General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Mehbooba (महबूबा)

Mehbooba (महबूबा) is a 1976 Hindi-language reincarnation romance directed by Shakti Samanta, starring Rajesh Khanna and Hema Malini in double roles as lovers separated in a past life and reunited in the present¹^•². It was produced by Mushir Alam and Mohammad Riaz under the M R Productions banner of Bombay, with music by R. D. Burman and lyrics by Anand Bakshi³.

Key fact	Detail
Release	1976; censor certificate U-82120 passed in Bombay on 19 July 1976³^•⁴
Director / producers	Shakti Samanta; Mushir Alam and Mohammad Riaz (Mushir-Riaz)³^•⁵
Writers	Story and screenplay by Gulshan Nanda; dialogues by Akhtar Romani⁵
Music	R. D. Burman; lyrics Anand Bakshi; playback singers Lata Mangeshkar, Kishore Kumar, and Manna Dey³^•¹
Lead cast	Rajesh Khanna as Prakash/Suraj; Hema Malini as Ratna/Jhumri; Prem Chopra as Appa⁵
Technical	35 mm color, 17 reels, 4,597.91 meters; run time given as 134 minutes by IMDb and Cinemaazi, while the censor record lists 167 minutes 37 seconds¹^•³
Genre	Drama, romance; a reincarnation (rebirth-redemption) story⁴^•⁶

Spoilers

Plot

Suraj (Rajesh Khanna) is a successful modern pop singer who earns fame and money with his voice and guitar¹. On his way to a singing assignment arranged by his secretary, his car breaks down in a rainstorm, and taking shelter he finds himself near Chandangarh. Exploring the empty corridors of the palace there, he is haunted by the feeling that he has been in the place before, and a portrait on the wall of a dusty room brings memories of a past life flooding back¹.

In that earlier life Suraj was Prakash, a court musician and singer, a sitarist and vocalist of note in the durbar of Chandangarh. Ratna (Hema Malini) was the royal court dancer, and the two fall in love through their music. Prakash learns that Ratna is the daughter of a famous courtesan of Lucknow, and he is himself bound by a childhood betrothal to Jamuna (Yogeeta Bali), daughter of a conservative Thakur family¹. When the lovers flee, the Thakur pursues them with guns and horses; their buggy goes over a cliff and they die in each other's arms, their souls promising to meet again¹.

In the present, after seeing the portrait, Suraj meets a gypsy, Jhumri, who looks exactly like Ratna. Jhumri in turn recollects her own past life and her love for Prakash, and the two must work out what this memory means for their present lives⁷.

Cast and crew

Rajesh Khanna plays the double role of Prakash and Suraj, and Hema Malini plays Ratna and Jhumri⁵. The supporting cast includes Prem Chopra as Appa, Asrani as Sinha, Asha Sachdev as Rita Malhotra, Sujit Kumar as Dr. Vinod, Manmohan Krishna as Bandhe Ali Khan, Madan Puri as Sardar, Meena T. as Gauri, Nazir Hussain as Guruji, Leela Mishra as Jhumri's mother, Chandrashekhar as Thakur Himmat Singh, and Yogeeta Bali as Jamuna Singh⁵^•⁸. The Hindi Film Database records Madan Puri and Yogita Bali as guest appearances³.

Behind the camera, Aloke Dasgupta was the cinematographer, Bijoy Chowdhary the editor, Shanti Dass the art director, Gopi Krishna handled dances, and M. B. Shetty was the action director⁵^•¹. Shooting took place at Natraj Studios¹.

Music

R. D. Burman composed the score, with assistant music directors Basu Chakravarti, Manohari Singh, and Maruti Rao Keer, and the soundtrack was released on the HMV label³. The film has eight songs listed by the Hindi Film Database, all with lyrics by Anand Bakshi. They include "Mere Naina Savan Bhadon", recorded in separate versions by Lata Mangeshkar and Kishore Kumar; "Goree Toree Paijaniya" sung by Manna Dey; "Jamuna Kinare A Ja" and "Chalo Ree" by Lata Mangeshkar; and a mujra number, "Aapke Shahar Mein Aee Hoon Shauk Se", also sung by Mangeshkar³.

Place in the reincarnation genre

Reincarnation is a recurring plot device in Bombay cinema, and a survey of the device lists Mehbooba (1976) alongside Madhumati (1958), Milan (1967), Neelkamal (1968), Karz (1980), Bees Saal Baad (1988), and Karan Arjun (1995)⁹. A study of Rajasthan in Indian cinema places Mehbooba among the strong representatives of the rebirth-redemption genre of Rajasthan films, noting its connections with tragic desert love tales such as the ballad of Dhola and Maru⁶. Reviewers on Letterboxd have likewise read the film as a reincarnation romance in the tradition of Madhumati, with one noting the homage to that earlier film in the opening stretch¹⁰.

Reception and other films of the same name

The film holds a 6.5/10 rating on IMDb from about 210 user votes². It is currently available for streaming on Amazon Prime Video in India⁷.

The title has been used more than once: the Hindi Film Database remarks that a film with the same title was also passed by the Censor Board in 1954, 1965, and 2008³. The 2008 film Mehbooba, directed by Afzal Khan and starring Sanjay Dutt, Ajay Devgan, and Manisha Koirala, is a separate work¹¹. The title should also not be confused with "Mehbooba Mehbooba", the well-known R. D. Burman song sung by Helen in Ramesh Sippy's Sholay (1975), which is a different work despite sharing the composer and a word of the title¹².

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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