Anuraag (1972 film)

Anuraag is a 1972 Indian Hindi-language drama film, directed by Shakti Samanta. The film stars Moushumi Chatterjee, in her debut as a heroine, and Vinod Mehra in lead roles. The Shakti Samanta fixture Rajesh Khanna, having earlier made Aradhana (1969) and Kati Patang (1971) with Samanta, makes a special appearance. The music is by S. D. Burman. Initially, Samanta was unsure if the distributors would buy a film with such a storyline and had shared the idea with Rajesh Khanna, who encouraged Samanta and volunteered to make an extended appearance for the film, and also distributed the film under the banner "Shakti-Raj" (indicating Shakti Samanta and Rajesh Khanna).

The film became a semi-hit, while doing extremely well in big cities. and won the Filmfare Best Movie Award for the year. It was later remade into the Telugu film Anuragalu (1975) with Sridevi in her first leading role. A. Bhimsingh also remade it in Malayalam as Raagam (1975). It was also remade in Tamil as Neela Malargal (1979) and in Kannada as Chiranjeevi (1976).

Plot

A blind sculptor, Shivani (Moushumi Chatterjee) stays in an ashram and makes friends with a young boy Chandan(Satyajeet), who is suffering from cancer. She falls in love with Rajesh (Vinod Mehra). Rajesh asks his parents to permit him to marry her, to which his mother agrees, but his father refuses. Then, an eye specialist reveals that an eye replacement would cure her. Later, as a dying wish, the young boy donates his eyes to her.