Ghajini (2008 film)

Sunita, a medical student, is investigating the anterograde amnesia case of Sanjay Singhania, the chairman of Air Voice, a telecommunications company. She does so against her professor Dr. Debkumar Mitra's wishes, in spite of Sanjay being under criminal investigation. Sanjay, who loses his memory every 15 minutes, uses a system of photographs, notes, and tattoos on his body to recover his memory and remember his mission of avenging the murder of his fiancé Kalpana Shetty, who was killed by a criminal kingpin, Ghajini Dharmatma.

Police officer Arjun Yadav, who is investigating a murder that Sanjay committed, knocks Sanjay unconscious in a scuffle at his apartment and finds two diaries in his drawer. He learns that Sanjay who is a successful entrepreneur met Kalpana, a struggling model, after he planned on installing an advertising billboard above her apartment. When his agents arrive at Kalpana's shooting site to negotiate with her about it, Kalpana's boss, advertising veteran Satveer Kohli, misinterprets this as a romantic advance and, in a view of fame and fortune, encourages Kalpana to accept the overture. Kalpana also decides to pose as Sanjay's girlfriend. As soon as Sanjay finds out about the false rumor, he plans to meet Kalpana to confront her but fails, as he starts to like her after seeing her altruistic nature. He poses as Sachin Chauhan, a newcomer model, and lies to Kalpana about himself. Soon, he falls deeper in love with her. At the end of the first diary, on 31 December, Sanjay, still playing Sachin, proposes to Kalpana who, taken aback by such a sudden gesture, asks for the night to think over it. He decides that if she would agree, then he would reveal his true identity to her, but, if not, then he would quietly walk away from her life as Sachin.

As Arjun starts reading the second diary, Sanjay attacks him and ties him up. Sunita locates the apartment, finds Arjun tied up and learns of Sanjay's murder plot in his absence. She steals his diaries and frees Arjun. Sanjay suddenly appears. As she and Arjun escape, Arjun is hit by a bus. Sunita then informs Ghajini about the fact that Sanjay is coming to him to kill him. Sanjay finds out about this and goes to attack her at her dormitory, where he is arrested and given a sedative. Ghajini is informed by the police about Sanjay's belongings and he poses as Sanjay's friend. Soon Sanjay's employees and doctor arrive and take him home. There, Ghajini and his men destroy his pictures and cover his tattoos, thus leaving him with no memory of the past.

After Sanjay gets arrested, Sunita reads the diaries. She finds out about Kalpana. In the second diary, Kalpana accepts the proposal, but on the condition that she marry only after she purchases three ambassador cars, due to a past commitment. One thing leads to another and Sanjay decides on telling her the truth about himself later. The diary ends abruptly when Sanjay has to go overseas for a few days.

After some research, Sunita eventually learns Kalpana travelled to Goa, where she stumbled across and freed a group of girls from a sex trafficking ring racketeered by Ghajini. Back in Mumbai, Ghajini confronts Kalpana when she discovers two of the girls went missing and then she walks away in disgust. Later that night, a constable calls Kalpana and informs Ghajini is set out to kill her and his henchmen are hiding inside her house. Kalpana fails to save herself and Sanjay rushes to her home after she calls him and finds Kalpana stabbed. Ghajini hits Sanjay in the head with an iron rod which results in brain injury, before killing Kalpana with the same rod, in front of him. Feeling guilty of doubting him, Sunita reminds Sanjay of Kalpana's murder and helps him track Ghajini to his local area. Sanjay then kills his men but has a memory loss fit while searching for Ghajini, who takes advantage of the situation and stabs Sanjay using a rod. As he prepares to kill Sunita the same way he killed Kalpana, Sanjay recovers his memory, pulls the rod out and throws it at Ghajini’s face in the nick of time and finally kills Ghajini with the iron rod in the same way he did to Kalpana.

Six months later, Sanjay returns as the chairman of Air Voice and is volunteering at an orphanage named after Kalpana, helping everyone like she did, and trying to heal. Sunita gifts him the cement pad with Sanjay and Kalpana's foot impressions and he feels Kalpana beside him, as the screen pans out in a fading sunset.

