indian cinema heritage foundation

Karz (The Burden Of Truth) (2002)

  • Release Date2002
  • GenreAction
  • FormatColor
  • LanguageHindi
  • Run Time122 min
  • Censor RatingU
  • Shooting LocationRamoji Film City (Hyderabad), Film City, Kamal Amrohi Studios, Filmistan Studios, Savera Studias, New Zealand
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This is an unfortunate tale of a young boy Sooraj (Sunny Deol) abandoned by his mother Savitri Devi (Kiran Kher) for reasons he does not understand and cannot phantom. Homeless and alone, he is adopted by a kind hearted childless widower (Rajive Verma) - who learns the tragic truth about the young boy from the local doctor.

Though the years pass and the boy runs into a man, the tormenting experience of rejection and renunciation continues to fester deep in his consciousness. Yearning only for the truth and the love of his mother - Sooraj seeks refuge in alcohol.

Then one day the most unexpected thing happens-Sapna (Shilpa Shetty) the beautiful daughter of his father's friend comes to live with them. And for her Sooraj even gives up drinking - only as they spend their days together he still doesn't know how to tell Sapna that he loves her.

At the same time Sooraj befriends a rather delightful young man, Raja (Sunil Shetty), who fondly calls him his big brother. Raja has run away from home upon the insistence of his mother to marry a woman he does not love - in search of a woman he does love. Someone from his city Dharampur, and every time Raja gets into trouble for his pranks like a big brother. Sooraj keeps bailing him out.

But the bond between the two men soon turns into a rivalry as Sooraj finds out that the girl Raja has been teasing is none other than Sapna, conflict ensues - but Raja keeps insisting that his intentions about Sapna are completely honourable and that he intends on marrying Sapna. And contrary to what Sooraj thinks of him until now - he truly does comes from a very affluent family and he's not just an ordinary rift raft. But Sooraj does not believe him until Raja tells him that his father owns a haveli in his town and his mother is Savitri Devi.

Sooraj's first hangs in mind air. But some crazy twist of fate he had found Raja his younger brother - who would take him to his mother. And when he meets her he will ask her why she never loves him; why she had to leave him all alone with ever looking back to see what had become of him; what wrong he had done to deserve this; and how all these years he had longed for her.

But as Sooraj tells this to his father - his father makes Sooraj take a vow. A vow of never saying a word of this to his mother - for what if she abandoned him once again? Left him without ever telling him anything - would he be able to bare it all over again.

So Sooraj keeps his silence. Never saying a word to his mother - until one day he can't bare it any longer when at a party he hears his mother tell someone that she has only one son - Raja. On the Piano he plays a tune that she used to sing to Raja when he was a child and he leaves angry and confused.

A stunned mother follows Sooraj back to his home and hears him sing the lori she used to sing for Raja; she then tells Sooraj that she didn't know he was alive and that they told her he was dead and she embraces him - only to fall prey to a hysterical rapture, rejecting him completely the very next second.

Thus Sooraj learns the truth about himself. What is the truth?

[From the official press booklets]

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