Saaransh - Anupam Kher

Saaransh (1984) directed by Mahesh Bhatt was Anupam Kher's first outing as a lead actor. It was an amazing performance considering he was just touching 30's at that time and he enacted the role of an old man (grieving the death of his young son) in his 70's.

The movie also had Rohini Hattangadi, Soni Razdan, Madan Jain and Deepak Qaizer in pivotal roles.

Interesting trivia about Saaransh is that Mahesh Bhatt had zeroed in on Anupam Kher to play the main lead of Mr. Pradhan. However, the producers of the film thought that Anupam Kher, who was an unknown face at that time, would not go down well with the audiences and that he may not be accepted as a lead actor. Hence, the producers were insisting on casting a bankable actor like Sanjeev Kumar in the role of Mr. Pradhan.

Anupam Kher heard this piece of news (from a third source) and marched to Mahesh Bhatt's house to fight with him. He had a big fight with Mahesh Bhatt and Mahesh Bhatt tried to console him that he was not aware of what had happened. Thereafer, Mahesh Bhatt went over to the producer and made out the case for sticking with Anupam Kher as he had given him his word.

Needless to say, they made the movie Anupam Kher. I read in one of Anupam Kher's interviews that even Sanjeev Kumar came and told him that if he were to potray the character of Mr. Pradhan, he wouldnt' have been as convincing as Anupam Kher.