Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani

Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani
File:Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani.jpg Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Rajkumar Santoshi
Produced by	Ramesh S. Taurani
Written by	Rajkumar Santoshi R. D. Tailang
Story by	Rajkumar Santoshi K. Rajeshwar
Starring	Ranbir Kapoor Katrina Kaif
Music by	Songs: Pritam Background Score: Salim-Sulaiman
Cinematography	S. Tirru
Edited by	Steven H. Bernard
Production company	Tips Industries Limited
Distributed by	Tips Industries Limited
Release date	6 November 2009 (2009-11-06)
Running time	161 minutes
Country	India
Language	Hindi
Budget	₹18 crores
Box office	est. ₹104 crores

Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani (transl. Unique Prem's Amazing Story) is an Indian 2009 Hindi-language romantic comedy film written and directed by Rajkumar Santoshi and produced by Ramesh S. Taurani under Tips Industries. An unofficial remake of the 2005 film Soggadu, the film stars Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina Kaif in the lead roles, and tells the story of the titular protagonist, a good-for-nothing golden-hearted young man who falls in love with an orphaned young woman. Upon release, it earned ₹104 crores worldwide against its ₹18 crores budget, emerging as the 3rd top grosser film in 2009 after 3 Idiots, Dil Bole Hadippa! and Love Aaj Kal.

Plot

The film opens with a reporter entering into a small town that looks abandoned, with a statue that speaks. The reporter asks the statue where the people of the town are, and the statue then narrates the story behind it.

Prem Shankar Sharma (Ranbir Kapoor) is a free-loader who, while helping his friend elope, meets a beautiful girl, Jennifer "Jenny" Pinto (Katrina Kaif). They both share the trait of stammering when they are emotional; in such a moment, the stammering Jenny induces a spontaneous stammer in Prem, but she misinterprets his stammer as a mockery on her. Although this makes her dislike Prem initially, she reconciles with him after realizing that his stammer is real. Prem eventually falls in love with Jenny, although she is oblivious to this and only considers him a friend. When he tries to tell Jenny his feelings, he finds out that Jenny is in love with her college friend Rahul Jalan (Upen Patel).

He then meets Rahul and finds out that Rahul loves Jenny more than his family, so helps them board a train to escape. However, Rahul disappears at the train station, and Jenny returns to Prem so Prem can help her find Rahul.

Rahul's father, Pitambar Jalan, a politician, does not like Jenny and completely opposes a relationship between Jenny and Rahul, mainly due to the religious barrier, Jenny being a Christian and Rahul a Hindu. When Prem visits Rahul's house for Jenny's proposal with Rahul, he is insulted by Pitambar. Prem convinces his mother Sharda (Smita Jaykar) to let Jenny hide in their house while Jenny's family search for her, but they are eventually caught by the police. Jenny lies that she and Prem are in love, to save Rahul's name. While Prem corroborates Jenny's lie, he gets emotional and spurts out his true feelings for Jenny, which she mistakes for over-acting.

Prem and Jenny successfully go to a club where Rahul's birthday party is being held so that Jenny and Rahul can be reunited and eventually convince Pitambar to support the relationship. Rahul then tells Prem that he and Jenny are going to prepare for the wedding in two days.

Unfortunately, a day before the wedding, Jenny gets kidnapped by Sajid Don (Zakir Hussain) who is seeking a ransom from Pitambar in exchange for her. Prem and his buddies find her in Sajid Don's warehouse. A hilarious fight ensues between Prem's and Sajid Don's gangs. Prem's father, Shiv Shankar Sharma (Darshan Jariwala) joins the fight and Sajid Don, a wanted criminal, gets arrested.

Rahul and a contesting Pitambar tell the media that it was they who were the ones involved in the fight with Sajid Don, intending to buy a good name for Pitambar before the elections. On Jenny and Rahul's wedding day, Jenny finds out that Prem actually gave consent to Rahul and Pitambar to publicize their false story. This and her past recollections of Prem's selfless caring for her make her realize that she truly loves Prem and that Rahul and his family are actually very selfish, prompting her to become a runaway bride. Meanwhile, Prem, who is about to leave the town is stopped by a saint (Behzaad Khan), who asks him to guide him to an address, further driving him back to the church, where he finds Jenny as the saint disappears and it is revealed that he was actually Jesus Christ. She is united with Prem and the two happily get married, in a small celebration at a marriage registration office.

The statue, in the beginning, reveals that the entire town is attending their wedding and asks the reporter to visit the registration office.

