Our Most Memorable Indian Movie of the 70s?

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This is a wild guess, but is it possible that one of the few Indian movies you saw as a teenager in the 70s - maybe even the first Indian film you ever watched - was this one called "Haathi Mere Saathi" (or "Elephants My Friends") ? Remember this was long before Bollywood became a household word.

The film made a big hit in the early 70s. It starred Rajesh Khanna, Tanuja and David Abraham in the lead roles.The director was M.A. Thirumugham.

The plot is as follows: Orphaned Raju  performs with four elephants at street corners, in order to keep alive. Slowly he amasses riches, and is able to build his own private zoo, housing tigers, lions, bears, and of course the four elephants. He treats all the animals as his friends. He meets with Tanu, and they fall in love. Tanu's dad, Ratanlal, is opposed to this alliance, but subsequently relents, and permits the young couple to get married. Tanu is unhappy with the amount of time Raju spends with his animal friends, and this causes some tension between them. Things do not improve when a child is born, as Tanu fears that one day the child will be harmed by one of the animals, and hence Raju is told to make a choice between his animal friends or his wife and son.

Well, here's one of the famous scenes from the film. It is the part where the well-remembered song was sung. I know for a fact that some of my former classmates can sing this song word for word !

Did that bring back memories? Do share what you remember, and whether this whetted your appetite for the bigger Bollywood numbers that appeared much later ...
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