Sharmeelee

Sharmeelee (trans. Shy) is a 1971 Indian Hindi-language romantic film produced by Subodh Mukherjee and directed by Samir Ganguly. The film stars Shashi Kapoor, Raakhee, Narendra Nath, Nazir Hussain, Iftekhar, S N Banerjee, Anita Guha, Asit Sen. Raakhee played a double role in this film, and its success helped make her one of the decade's top leading ladies in Hindi films. The film also marked the debut of Ranjeet.[2] The film starts on a romantic track, but after halfway takes a brilliant turn towards mystery and thriller genre.

While returning from the Army Base, Captain Ajit Kapoor stops over at a rest-house, where there is a party on, and he meets a charming, vivacious young lady. When he reaches home, his guardian, Father Joseph, wants him to get married. When Joseph accompanies Ajit to see the girl, whose name is Kanchan, Ajit is thrilled to find out that it is the very same girl he met at the rest-house. Ajit indicates his approval, and the stage is set for them to get married. It is then that Ajit finds out that Kanchan is not the girl he had met, but her twin-sister. Kanchan is heart-broken at this, but wants her sister to be happy. Ajit is even more happy when he finally meets Kamini, who also recognizes him. She tries to put a spanner in the works by emotionally attacking Ajit.

Then Ajit's Army Colonel summons him for assistance in locating a female spy, who closely resembles Kanchan.

The soundtrack of Sharmeelee was an instant hit with the Indian audience, with songs composed by S. D. Burman, written by Neeraj and sung by Kishore Kumar, Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle. The songs had featured on the Binaca Geetmala top 10 songs of 1971. The track "Khilte Hain Gul Yahan", sung by Kishore Kumar and Lata Mangeshkar as separate solos in the movie, has been set in the raag Bhimpalasi (known as Abheri in Carnatic Music).

Sharmeelee was declared a "Semi-hit" by Box Office India. Sharmeelee had powerful and promising performances by the lead actors, Shashi Kapoor and Raakhee, and had received both critical as well as commercial success. It had netted approximately ₹ 2,60,00,000.[3]