Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna

Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna
Soundtrack album by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy
Released	12 June 2006 (UK); 16 June 2006 (India)
Genre	Feature film soundtrack
Length	42:07
Label	Sony BMG
Producer	Mayank-Kaustubh
Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy chronology

Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna
	Theatrical Release Poster
Directed by	Karan Johar
Produced by	Hiroo Yash Johar; Karan Johar
Written by	Karan Johar; Shibani Bathija; Niranjan Iyengar
Starring	Amitabh Bachchan; Shah Rukh Khan; Abhishek Bachchan; Rani Mukerji; Preity Zinta; Kirron Kher
Narrated by	Shah Rukh Khan
Music by	Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy
Cinematography	Anil Mehta
Edited by	Sanjay Sankla
Production; company	Dharma Productions
Distributed by	Dharma Productions; Yash Raj Films
Release date	11 August 2006; ; ; ; ;
Running time	192 minutes
Country	India
Language	Hindi; English
Budget	?50 crore
Box office	?113 crore

Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (lit. Never say goodbye) is a 2006 Indian Hindi-language musical romantic drama, directed by Karan Johar and produced under the Dharma Productions banner. Released on 11 August 2006 in India and North America, it stars Shah Rukh Khan, Rani Mukerji, Abhishek Bachchan and Preity Zinta, with Amitabh Bachchan and Kirron Kher in supporting roles. Arjun Rampal also makes a special appearance in the film.

Set and mostly taking place in New York City, Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna explores themes of adultery. Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna was promoted with the tag-line, "A Love.... That Broke All Relationships". It was a success internationally especially in the United States. It became the highest grossing Indian film of all time overseas at the time of its release. The film was screened in over 1,200 cinemas worldwide, grossing a worldwide total of ?1.13 billion (US$17 million).

It was screened at the Tokyo International Film Festival. The script received recognition by a number of critics and was invited to be included in the library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Plot

Maya (Rani Mukerji) is an orphan who is to marry her closest childhood friend Rishi Talwar (Abhishek Bachchan). The two have been raised by Rishi's fun-loving father Samarjit a.k.a. Sam (Amitabh Bachchan). Dev Saran (Shah Rukh Khan) is a successful soccer player in the United States. He lives in New York City with his wife Rhea (Preity Zinta), his son Arjun (Ahsaas Channa) and his mother Kamaljit a.k.a. Kamal (Kirron Kher). Maya encounters Dev moments before she is to marry Rishi. Although Dev and Maya are strangers, they connect instantly and moments after they part, Dev is hit by a car and permanently injures his leg.

Four years later, Dev is now extremely short tempered and bitter because of his inability to play soccer and Rhea's successful career makes him feel inferior to her. Maya too is in a similar situation. She has found that she is infertile and does not feel any love towards Rishi because she believes he is selfish. Dev and Maya witness Sam and Kamal embracing at a flower shop. Sam and Kamal explain that both, having lost their spouses, have decided to help one another through their loneliness by means of friendship. Dev and Maya decide to take a break from the stress of their respective relationships. In doing so, they find themselves drawn to one another.

Dev and Maya arrange a dinner for their respective spouses on the occasion of their wedding anniversaries so as to salvage their respective marriages. After returning home from the dinner, Rhea accuses Dev of being jealous of her professional success and also makes Dev realize his failure in being a good father to their son. Rishi expresses frustration at the lack of affection that Maya has shown towards him and resents Maya's inability to have children. Maya arrives at the train station and finds Dev, who after a confrontation finally confesses that he has fallen in love with Maya, and so has she.

Sensing the tension in their children's marriages, Sam and Kamal try to talk Rhea and Rishi into trying to reach out to their spouses and when they do, Dev and Maya start feeling guilty because they are happier with each other than with their respective spouses. The two couples attend a ballet, where Dev and Maya try making each other jealous by showing affection to their partners. The next day, they realize that they have been playing with their spouses' feelings but nevertheless give in to their love and cross the forbidden limit by sleeping together.

The next day, Sam invites the Sarans for a dinner party on the occasion of Kamal's birthday. At the party, after a conversation on love, marriage and fidelity, Dev 'jokingly' confesses that he loves Maya. Sam senses that there was more to Dev's remark than light banter. The next day, Dev and Maya are caught in an embrace outside the train station by Sam and Kamal. Both Sam and Kamal are shocked and upset at the fact that Dev and Maya cheated on their spouses, despite both Rhea and Rishi's attempts to salvage their respective marriages. That night, Sam has a heart attack. On his deathbed, he advises Maya to leave Rishi as she was depriving Rishi and herself of true love and happiness in life. After Sam's death, Dev and Maya decide they must end their relationship and go back to their respective spouses, but first they must tell them the truth about their extramarital affair, because neither of them would be able to move on with their spouses in the shadow of dishonesty. Shocked and heart-broken, Rhea and Rishi divorce their spouses. Dev and Maya lie to each other and say that they have managed to sort things out with their spouses, believing they'll never meet again.

