Maybe after watching Bollywood movies for almost thirty years since a young age I have become somewhat cynical to Bollywood movies. Ten years ago I probably have lapped a movie like Arpan up but as it turned out I actually disliked it quite a bit. The story goes like this, Jeetendra has to leave his girlfriend (Reena Roy) when he goes abroad for a job. In the meantime Roy's employer (the magnificent Raj Babbar) takes a fancy to her too and when she turns him down, he decides he must seek vengeance on her so he learns that Jeetendra's unwed sister is pregnant,he uses to his advantage to blackmail Roy into marrying him, which she does to save the honour of Jeentendra's family. On his return to India, Jeteendra is left devastated, not knowing the real reason why Roy ended up marrying her employer.
The second half deals with how Babbar abuses Roy, Jeetendra trying to movie on with his life and how things comes to a head when the truth comes out.
That is the basic gist of the plot, the first half is tolerable but the second half has a lot of unnecessary melodrama, most of it completely unconvincing, like whenBabbar finds out that his days of drinking have finally taken a toll on his health and he suddenly changes his attitude towards his wife andshe believes him without batting an eyelid.
Then there is the tearjerker finale, which comes completely out of the blue and serves no purpose whatsoever other than to manipulate the audience. To be honest by that point I couldn't really care less.
The one thing Arpan does have going for it is some wonderful music, courtesy of Lyricist Anand Bakshi and Lakmikant Pyarelal. Pardes mein ja kar pardesiyan and Mohabbat Ijarat baan gaye are superb.
All in all I expected better from J. Om Prakash, whose Apnanpan and Asha I actually liked quite a bit.
If you do like emotional dramas then there are better movies out there to sink your teeth into.
Completely forgettable fare
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