Stylish Jaikishan Kakubhai Shroff made his debut in Hindi films through Dev Anand’s film ‘Swami Dada’. Little before that he was into modelling and was regularly spotted at Teen Batti in Walkeshwar, where my friend from college lived. Whenever I met my friend I saw this young man with his group of friends and he invited attention of the people with his stylish looks. Those days, his photos used to appear in magazine and newspaper ads.
Jackie Shroff & Meenakshi Sheshadri in ‘Hero’
Soon Jaikishan turned a real hero through Subhash Ghai’s film ‘Hero’ where he was casted opposite Miss India 1981 Meenakshi Sheshadri. Meenakshi had already made her debut through ‘Painer Babu’ a flop film. But, this new pair worked very well for this 1983 Subhash Ghai film to achieve a big success. Both of them gained popularity and started receiving good offers after this film. ‘Hero’ was declared a ‘Blockbuster’ at the Indian Box Office .The film also had Shammi Kapoor, Sanjeev Kumar, Shakti Kapoor, Madan Puri , Amrish Puri and others who played important roles. And all the six songs of this film on the music of Laxmikant Pyarelal had received popularity.
Saneev Kumar with Shakti Kapoor in ‘Hero’
Unfortunately, the film could not win any filmfare awards, except for being nominated in the Best Playback Singer ( Anuradha Paudwal) category for the song ‘Tu Mera janu…’. The film had tough competition from other films like Giovind Nihlani’s ‘Ardh Satya’ and Shekhar Kapoor’s ‘Masoon’ which grabbed maximum awards for that year.
However, ‘Hero’ was remade in Telugu as ‘Vikram’ and also in Kannada as ‘Ranadheera’. In 2015 we also saw a remake of this film with the same name, directed by Nikhil Advani. But, this film failed to impress. The original is always the best. And today 16th December , the original ‘Hero’ celebrates 37 years.