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Twenty years ago Mahesh Bhatt made another semi-autiobiographical statement with a movie Kaash. I just happened to watch it again last week.

More than anything that struck me while watching it was its deja vu feeling. I had seen it somewhere.
And then it dawned upon me that it has lots of resemblance to the recent release The Pursuit of Happyness starring Will smith and his real life son Jaden Syre Smith and directed by italian direcctor Gabriele Muccino!

The story as such of both films is quite different in treatment but what bonds them together is the depiction of father-son relationship.And travails of a single parent.Though The Pursuit of Happyness is based on true story of Chris Gardner, it is basically a rags to riches story with Chris’s passion to achieve his ambition of becoming a qualified stock broker from a struggling medical supply salesman.

In Kaash the protagonist Jackie Shroff is already a Hindi Film Industry’s star(that time Bollywood was not on the horizon-when did the term get coined and became widely used, is an interesting topic itself) who goes downhill after his foray into film production and then his venture as a film producer bombing at the box office.It is his story of redemtion and his all out efforts to provide happiness to his dying son Romu (Makarand) who has been diagnosed with terminal brain tumor.

In both Kaash and The Pursuit of Happyness the wives leave due to financial challenges and other contributory factors. The end result is that both fathers are left with their sons whom they love very much and to whom they want to give a better life and happiness in abundance.Though Jackie Shroff has lost faith in himself (that is a sad reflection on reality of the glamour world), Will Smith never loses faith in himself.What I liked most about both films’ screenplay was the presence of sons as the guiding angels and mentors who provide their fathers with the purpose to carry on and fulfil their dreams.

In Kaash Dimple Kapadia as Jackie’s wife comes back eventually( and it goes very well with Indian ethos and culture). In The Pursuit of Happyness it does not happen and it is not dwelt on much also.

The common theme that strikes a chord in both movies deals with something metaphysical and it is about happiness being in the ordinary and that’s what makes it extraordinary.

Now coming to an issue that is always sizzling in Bollywood-an issue of copying and plagiarising. Watching both movies, i wonder can we say The Pursuit of Happyness got inspired by Kaash? Because it came twenty years after..Kaash it were true? Or do you have another take on that?