General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20264 min read

Do Anjaane (दो अनजाने)

Do Anjaane (दो अनजाने; "Two Strangers") is a 1976 Hindi-language drama directed by Dulal Guha, starring Amitabh Bachchan, Rekha, and Prem Chopra, about an amnesiac who recovers his memory and plots revenge on the wife and best friend who tried to kill him¹. It was the first on-screen pairing of Amitabh Bachchan and Rekha, a partnership that later became one of Hindi cinema's most discussed².

Key fact	Detail
Release	26 November 1976 (India); 28 March 1980 in the Soviet Union³
Director	Dulal Guha, whose earlier hits included Dushman (1972) and Dost (1974)¹^•²
Source and screenplay	Adaptation of the story Ratrir Yatri by Nihar Ranjan Gupta; screenplay by Nabendu Ghosh, dialogue by Shafiq Ansari⁴^•²
Producer and music	Navjeevan Films; music by Kalyanji Veerji Shah and Anandji Veerji Shah (Kalyanji Anandji)⁵
Lead cast	Amitabh Bachchan (Amit Roy / Naresh Dutt), Rekha (Rekha Roy / Sunita Devi), Prem Chopra (Ranjit Mallik), with Pradeep Kumar and Utpal Dutt⁴^•⁶
Soviet audience	29,300,000 viewers in the USSR; dubbed at the Dovzhenko film studio in 1979³
Award	Prem Chopra won the 1977 Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor⁷

Spoilers

Plot

Amit Roy is a Calcutta clerk who marries Rekha, an aspiring dancer and actress who is unhappy in domestic life⁸. Amit's US-returned friend Ranjit Malik encourages her ambitions and eventually gets her film offers. On a train journey toward Bombay meant to further her career, Ranjit gets Amit drunk and pushes him off the train⁸.

Amit survives but loses his memory. A wealthy couple, Mr Sumesh Dutt and Mrs Dutt, who had lost their own son years earlier, find him wounded on the railway tracks and adopt him as their son, Naresh Dutt⁸. Six years later he watches a film and recognizes the actress as his wife, now a star of Bengali cinema working under the name Sunita Devi, with Ranjit as her manager¹. His son has been placed in a boarding school⁸.

Naresh poses as a Bombay film financier and lures Rekha and Ranjit by offering Rekha the lead in a film titled Do Anjaane, whose storyline mirrors her own past. The pair grow suspicious as they notice his resemblance to the supposedly dead Amit Roy. Ranjit eventually attacks Amit, who records his confession and hands him to the police; Amit regains custody of his son, and the film ends with an ambivalent reunion between Amit and Rekha⁸.

Production and casting

Origin. Dulal Guha had directed the successful Dushman (1972) with Rajesh Khanna and Dost (1974) with Dharmendra and Shatrughan Sinha, and wanted to attempt something unusual. He chose an adaptation of Nihar Ranjan Gupta's story Ratrir Yatri, about an ambitious woman married to a middle-class clerk whose wealthy friend conspires with her to push the husband off a running train².

The heroine's role. By traditional Hindi film standards the heroine was written as a vamp, a negatively shaded character. Sharmila Tagore and Mumtaz both turned the part down, fearing it would damage their images. When Rekha heard the narration she too wavered, telling Guha, "Dada, this is vampish", before accepting².

Filming took place largely in and around Calcutta and West Bengal, with listed locations including Bagdogra Airport, the Basushree Theatre, the Botanical Gardens in Shibpur, Howrah, and the Calcutta Swimming Club⁹.

Soviet release

Do Anjaane was dubbed in 1979 at the A. Dovzhenko film studio and premiered in the Soviet Union on 28 March 1980 under the title Два незнакомца ("Two Strangers"), where it was seen by 29,300,000 moviegoers³.

Reception and significance

Prem Chopra, playing the treacherous friend Ranjit, won the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor at the 1977 ceremony⁷. NDTV's retrospective notes the film is often underrated because it was overshadowed by Bachchan's blockbusters of the same period, Sholay (1975), Deewaar (1975), and Kabhi Kabhie (1976), even though it marked the starting point of the Bachchan-Rekha screen pairing².

The film has drawn retrospective criticism for its treatment of the heroine. A 2010 review described its message as effectively telling women to stay home and accept domestic life, with Rekha's character portrayed as selfish for wanting a career¹⁰.

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Indian films (individual works) › Hindi films of the 1970s › Released 1976 to 1979

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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