• Aamir Khan as Sanjay Singhania / Sachin Chauhan, a rich businessman; the chairman of a telecommunications company, Air Voice; who later suffers from short-term memory loss after a tragic incident caused by Ghajini, being solely motivated, thus, to kill him and his cohorts
• Asin as Kalpana Shetty, a model who gains publicity by falsely proclaiming herself to be the girlfriend of Sanjay Singhania, but soon becomes his love interest, later getting killed by Ghajini
• Jiah Khan as Sunita Kalantri, a medical student, who tries to study the case of Sanjay Singhania and his amnesiac problem, even though she is forbidden to do so
• Pradeep Rawat as Ghajini Dharmatma, a gang honcho and the mastermind of many illegal and criminal ventures who is targeted by Sanjay
• Riyaz Khan as Inspector Arjun Yadav, a police inspector who is investigating the murders Sanjay committed (voiceover by Rajesh Khattar)
• Khalid Siddiqui as Pankaj Shroff, Sanjay's private assistant and an Air Voice manager
• Tinnu Anand as Satveer Kohli, Kalpana's boss
• Sai Tamhankar as Amrita Kashyap, Sunita's friend
• Supreeth Reddy as Ghajini's henchman
• Mahendra Ghule as Ghajini’s henchman
• Vibha Chibber as Havaldar Vaijayanti
• Sunil Grover as Sampat, a model who is being trained as the fake Sanjay Singhania
• Rajendran as Ghajini's henchman
• Firdausi Jussawalla as Dr. Peston Wadia
• Sonal Sehgal as ad model

Cameo appearance

• Anjum Rajabali as Dr. Debkumar Mitra, Sunita's professor

It was rumoured earlier that the film was titled Kajri.[10] It is a remake of the Tamil film, Ghajini (2005). Aamir Khan, who had never before worked in a remake film in his career,[11] was initially hesitant to do the film, but was convinced by Suriya, the original star of the Tamil Ghajini, who told him he was "the only one who could do justice to the character."[12] Suriya was a fan of Khan, and had some involvement in the film's development, discussing minute details with Khan for two years during the film's development.[11] Priyanka Chopra was offered a lead role in the film, but was later got shelved and replaced.Finally Tamil Actress Asin Thottumkal was confirmed as lead role who did the same in the original Tamil version of the film.[13]

Khan was involved in the film's creative writing process, deciding what should remain from the original Tamil Ghajini and what changes should be made. Murugadoss revealed that the altered climax of the film was rewritten by Khan. According to Murugadoss:[14]

We didn't make too many changes in the rest of the film. Every time I'd suggest a change in Ghajini from the original, Aamir would firmly cut it down, saying we should stick to the Tamil script. But he decided we should rewrite the climax. The entire location, incidents and dialogues for the climax were re-written by Aamir. I think the Hindi version is far better than the Tamil Ghajini because of the changes Aamir made.

Ghajini was released on 25 December 2008 with an estimated 1,500 prints worldwide,[21] including 1,200 prints (digital and analogue versions) in the domestic market,[5][22] making it the largest Bollywood release at that time. The domestic rights were sold to Geetha Arts for ₹530 million, while satellite, overseas and home media rights were sold at a total of ₹400 million, breaking the records of Shah Rukh Khan's film Om Shanti Om's ₹730 million.[23]

The overseas distributors, Reliance Entertainment released the film with 300 prints in 22 countries, including 112 prints in the US and Canada, 65 prints in the UK and 36 prints in the UAE. Ghajini was also released in Norway, Germany, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore.[24] It had around 650 paid previews which fetched it around ₹70 million.[22]

50% of the reviews in review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes were positive.[32]

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
Rediff	[48]
Bollywood Hungama	[49]

The film has six songs, including two remixes, composed by A. R. Rahman and with lyrics penned by Prasoon Joshi.

• Short-term memory loss
• Declarative memory

• Film Review on Devildead (in French)
• Ghajini at IMDb
• Ghajini at Rotten Tomatoes
• Ghajini at AllMovie
• Ghajini at Box Office Mojo