Beta (Hindi: बेटा, Urdu: بیٹا, translation: Son) is a 1992 Hindi movie directed by Indra Kumar. The film featured the pairing of Madhuri Dixit with Anil Kapoor in lead roles. This film was a remake of Sandalwood Movie Mallammana Pavada (1969), starring Rajkumar, B. Saroja Devi and Tamil film Enga Chinna Rasa (1987), directed by K. Bhagyaraj. Along with Beta, the film was remade to Telugu as Abbaigaru, again to Kannada as Annayya, starring Ravichandran and Madhubala.. The film is perhaps best remembered for the hit song "Dhak Dhak Karne Laga", which earned Madhuri Dixit her nickname as the "Dhak-Dhak Girl" ("dhak-dhak" = heartbeat).

Beta won four Filmfare Awards including Best Actor (Kapoor), Best Actress (Dixit), Best Playback Singer (Anuradha Paudwal for "Dhak Dhak Karne Laga") and Best Supporting Actress (Aruna Irani). The film was declared a blockbuster and was the highest grossing film of 1992.^[1]

Plot[link]

Beta is the story of Raju (Anil Kapoor), the only child of a widowed multi millionaire. Raju's father can provide him anything he wants but Raju's only desire is to have a mother's love. In order to please Raju, his father gets married to Laxmi (Aruna Irani), thinking that she will take care of Raju. Raju becomes completely devoted to his stepmother, doing whatever she wishes. Raju's stepmother keeps Raju uneducated, under the pretext that education would get her son a job working for other people, while she wants her son to be self employed. As Raju grows up, Raju's father is gradually isolated from the family and locked in a dark room of the family home, being labelled as mentally unstable.

Raju, meanwhile meets Saraswati (Madhuri Dixit) and the two fall in love after Raju sees her being abducted, slapped and assaulted at a fair. After Raju saves her from being assaulted, the two fall in love and Raju marries Saraswati after everyone in the village believes that she is no longer chaste. Saraswati discovers that Laxmi's motherly love for Raju is fake and all what Laxmi is interested in, is capturing Raju's wealth. She is horrified to find Raju's father being treated as a mentally ill patient. Only after speaking to him does she realise that the reason for Raju's naive nature and uneducated status is because his stepmother manipulated him to keep him uneducated so that she can take advantage of him. Laxmi already has another son from the father who is being educated but also seeks Raju's wealth which his mother Laxmi intends for him to inherit. And thus begins a battle within the household between daughter-in-law and mother-in-law which involves Saraswati trying to outdo Laxmi.

Initially, Saraswati allows Raju's father to come out of his prison and insists that there is nothing wrong with him. She voices her concerns to Raju about his mother, resulting in Saraswati being slapped repeatedly around the courtyard of the house in front of all the family members. Saraswati is ready to leave the house at this point but wisely decides to apologise to her mother in law, only to take an oath to protect her husband and her house from Laxmi's immoral intentions. This humiliation does not deter Saraswati who cleverly starts exposing Laxmi's every step in a dignified manner for the sake of her husband. She publically exposes the fact that Raju's younger step brother has not received a degree in Medicine, rather that he has bought a fake one, she decides to give Laxmi a taste of her own medicine by causing her to slip which leads to an over-protective Raju to look after her and not allow her to do anything but lay down; scuppering any future plans Laxmi intends to execute.

Upon discovering that Saraswati is pregnant, Laxmi finally decides that enough is enough and tries to poison Saraswati by mixing poison with saffron which she knows that Laxmi will mix with her milk before she drinks it. However, when Saraswati discovers this, she approaches Raju and tells him the truth once again. Raju refuses to believe Saraswati, even when she takes an oath upon her unborn child's life and decides to prove Saraswati wrong by offering to drink the poisoned milk himself. Only when Raju begins to cough up blood, does he realise that Saraswati was telling the truth after all. He confronts his mother in his usual innocent manner and asks her why she had forsaken him and tells her that had she simply asked him for his wealth, he would have happily agreed to give her all he had. He tells Laxmi that his last dying wish will be that he would request his mother to at least once with a clean her to call him 'her son', so that he may now die in peace. His words touch Laxmi deeply and she realises the cruelty that she has shown her son who has only ever loved her. There is a brief altercation between Laxmi and her real son who still wishes to procure Raju's wealth. Raju, in his deteriorating state still manages to save his mother from his step brother. The film concludes with Raju recovering following treatment and agreeing to give up his worldly possessions to his mother and leaving home with his wife and father. However, at the last moment, Laxmi begs him not to leave, claiming to have learnt the error of her ways; she tears up all the property papers and tells him that she does not want his wealth, all she wants is 'her son' and nothing more.

Cast[link]

• Anil Kapoor as Raju
• Madhuri Dixit as Saraswati
• Aruna Irani as Laxmi
• Laxmikant Berde as Pandu
• Anupam Kher as Totaram
• Priya Arun as Champa
• Kunika as Kunika
• Bharati Achrekar as Mainavati

Soundtrack[link]

The music of the song "Dhak Dhak Karne Laga" was a copy of Ilayaraja's super hit song "Abbanee teeyani debba" of a 1990 Telugu movie Jagadeka Veerudu Athiloka Sundari starring Sridevi and Chiranjeevi which in 1991 was dubbed into Hindi as Aadmi Aur Apsara. The song "Koyal Se Teri Boli" was also a copy of the Tamil song "Kondai Seval Koovum Neram" from the movie "Enga Chinna Rasa" by K. Bhagyaraj, also with a similar storyline.

Filmfare Awards[link]

Won[link]

• Best Actor - Anil Kapoor
• Best Actress - Madhuri Dixit
• Best Supporting Actress - Aruna Irani
• Best Female Singer - Anuradha Paudwal

Nominated[link]

• Best Film - Indra Kumar, Ashok Thakeria
• Best Director - Indra Kumar
• Best Performance in a Comic Role - Laxmikant Berde
• Best Music Director - Anand-Milind

Other versions[link]

The story line has been inspiration for various movies and has had various remakes in Indian film industry.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Beta at the Internet Movie Database

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