One of the most entertaining as well as enlightening films by writer-director Hrishikesh Mukherjee, ANAND is unanimously loved by one and all for its life teaching theme, meaningful lyrics, melodious compositions, dialogues and performances collectively turning it into a timeless creation by the maestros unarguably.
Interestingly, the film was to be made with another star-cast all together as the central character of Anand was originally inspired by Raj Kapoor, who used to call Hrishikesh Mukherjee as "Babu Moshaye". However as years passed, casting went through a major change as reported (from Shashi Kapoor, Kishore Kumar to Mehmood as Dr. Bannerjee) and the role was intelligently grabbed by Rajesh Khanna, who did wonders, giving his own new dimension to the epic role becoming one of his career best performances with a difference. But then honoring his original inspiration behind the film, the director dedicated the film to Raj Kapoor and The people of Bombay (now Mumbai) mentioning the same in the film’s titles as a humble token of love and respect.
Adding to the inspirations, the theme of Akira Kurosawa’s IKIRU (1952/Japanese) remains too close to ANAND, also revolving around a person very well knowing about his fast approaching death and his uncertain time period left. As a famous World Cinema classic of those times, IKIRU might have been a reference source material for Mukherjee having a similar idea. But this influence more appears to be an admiration of one master for another, since the two films follow their own distinctive approach and story progression talking about a common subject.
In other words, widely acclaimed as true magicians of their art, both Mukherjee and Kurosawa had their own mesmerizing style of filmmaking admired by cinema lovers all over the world and that is the reason both ANAND and IKIRU remain two unique masterpieces of World cinema despite having similar subject and a central character suffering from terminal illness.
Cheers!
