‘Yeh Dil Aashiqanaa’ completes 18 years of its release today. The romantic drama, featuring two newcomers Karan Nath and Jividha, released on 18 January, 2002 and was one of the sleeper hits of the year. While this was Karan’s second Hindi film as an adult (he made his debut as a child artiste in ‘Mr. India’) after ‘Paagalpan’, this was also Jividha’s second outing in Hindi after making her Hindi film debut with a supporting role in Subhash Ghai’s ‘Taal’. It turned out to be an important film for the both of them; while the film did moderately well in the cities, its performance in the theatres in the smaller cities and towns was very good. I was in Hazaribagh, Jharkhand when the film released and witnessed the hysteria it created in the theatres there.
Apart from romance, the film has a good dose of action and thrills. There was a hijack sequence in the film which was handled very well by director Kuku Kohli and action director Kala Singh. The drama, coupled with the nicely choreographed action bits, unfolded very well in the pre-climax and the climatic sequence. Aditya Pancholi and Rajat Bedi played the negative parts very well.
It is impossible not to mention the music of ‘Yeh Dil Aashiqanaa’ while discussing the film. Nadeem-Shravan have delivered a slew of blockbuster albums between 1990-2005 but it is safe to say that ‘Yeh Dil Aashiqanaa’ is one of the best soundtracks they have produced together. Songs like ‘Utha Le Jaoonga’, ‘I Am In Love’, the title track and the qawalli ‘Allah Allah’ are extremely popular till date. If you travel to a small town, chances are that you will hear one of these songs playing in somebody’s home or in a public-transport vehicle.
After ‘Yeh Dil Aashiqanaa’, Jividha was seen in the popular TV show ‘Tum Bin Jaoon Kahaan’, produced by Aruna Irani, who was also the producer on this film. She also appeared in a couple of Punjabi and South Indian films. Her last Hindi film appearance was a cameo in ‘Mohenjo Daro’ as Sarman’s (Hrithik Roshan) mother. As for Karan, after being away from the silver screen for a long time, he is all set to stage a comeback in his home production ‘Guns Of Banaras’.