Aulad

...the 80s were mainly defined for producing atrocious Indian cinema. Aulad is more a typical Bollywood melodrama which is only watchable for Sridevi's performance. She is excellent as the charming street dancer, as the honest citizen and as the tormented mother. The horrendous background score will sound familiar as it's been used in almost all 80's crap. Jeetendra is wooden. Jaya Prada is alright but she too overacts in some scenes. Music is forgettable. There's an annoying kid who tries to be cute. Supporting cast (that includes talents like Dina Pathak and Bharat Bhushan) is wasted. Special effects are extremely poor. If you have absolutely nothing else to watch, you could give this one a shot...at your own cost.

Aulad is a story of conflict between the biological mother of child and the person who brought him up giving all the love of a mother but he was not his child. I have seen another movie with Rajendra Kumar and Meena Kumari made in the late fifties with the title "Chirag Kahan Roshni Kahan" with the same story line. In fact I heard one line of the song "Mere Ghore Tik Tik Tik" in Aulad also. Under special circumstances where his wife died suddenly or presumed dead, the father Anand ( Jeetendra ) gives up his child to Yashoda ( Jayaprada ) because his own wife Devki ( Sridevi ) is presumed dead in a train accident and Yashoda's child did not survive the complications during child birth. Both Sridevi and Jayapada give commendable performances as the two mothers claiming the only surviving child who was brought up by Yashoda and was claimed by Devki as her own. Saeed Jaffrey as the uncle of Anand acted well. I have seen him before in Gandhi as Sardar Patel. He definitely looked a lot slimmer than he was in Gandhi, probably because Gandhi told him in the movie to slim down. Jeetendra was fine in the role of the father and also did well with his antics in the first part of the movie which was more of a comedy. The movie turned into serious melodrama after the train accident but moved very well with a very good script. The music was average and so was the cinematography. Sridevi's street dance sequence was very enjoyable and she just excelled in it. If you are a Jeetendra Sridevi pair fan – watch this movie. You will like it. I gave it a seven out of ten.

Aulad is a very well scripted film. The film starts as a romantic comedy and later turns into a melodramatic tear-jerker. This is the story of a young couple, Jeetendra and Sridevi. Sridevi just gave birth to a child and tragically disappears during a fatal train accident. Her husband is sure she has died, and when he finds out that a family friend, played by Jaya Prada, has lost her husband and now lost her to-be-born baby, he gives his child to the doctor and asks him to give it to her. Jaya herself does not know this child is not hers. Time goes by and after a few years Sridevi suddenly appears. She had reportedly suffered from amnesia all these years. She is shocked when her husband tells her their baby did not survive the accident. The couple also discover that Sridevi cannot conceive after this very damned accident, and she feels her world is destroyed upon her. Soon she meets Jaya and is charmed by "her" son. After some time she notices that her husband's affection for this boy is too unusual and understands that this is actually her child, which her husband ultimately admits. All the melodrama begins there, including the conflict, the court, the suffering, the tears and the pain.

All the three leading actors do a fine job. Both Sridevi and Jaya Prada excel in their respective parts. Jeetendra is also pretty good. The film's music is decent, the story is interesting and the movie flows quite well. This is a typical film in terms of emotions and it has some overly melodramatic sequences, particularly towards the end, which are insufferable, but it has a different story and it shows the power of a mother's love for her child and vice versa, and above all, the power of humanity. Many of the sequences involving the kid, the court scenes, and the verdict actually really manage to move. The film may attract different moral views from viewers as to who this boy should stay with, his biological mother or the one who brought him up and whom he considers his mother. I myself was torn between the two and couldn't really decide what I would have done had I been the writer. Surprisingly enough, the ending is heart-warming and relieving and shows once again the superb talent of Hindi cinema's family fares, which may be melodramatic, clichéd and overly conflicted, but they still present their original and optimistic ways to iron everything out. Overall, among all the terrible action films of that era, this one is an enjoyable and distinct piece. I recommend.

Watched while stitching as such films don't really need much attention - only dialogues more than enough. Full melodrama which I enjoy. Good acting by the little kid.

P.S. The characters' name itself give away the whole story. 😂