Cast
Aishwarya Rai ... Amiran/Umrao Jaan
Shabana Azmi ... Khannum Jaan
Abhishek Bachchan ... Nawab Sultan
Suniel Shetty ... Faiz Ali
Divya Dutta ... Bismillah
Himani Shivpuri ...
Kulbhushan Kharbanda ...
Ayesha Jhulka ... Khursheed
Plot
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
A little girl, Ameeran, from a lower-middle-class Muslim family in Faizabad, is kidnapped and sold to a brothel in Lucknow. Played by Rai, she grows up to be the most famous nautch girl of her times and is re-christened Umrao Jaan.
While performing her first mujra, she falls in love with Nawab Sultan (Bachchan) and vows to be loyal to him all her life. However, fate decides otherwise, and Umrao ends up having to wait for him to make a life for them, after the Nawab's father throws him out of his home. Umrao decides to wait for her lover, even as the dacoit Faiz Ali (Shetty) wants to woo her.
Faiz Ali takes her away to Gari, with the hopes of marrying her, but she thinks of looking for her lover, Nawab Sultan. She finds out Faiz Ali was the most wanted robber, and is taken to jail. There she re-unites with Nawab Sultan, but he breaks her heart as he tells her he cannot see her anymore, because he is getting married.
She returns to Lucknow, and is raped by her childhood friend who was always in love with her. She is then told to flee and is taken back to her hometown of Faizabad. She sees her mother and brother once more, but they tell her she cannot be seen with them because of her reputation of being a prostitute. Devastated, Umrao returns to Lucknow, where she lives a lonely life, only taking solace in poetry.
The film is a journey of a woman who is living a life born out of circumstances, and has no control over her own destiny. Though the courtesan wants to live like any other woman, this is not her destiny; she believes that she was just born unlucky.
Aishwarya Rai ... Amiran/Umrao Jaan
Shabana Azmi ... Khannum Jaan
Abhishek Bachchan ... Nawab Sultan
Suniel Shetty ... Faiz Ali
Divya Dutta ... Bismillah
Himani Shivpuri ...
Kulbhushan Kharbanda ...
Ayesha Jhulka ... Khursheed
Plot
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
A little girl, Ameeran, from a lower-middle-class Muslim family in Faizabad, is kidnapped and sold to a brothel in Lucknow. Played by Rai, she grows up to be the most famous nautch girl of her times and is re-christened Umrao Jaan.
While performing her first mujra, she falls in love with Nawab Sultan (Bachchan) and vows to be loyal to him all her life. However, fate decides otherwise, and Umrao ends up having to wait for him to make a life for them, after the Nawab's father throws him out of his home. Umrao decides to wait for her lover, even as the dacoit Faiz Ali (Shetty) wants to woo her.
Faiz Ali takes her away to Gari, with the hopes of marrying her, but she thinks of looking for her lover, Nawab Sultan. She finds out Faiz Ali was the most wanted robber, and is taken to jail. There she re-unites with Nawab Sultan, but he breaks her heart as he tells her he cannot see her anymore, because he is getting married.
She returns to Lucknow, and is raped by her childhood friend who was always in love with her. She is then told to flee and is taken back to her hometown of Faizabad. She sees her mother and brother once more, but they tell her she cannot be seen with them because of her reputation of being a prostitute. Devastated, Umrao returns to Lucknow, where she lives a lonely life, only taking solace in poetry.
The film is a journey of a woman who is living a life born out of circumstances, and has no control over her own destiny. Though the courtesan wants to live like any other woman, this is not her destiny; she believes that she was just born unlucky.
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