses him of plotting to set up Prem and Suman. Karan and Kishan quarrel, and eventually Karan and Suman return to their village, deeply humiliated.

Prem refuses to accept the separation, goes to Suman's village and begs to be allowed to marry her. Karan, angered by Kishan's accusations, says that he will allow the marriage on one condition: Prem must prove that he can support his wife by his own effort and live separately. Prem begins to work as a truck driver and laborer in the nearby quarry. At the end of the month, Prem has earned the required money. On the way to Karan's house, he is ambushed by Jeevan and a group of ruffians who attempt to kill him. He survives, but his wages are ruined in the fight.

Karan harshly dismisses Prem's effort and cannot believe Prem's story about the ruffians' attack, Prem begs for another chance to prove himself. His sincere determination melts Karan's heart and he agrees to allow his daughter Suman marry Prem. Meanwhile, Ranjeet goes to Kishan (Prem's father) and tells him that Karan has killed his son. Unable to believe this, Kishan goes to Karan's to verify and arrives at Karan's village, only to find Prem alive.

When Prem confronts Jeevan, Ranjeet and his supporters bash up both Kishan and Karan, while Jeevan abducts Suman. In the end, Prem, Karan, and Kishan join hands to defeat a common enemy—Ranjeet, his nephew Jeevan and Ranjeet's supporters, and then save Suman. The estrangement between Karan and Kishan come to an end and Prem and Suman marry.

• Salman Khan as Prem Choudhary
• Bhagyashree as Suman Shrestha
• Alok Nath as Karawar "Karan" Shrestha, Suman's father
• Rajeev Verma as Kishan Kumar Choudhary, Prem's father
• Reema Lagoo as Kaushalya Choudhary, Prem's mother
• Laxmikant Berde as Manohar
• Ajit Vachani as Ranjeet Sehni, Kishan's businese partner
• Pervin Dastur as Seema Sehni, Ranjeet's daughter
• Mohnish Bahl as Jeevan Sehni, Ranjeet's nephew
• Dilip Joshi as Ramu
• Raju Shrivastava as Driver
• Harish Patel as Rahim Chacha
• Huma Khan as Gulabiya

Prior to the film's production, Rajshri Productions was struggling financially, and was on the verge of closing down.[5] Director/writer Sooraj Barjatya's father Rajkumar Barjatya suggested the story of Maine Pyar Kiya. Barjatya devoted ten months to write Maine Pyar Kiya screenplay. He took six months to write the first half and four months to write the second half.[6]

The casting of the lead actor became complex.[6] Barjatya tested Shabina Dutt for the lead actress role. Dutt failed the screen test and Barjatya asked her if she could suggest any actor for the lead.[6] She suggested Salman Khan, with whom she had done an ad film. Salman Khan was not really interested because of the soft nature of the film. Barjatya eventually convinced him to do it, and Khan has since then expressed his gratitude to Barjatya for making him a star.[7] Barjatya then cast Bhagyashree to star opposite Salman Khan.[6] Barjatya picked Perveen from the English stage to play the negative role.[6]

The first sequence filmed was of the office scene where Rajiv Verma tells Salman that he has to go.[6] Barjatya had huge sets in film city, Mumbai where filming took place continuously over 5 to 6 months. Outdoor session of the film was done in Ooty.[8] Additional production credits include: Jay Borade—dance choreographer, Art—Bijon Das Gupta, Action—Shamim Azim and Editor—Mukhtar Ahmed.[9]

The film had a production budget of ₹2 crore (equivalent to ₹17 crore or US$2.4 million in 2019).[3] Salman Khan was paid ₹31,000 (equivalent to ₹270,000 or US$3,700 in 2019) for the film.[10] In addition to the production budget, another ₹10 lakh (equivalent to ₹86 lakh or US$120,000 in 2019) was spent on the soundtrack's radio publicity.[11]

Maine Pyar Kiya premiered on 29 December 1989 across India. The film initially saw a very limited release, with only 29 prints, before later going on to add a thousand more as the film picked up.[12]

Maine Pyar Kiya was dubbed in English as When Love Calls.[13] A 125-minute version was the biggest hit in the Caribbean market at Guyana and also dominated the box-office collections at Trinidad and Tobago.[14] The Telugu version Prema Paavuraalu ran for 25 weeks at Visakhapatnam and had 100 plus day run at six centres in Andhra Pradesh.[15] It was dubbed in Tamil language as Kaadhal Oru Kavithai and in Malayalam as Ina Praavukal. Maine Pyar Kiya had also been dubbed in Spanish as Te Amo. The film also proved its universal appeal with a glorious 10-week premiere run at Lima.[14]

The soundtrack album and musical score were composed by Raamlaxman, while the lyrics were written by Dev Kohli and Asad Bhopali. It was produced under the Sa Re Ga Ma label and featured eminent singers such as Lata Mangeshkar, S. P. Balasubrahmanyam and Sharda Sinha. The soundtrack consists of 11 songs including the "Antakshri" (excerpts from different Bollywood songs), that was used when the characters play a game. The soundtrack was very successful upon release, becoming the best-selling Bollywood soundtrack of the decade.[22] The film's soundtrack album sold over 10 million units.[11] It was listed by Planet Bollywood as number 5 on their list of 100 Greatest Bollywood Soundtracks.[23]

Priyankee Saikia of MensXP.com described several songs as "heavily influenced by western hits", noting that "Aate Jaate Hanste Gaate" was derivative of Stevie Wonder's "I Just Called to Say I Love You" and "Aaya Mausam Dosti Ka" featured parts similar to "Tarzan Boy" by Baltimora,[24] specifically the latter's millennial whoop.[25] The song "Mere Rang Mein Rangne Wali" is based on "The Final Countdown" by the Swedish band Europe and "Theme from Love Story".[26]

• Maine Pyar Kiya on IMDb