General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Kinara (किनारा)

Kinara (किनारा) is a 1977 Indian Hindi-language drama film directed by Gulzar, starring Jeetendra, Hema Malini, and Dharmendra, with music by R. D. Burman and lyrics by Gulzar.¹^•² The title means "shore" or "edge" in Hindi. The film tells the story of a dancer, Aarti, who is grieving the death of her lover, and of Inder, the man whose earlier actions caused that death and who later falls in love with her.¹

Key fact	Detail
Release	21 March 1977 (India); one source, The Times of India, gives 5 August 1977¹^•³
Director and writers	Directed by Gulzar; story by Bhushan Banmali; screenplay and dialogue by Gulzar¹
Lead cast	Jeetendra as Inderjeet, Hema Malini as Aarti Sanyal, Dharmendra as Professor Chandan¹
Music	Composed by Rahul Dev Burman; lyrics by Gulzar; playback singers included Lata Mangeshkar, Kishore Kumar, and Bhupinder²
Runtime	2 hours 19 minutes (139 minutes); the Indian government's IFFI 2014 catalog lists 140 minutes¹^•⁴
IMDb rating	6.8/10 from about 183 votes¹

Spoilers

Plot and characters

The film centers on a love triangle. Aarti Sanyal, a dancer, is mourning her lover, and Inderjeet befriends her and eventually falls in love with her; a revelation about their connected past leaves them both in shock.¹ The connection is that Inder was responsible for the accidental death of Aarti's former lover.⁵

The synopsis in the Indian government's catalog for the International Film Festival of India 2014 gives the story in more detail: Inder is an architect who meets with a near-fatal accident on the way to a dance concert by Aarti Sanyal. After he recovers, he goes to Mandu and meets Aarti there. She tells him that she quit dancing six months earlier, and it transpires that this has to do with Inder's own accident. The question the film poses is how Aarti can reconcile herself to the fact that Inder caused the death of her erstwhile lover.⁴ The catalog names the dead lover Prakash, while IMDb and other databases name the character played by Dharmendra as Professor Chandan.⁴^•¹

The supporting cast includes Om Shivpuri as Aarti's grandfather, Shreeram Lagoo as Inder's uncle, Dina Pathak as Parvati Sanyal, Leela Mishra as Inder's housemaid, Keshto Mukherjee as Annalal, Kamaldeep as Sharma, and Randhir as Seth Rajaram.¹

Production

Gulzar directed the film and wrote its screenplay, dialogue, and lyrics, working from a story by Bhushan Banmali. Pranlal V. Mehta, Gulzar, and S. I. Shivdasani produced it, M. Sampat was the cinematographer, and Vaman Bhonsle and Gurudutt edited it.⁴^•⁶

Gopi Krishna, a member of a Kathak dancer family who was honored with the title of Nataraj when he was 15, designed the classical dance sequences. In 1952, aged 17, he joined the ranks of the youngest dance directors ever in Hindi cinema after being engaged to stage Madhubala's dances in Saqi. The Indian government awarded him the Padma Shri in 1975.⁴

Music

R. D. Burman composed the score, and the songs carry Gulzar's lyrics.² Songs listed for the film include "Naam gum jayega," "Ab ke na saawan barase," "Ek hi khwab kai baar dekha hai maine," and "Jaane kya sochkar nahin gujara."⁷ Playback singers included Lata Mangeshkar, Kishore Kumar, Bhupinder, and Hema Malini herself.²

"Naam gum jayega" outlived the film's release. The writer and linguist Rita Kothari, a professor known for her work on language and culture in western India, notes in a Silverscreen India essay that the song, whose refrain says that names will change and faces will change but the voice will remain, was played during Lata Mangeshkar's funeral in 2022, and that many listeners knew it simply as a song rather than as a number from Kinara.⁸ A Navbharat Times piece likewise connects Mangeshkar's 1977 recording of the song, whose Hindi line means "my voice itself is my identity," with the way her own voice came to be remembered.⁹

Place in Gulzar's career and in 1977 Hindi cinema

Kinara appeared in a productive year for Hindi cinema, the same year that saw Satyajit Ray's first Hindi film, Shatranj Ke Khiladi, and Shyam Benegal's Manthan.¹⁰ An Outlook Traveller survey of Hindi film history groups Kinara with Gulzar's other films of the 1970s, including Koshish, Parichay, Achanak, Mausam, Khushboo, and Aandhi, as part of the "middle-of-the-road" cinema that merged the ideology of Parallel Cinema with commercial storytelling and focused on middle-class, slice-of-life subjects.¹¹ A Hindi-language account of Gulzar's filmography lists Kinara as his 1977 release, following Mausam in 1976 and preceding Kitab in 1978.¹²

IMDb's trivia section for the film describes it as Bollywood's first remake of Magnificent Obsession.¹ The film received one award nomination, for Best Actress.¹³

Reception and availability

IMDb users rate the film 6.8 out of 10.¹ A Manorama Online review quoted by aggregators praises the film's picturesque locations and melodies while noting that open-ended threads in some parts may act as a dampener.¹³

The film remains available to stream. As of mid-2026, JustWatch listed it as streaming on Eros Now Select Apple TV Channel, with purchase or rental on Amazon Video, and Komparify lists Eros Now, Airtel Xstream, and Jio Cinema as Indian streaming sources.¹⁴^•¹³ On Airtel Xstream Play it is offered through Eros Now, in HD or Full HD depending on the source quality.¹⁵

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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