Three years have passed since their last encounter with each other. Rishi visits Maya and says that he has fallen in love again and is remarrying. Rhea, having also been invited, arrives at Rishi's wedding with her boss Jay (Arjun Rampal), whom she is now dating. Rhea learns that Rishi and Maya are divorced – Rishi learns the same about Dev and Rhea. Rhea, after confronting Maya tells her that she had left Dev as soon as she came to know of his affair with her. Maya is encouraged by Rishi and Rhea to stop Dev, who is leaving for Toronto by train. At the train station, Dev sees Maya but tries to avoid her, believing she is still with Rishi. Maya sees him just as the train leaves. Dev, having seen Maya's teary eyes, pulls the emergency brake and arrives back at the station. He makes it back before Maya leaves the train station. They finally find happiness with their true love and decide to start a new life together. At the end, Dev mentions that true love should be the only foundation of a relationship. A flawed foundation would lead to the breakdown of the relationship, which in turn would lead to heartbreak.

Cast

Abhishek Bachchan as Rishi Talwar
Preity Zinta as Rhea Saran
Amitabh Bachchan as Samarjit "Sam" Talwar
Shah Rukh Khan as Dev Saran
Rani Mukerji as Maya Talwar
Kirron Kher as Kamaljit "Kamal" Saran
Ahsaas Channa as Arjun Saran, Dev and Rhea's son
Arjun Rampal as Jai, Rhea's boss
Kajol in the song "Rock 'N' Roll Soniye"
John Abraham as DJ in the song "Where's The Party Tonight?"
Riteish Deshmukh as Mr. Narang, Maya's boss (Deleted Scene)
Kavi Chopra as a young soccer player
Karan Johar as Train passenger in a special appearance

Production

Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna was directed and written by Karan Johar who collaborated with Shibani Bathija to write the screenplay, and Niranjan Iyengar produced the dialogue. Produced by Dharma Productions, the soundtrack was performed by the musical trio, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy with lyrics written by Javed Akhtar. Farah Khan was brought in to organise the choreographical aspects of the film, with costume designer Manish Malhotra, production designer Sharmishta Roy and MAC cosmetics all playing a major role in production.

Kajol was initially offered the role of Maya Talwar. When she refused, due to her prior commitments with Yash Raj Films's Fanaa, the role was passed on to her cousin Rani Mukerji, who was supposed to play Preity Zinta's part. However, Kajol made a guest appearance in the song "Rock 'N' Roll Soniye". Riteish Deshmukh also had a guest appearance, but his scene was cut during the editing process.

Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna is set in New York City, while many of the scenes were filmed in East Hartford and New Haven in Connecticut. The soccer game scene was filmed at Rentschler Field, the home of the UConn Huskies football team. In several scenes, a light 'UConn' can be seen on the field. The majority of the Grand Central Station scenes were filmed at New Haven's Union Station and Philadelphia's 30th Street Station. In an interview Karan Johar stated that the filming for the song "Tum hi dekho na" was done at multiple locations and ended up being extremely time consuming. The "blue section" of the song was shot at Columbia University in New York, the "yellow section" was shot at Wall Street, the "orange section" in Bare Mountain, the "green section" in New Haven, and the "red section" in Hoboken. The red section was initially designed to take place in the rain. However, due to the low temperatures, the rain drops produced by the rain machines started freezing in mid air. This posed a risk of physical harm to the actors. Consequently, the film makers decided to do away with the rain. However, they still wanted to make use of the 200 red umbrellas they had purchased. Eventually, they decided to shoot the red section on a sunny day where the actors used the umbrellas to block out the sun. The shooting for the green section also ran into problems. Two hundred extras were hired for the section but only fifteen showed up. Consequently, crew members present on the set wore the green costumes to take their place. Ayan Mukherji who was an Assistant Director of the film can be seen in a green sweater carrying a box in one of the frames.

The movie was filmed over a 90-day shooting period in the USA but a few scenes were shot on four large sets in Mumbai studios.

Rani Mukherji suffered from a severe skin allergy during the filming in the US.

Like previous Karan Johar movies (Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham... and Kal Ho Naa Ho), Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna has a four-word title that starts with a "K".

Soundtrack

The music and background score of Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna was composed by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy while the lyrics were penned by Javed Akhtar and the soundtrack was released on 16 June 2006 by Sony BMG in India.

Development

This is the second time that lyricist Javed Akhtar and the composers Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy have teamed up for a Dharma production. The title song Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna rendered by Sonu Nigam and Alka Yagnik is a tearjerker. Mitwa, an evocative sufi rock ballad, marked the introduction of Pakistani singer Shafqat Amanat Ali into the Bollywood scene. Rock 'N' Roll Soniye, picturized on Amitabh, Abhishek and Preity is a 60's Rock 'N' Roll track, sung by Shankar Mahadevan, Shaan and Mahalakshmi Iyer. Then follows Tumhi Dekho Naa, a soft and romantic ballad, which again is sung by the Sonu Nigam - Alka Yagnik duo, is picturised on Shah Rukh and Rani. Where's The Party Tonight? by Shaan, Vasundhara Das, Loy and Shankar Mahadevan is the club song picturized on Abhishek and Preity. Farewell Trance is the trance version of the title track, which is a rarity in Bollywood. The album also has a remix - Mitwa - Revisted. The soundtrack ends with a sad version of the title track, "Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna - Sad Version" which speaks of destiny, meeting again in life and never saying good bye.

The trio took care to not make the album sound repetitive, especially since the overall genre of the soundtrack is similar to that of their previous chartbuster Kal Ho Naa Ho (2003).

Release

The music of Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna was launched in the United Kingdom on 12 June 2006 and was officially released in India on 16 June 2006 along with a grand music launch at the IIFA Awards function in Dubai.