Kareeb (Hindi: क़रीब, translation: close) is a 1998 Bollywood film directed by Vidhu Vinod Chopra. It stars Bobby Deol and Shabana Raza.

Plot[link]

Bobby Deol (Birju) is a young man from an upper middle class family in Himachal Pradesh. His father insists on him being responsible, while Birju is interested in petty thievery, lies, and romancing a beautiful young woman named Neha. Neha is a simple, beautiful, and responsible girl from a poor family. Birju sees Neha for the first time on a river bank during a 'Sandhya Aarti' with lots of 'diyas' lit around her. Birju falls in love with Neha from that very moment. Neha also starts liking birju but she hides her feelings. Birju tries everything to impress Neha but every effort and Neha accepts that she loves Birju and can't live without him.

Birju's father is interested in getting Birju married to a poor family but Birju lies that Nehas's uncle is rich and arranges their wedding. Birju steals money from his home and pretends that the money has been sent by Neha's uncle. However on the night of the wedding, Birju's father discovers the truth and calls off the wedding.

Neha's mother, unable to withstand this emotional setback, suffers a heart attack and is transferred to a hospital in Shimla. When Birju meets Neha, but she is very sad for her mother and also very angry on birju for his habit of lying. Neha takes an oath from birju that he would never show his face again. Then neha takes her mother to a shimla hospital in an ambulance. Birju follows her and eventually does find Neha and the hospital where Neha's mother is hospitalized. Birju spends that night sleeping on the footsteps of a laundry shop owned by Bhigelal (Johnny Lever). Bhigelal is an interesting character as well. He has a dream of visiting England one day and the fellow has a collection of antique coins to sell it to some diwanji. He earns hard and with the money earned by coins and his hard work, he plans to visit England (which also was his father's dream). He hires birju and birju starts working as a laundry boy. This is birju's first job and he does that to stay near neha and to earn some money to support the treatment for neha's mother. One day birju meets uncle and aunty (Shammi Kapoor and Sushma Seth). They treat Birju as their own son and tells him to meet them whenever he needs help.

Once when Birju makes inquiries about neha's mother, he is told by the receptionist that neha's mother needs an immediate operation and the operation for Neha's mother will be very expensive and will cost in lakhs of rupees. On the other hand, neha tries to contact birju for help but is not able to contact him. There comes doctor Abhay in the scene. He is very fond of neha and proposes her for marriage as if she marries Dr. Abhay then her mother's operation can be done for free as doctors have their free quota for their relatives.

Here Birju goes to uncle and aunty and they suggests him to buy a lottery ticket and they will make him win by corrupting some government officials and asks birju to get them some amount to bribe the officials. Birju buys the ticket, works hard day and night and gathers the amount for bribing and gives it uncle and aunty but eventually comes to know that uncle and aunty were a fraud and they took money from many other people and ran away. finally helpless birju robs the money from bhigelal to pay for the surgery. He returns to the hospital with the money and gives it to the doctor and asks the doctor to keep that secret to Neha.

On the other side, birju's family realizes birju's loves for neha and decides to support their son in simla. They reach simla and handle things with bhigelal who goes mad on seeing his robbed drawer with Birju's note consisting of a promise to return back the money. Neha comes to know that birju helped her in the operation money required and wants to meet him. They both meet again on staircase of hospital and times stops again to see them completely in love with each other.

Cast[link]

• Bobby Deol...Brij 'Birju' Kumar
• Shabana Raza...Neha
• Moushumi Chatterjee...Neha's Mother
• Johnny Lever...Bighelaal
• Sushma Seth...Lata (Mrs. Thakur Ranbir Singh)
• Saurabh Shukla...Birju's father
• Shammi Kapoor...Thakur Ranbir Singh
• Vijayendra Ghatge...Diwan Virendranath

Soundtrack[link]

Anu Malik wrote the film's music and Rahat Indori penned the lyrics. The pair was sued by Syed Mohammed Hasan Imam who alleged that they had used his lyrics without permission in Haan Judai Se Darta Hai Dil.

External links[link]

• Kareeb at the Internet Movie Database

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