Cast

• Ranbir Kapoor as Prem Shankar Sharma; also a statue in a special appearance
• Katrina Kaif as Jennifer "Jenny" Pinto, Prem's love interest
• Upen Patel as Rahul Jalan
• Salman Khan as himself in a coffee shop
• Darshan Jariwala as Shiv Shankar Sharma, Prem's father
• Mithilesh Chaturvedi as Mr. Pinto, Jenny's adoptive father
• Navneet Nishan as Mrs. Pinto, Jenny's adoptive mother
• Smita Jaykar as Sharda Sharma, Prem's mother
• Shyam Mashalkar as Raju, Prem's friend
• Akul Tripathi as Kunnu, Prem's friend
• Khurshed Lawyer as David, Prem's friend
• Ameya Hunaswadkar as Lakhan, Prem's friend
• Pradeep Kharab as Tony Braganza
• Sanatan Modi as Tony's father
• Govind Namdeo as Pitambar Jalan, Rahul's father
• Dolly Bindra as Mrs. Jalan, Pitambar's wife and Rahul's mother
• Mohan V. Ram as Pitambar Jalan's PA Sheshadri
• Abhay Bhargava as Terror Tej Singh
• Rati Shankar Tripathi as Bhairon Singh
• Zakir Hussain as Sajid Don
• Delhi Ganesh as Temple priest
• Behzaad Khan in a special appearance as Jesus Christ

Crew

• Director – Rajkumar Santoshi
• Producer – Ramesh S. Taurani
• Script – Rajkumar Santoshi, R. D. Tailang
• Story - Rajkumar Santoshi, K. Rajeshwar
• Cinematographer – Tirru
• Creative Producer – Jay Shewakramani
• Production Designer – Nitish Roy
• Music – Pritam Chakraborty
• Choreographer – Ahmed Khan
• First Assistant Director – Manish Harishankar
• Editor – Steven H. Bernard
• Background Score – Salim-Sulaiman
• Lyricist – Irshad Kamil, Ashish Pandit, Hard Kaur
• Action – Abbas Ali Moghul, Tinu Verma
• Sound Engineer – Rakesh Ranjan

Reception

Critical response

Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani received generally positive reviews. Subhash K. Jha (film critic and author of The Essential Guide to Bollywood) states: "If you've ever wondered what on earth is on-screen chemistry here's your one-stop all-purpose encyclopedia on celluloid magic. Fasten your 'see'-it belts, as veteran filmmaker Rajkumar Santoshi sheds all his Lajja, and pulls out all stops to do a wacky goofy edgeless weightless comedy of characters who walk in and walk out of frames leaving behind fumes of old-fashioned funnies. Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani is an airtight trapeze down that familiar romantic lane." Nikhat Kazmi of the Times of India gave it four stars out of five and states: "The newly formented Ranbir-Katrina chemistry sets the screen on fire in this mad hatter's tea party. Adding to this is Pritam's peppy music score with Neeraj Shridhar, Atif Aslam, Hard Kaur, Sunidhi Chauhan and Mika raising a toast to a high-spirited song and dance and Raj Kumar Santoshi penning some of the funniest dialogues in recent times and you have a great escape awaiting you at your favourite audi this weekend. Go, have a ball." Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama gave the film four out of five stars arguing that it "entertains majorly" and that "the romantic moments are endearing. Most importantly, the on-screen chemistry is electrifying. Ranbir and Katrina look great together!" Noyon Jyoti Parasara of AOL India gave 3 out of 5 stars saying, "Its strong point, apart from Ranbir, happens to be its clichéd settings." Omar Qureshi of Zoom gave 3.5 out of five stars saying that "The main point to be noted in the film is that, the film is totally dedicated to loving and all the things that are related to love and so, it will leave an ever lasting impression on youth." Minty Tejpal of Mumbai Mirror gave 3.5 out of five stars, saying that "It seems that Ranbir Kapoor can do nothing wrong. He is just fantastic through the film." Mayank Shekhar of the Hindustan Times gave it one star and said that "The film has no comic bone at all. There is certainly no romance either." Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN gave it 2.5 out of five stars and said that "Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani is a silly comedy that goes for slapstick gags and juvenile jokes that are hard to appreciate."

Box office

Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani collected a nett India gross of ₹66.4 million on its opening day, and ₹38 crore in its opening week. It had a lifetime gross collection of ₹87.05 crore in India, including a nett income of ₹64.20 crore, and ₹16.16 crore from overseas box office, thus making a worldwide total of ₹103.21 crore. It was the third highest-grossing Bollywood film of 2009 behind 3 Idiots and Love Aaj Kal.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack was composed by Pritam while lyrics were penned by Irshad Kamil and Ashish Pandit. The songs are remixed by DJ Suketu and arranged by Aks.

Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani
Soundtrack album by Pritam
Released	2009
Genre	Feature film soundtrack
Length	72 minutes
Label	Tips Music Films
Producer	Pritam
Pritam chronology
All the Best: Fun Begins (2009) Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani (2009) Tum Mile (2009)

Track listing

No.	Title	Artist(s)	Length
1.	"Main Tera Dhadkan Teri"	K.K, Sunidhi Chauhan & Hard Kaur	4:33
2.	"Tu Jaane Na"	Atif Aslam	5:41
3.	"Oh By God"	Sunidhi Chauhan & Mika Singh	4:58
4.	"Tera Hone Laga Hoon"	Atif Aslam, Alisha Chinai & Joi Barua	4:56
5.	"Prem Ki Naiyya"	Neeraj Shridhar & Suzanne D'Mello	4:06
6.	"Aa Jao Meri Tamanna"	Javed Ali & Jojo	4:02
7.	"Follow Me"	Hard Kaur	2:52
8.	"Tu Jaane Na" (Reprise)	Soham, Rana Mazumdar & Ashish Pandit	5:43
9.	"Main Tera Dhadkan Teri" (Remix)	KK, Sunidhi Chauhan & Hard Kaur	5:04
10.	"Tu Jaane Na" (Remix)	Atif Aslam	6:06
11.	"Prem Ki Naiyya" (Remix)	Neeraj Shridhar & Suzanne D'Mello	4:31
12.	"Tera Hone Laga Hoon" (Remix)	Atif Aslam, Alisha Chinai & Joi Barua	4:46
13.	"Aa Jao Meri Tamanna" (Remix)	Javed Ali & Jojo	3:44
14.	"Tu Jaane Na" (Unplugged Version)	Kailash Kher, Paresh Kamath & Naresh	5:33

Reception

The soundtrack received generally favorable reviews from critics. Samir Dave of Planet Bollywood gave it a rating of 7.5/10 and said, "If you are looking for an enjoyable potpourri of different musical styles, and melody, then you will love what Pritam has served up for, "Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani". It deserves to be at the top of the charts". Joginder Tuteja of Bollywood Hungama rated it 3.5/5 and praised the music composer saying, "This is Pritam's year, delivering chartbusters by dozens all through the year, he can now look forward to another bountiful of hit songs up his sleeves with Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani. Also, Ranbir and Katrina can enjoy a hugely popular track for themselves in the form of 'Main Tera Dhadkan Teri'. Go, pick this one up from the shelves!". The songs 'Tu Jaane Na', 'Tera Hone Laga Hoon', 'Prem Ki Naiya' and 'Mein Tera Dhadkan Teri' became chartbusters.

Awards and nominations

Award	Category	Recipient(s) and nominee(s)	Result	Ref.
Filmfare Awards	Best Actor (Critics)	Ranbir Kapoor (also for Wake Up Sid and Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year)	Won
	Best Actor	Ranbir Kapoor	Nominated
	Best Music Director	Pritam Chakraborty	Nominated
	Best Playback Singer – Male	Atif Aslam (for the song "Tu Jaane Na")	Nominated
	Best Playback Singer – Female	Alisha Chinai (for the song "Tera Hone Laga")	Nominated
Screen Awards	Best Actor	Ranbir Kapoor	Nominated
	Best Music	Pritam	Nominated
	Best Choreography	Ahmed Khan (for the song "Prem Ki Naiyya")	Nominated
Stardust Awards	Superstar of Tomorrow – Male	Ranbir Kapoor (also for Wake Up Sid)	Won
	Star of the Year – Female	Katrina Kaif (also for New York)	Won
	Dream Director	Rajkumar Santoshi	Nominated
	Best Film of the Year – Comedy	Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani	Nominated
Producers Guild Film Awards	Best Actor in a Comic Role	Darshan Jariwala	Nominated
	Best Supporting Actress	Smita Jaykar	Nominated
	Best Music Director	Pritam	Nominated
	Best Dialogue	Rajkumar Santoshi	Nominated
	Best Art Direction	Nitish Roy	Nominated
International Indian Film Academy Awards	Best Playback Singer – Male	Atif Aslam (for the song "Tu Jaane Na")	Nominated
2nd Mirchi Music Awards	Listeners' Choice Album of the Year	–	Won

External links

• apkgk.com
• Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani on IMDb