Ghajini
Ghajini (கஜினி) is a 2005 Tamil psychological thriller film directed by A. R. Murugadoss released on September 29, 2005. The film stars Surya Sivakumar, Asin Thottumkal, Nayantara, Pradeep Rawat and Riyaz Khan. It was remade into a Hindi film by Murugadoss again, starring Aamir Khan with Asin Thottumkal playing the same role. The film’s concept is copied from Christopher Nolan’s Memento.
The film’s story is around a rich business entrepreneur falling in love with an ad film actress. The entrepreneur and the actress fall in love, though she does not know that he is an entrepreneur. When she successfully saves a bunch of children who were in danger, she is brutally murdered by a gang leader and the entrepreneur himself gets hit hard on the head when he tries to save his lover, eventually leading him into a state of short term memory loss. He is later studied about and helped by a psychology student to take revenge on the one who murdered his lover.
The story centers on Sanjay Ramaswami (Surya Sivakumar), a rich businessman who owns a cell phone company named Air Voice and the events surrounding his relationship with Kalpana (Asin Thottumkal).
Kalpana Shetty, an advertisement model, meets with representatives from Sanjay’s company who come to request a business agreement and ends up telling her advertisement crew that she is Sanjay’s love interest – after the crew mistakenly thought that the executives were sent by Sanjay to ask for her love. She has never met him, but soon exploits popularity from her “relationship” with him and inadvertently gives an interview for a magazine. Sanjay, who reads the article, goes to confront her. On his way, he catches a fleeting glimpse of Kalpana (whom he doesn’t know yet) helping handicapped children to cross a street, and falls in love. He moves on to confront Kalpana at her advertisement studio and is pleasantly surprised to find that she is the same woman he saw a while ago. He chooses to hide his true identity, takes the name Manohar, so that he can get to know her. Kalpana eventually falls in love with him.
Once, while on a train to Mumbai, Kalpana saves a group of young girls from abuse by a group of goons led by Lakshman (Pradeep Rawat).
After a few days, the same goons come to Kalpana’s house in order to avenge their embarrassment. Incidentally, Sanjay arrives at the scene and fights off the goons, but during the ensuing fight, Kalpana is murdered. Kalpana never finds out that he is Sanjay. Lakshman then strikes the downcast Sanjay on his head severely with a metal rod. Sanjay survives the blow, but suffers a short-term amnesia.
His condition makes him forget everything that happened every 15 minutes. The only memory he has is of Kalpana’s murder, though he cannot remember the murderer. He embarks on a quest to avenge her. Despite his condition, he succeeds in finding and killing Lakshman’s men. Chitra([Nayantara]), a medical student, takes interest in Sanjay’s case and meets him. Sanjay, reluctantly, adds her to his photo collection labeling her as a friend so that she could meet him and talk later. Later, Chitra finds his intention to murder Lakshman and squeals on him.
Lakshman is amused that a man with short term memory loss is trying to kill him. Nevertheless, he destroys all the information Sanjay collected, all his photos and even shaved the tattoos Sanjay had off so that he will forget his quest. However, Chitra finds and reads Sanjay’s journal and become sympathetic to his cause. She tells Sanjay who murdered Kalpana.
In the final confrontation, Sanjay fights with both Lakshman and his twin brother and kills them.
Written & Directed by: A. R. Murugadoss
Starring: Surya, Asin Thottumkal, Nayantara, Pradeep Rawat, Riyaz Khan
Music: Harris Jayaraj
Cinematography: R. D. Rajasekhar
Editing: Anthony
Release date: September 29, 2005
