Counted among Bollywood's most unforgettable films, ‘Gadar: Ek Prem Katha’ has now turned a quarter of a century old. Arriving in theatres on 15 June 2001, the film proved to be a turning point for Indian cinema, and to mark 25 years since its release, lead actress Ameesha Patel revisited a string of memories tied to it. In an interview, she spoke about a success story that is still held up as a benchmark.
Footfalls Over Box-Office Numbers
Setting earnings figures aside, Ameesha pointed to ‘footfalls’—the actual count of people who walked into theatres and bought tickets—as the real measure of a film's reach. According to her, the combined number of people who stepped inside cinemas to watch ‘Gadar 1’ and ‘Gadar 2’ is far greater than the audience for Ranveer Singh's successful franchise ‘Dhurandhar’ and ‘Dhurandhar: The Revenge’.
She said, ‘We are still standing at this place even 25 years later and the film is just as iconic today. Its second part too brought a tsunami at the box office. If you look only at footfalls, that is the number of viewers, the people going inside cinemas to watch Gadar 1 and 2 are the highest. Just the thought that I am a part of this great history of cinema touches the heart.’
The Most Surprising Love Came From Across the Border
During the conversation, Ameesha also shared a chapter she herself had never expected. After the film's release, the most startling response reached her from Pakistan. Having played the Muslim girl ‘Sakina’ in Gadar, she found herself adored by audiences there—and by her own account, it was this very film that earned her the largest number of fans in Pakistan.
She recalled that elderly women there would somehow track down her secretary's number and call her up. On the phone they would say, ‘Kya Ameesha ji, aapne aur Sakina ne poore Pakistan ko rula diya’ (What have you done, Ameesha—you and Sakina made all of Pakistan weep). According to Ameesha, several parents rang her to say that after watching the film, they had named their daughters ‘Sakina’.
Houseful Theatres, but No Time to Celebrate
The actress also admitted that when the film opened in 2001, single-screen theatres across the country were running at 100 percent occupancy from the very first day, and audiences embraced it instantly. Even so, she never got the chance to pause and truly absorb that historic success or celebrate it. Explaining why, she said that in the early 2000s the pace of Bollywood was extremely fast—back then actors were shooting as many as five films simultaneously in a single year, which is why the joy of a film's success simply never reached people.
The Gadar Story: Set Against Partition
The 2001 release ‘Gadar: Ek Prem Katha’ was set against the backdrop of the 1947 India-Pakistan Partition. In it, Sikh truck driver Tara Singh (Sunny Deol) saves Sakina (Ameesha Patel), the daughter of a Muslim political leader, amid the riots and marries her. Later, when Sakina is forcibly held back in Pakistan, Tara Singh travels there with his young son and single-handedly takes on the entire system of the country.
Gadar 2: Amid the War of 1971
The franchise's sequel ‘Gadar 2’ followed in 2023, with a story set during the 1971 India-Pakistan war. When Tara Singh goes missing at the border, his now grown-up son Charanjeet (Utkarsh Sharma) heads to Pakistan to find him and is captured there. To rescue his son, Tara Singh once again crosses the border and comes down on his enemies like a storm.
