Gulzar’s Mere Apne (1971), his feature debut, and Maachis (1996) are separated by 25 years—not quite three decades—but they offer a revealing view of how his films engaged with alienation and political power. The first finds an older woman seeking belonging amid rival urban youth factions; the second turns to the distinct crisis of Sikh insurgency in 1980s Punjab. Their shared concern with frustrated young lives does not make them portraits of the same conflict.
Why these two films make a useful comparison
A 2014 Directorate of Film Festivals catalogue framed a Gulzar retrospective as spanning from his debut, Mere Apne, to Maachis, covering close to two decades. The films’ release dates, 1971 and 1996, are 25 years apart. “Over three decades” works as a broad description of the period covered by Gulzar’s filmmaking, not as the interval between these two releases.
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Scroll.in counted 17 films directed by Gulzar between 1971 and 1999 in its 2025 retrospective. That is the publication’s count, rather than an independently audited filmography. Within that career span, these two films provide a useful contrast: both attend to social and political alienation, but their settings, conflicts and narrative perspectives differ.
Mere Apne: an older woman among rival youth factions
Released in 1971, Mere Apne was Gulzar’s feature debut. It adapts Tapan Sinha’s Bengali film Apanjan (1968). In Scroll.in’s account of the original, an elderly woman is brought from a village to the city by a relative to work as an unpaid nanny. She instead finds a form of kinship among young men divided into rival factions.
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That outsider perspective makes the factions more than a backdrop. The young men’s rivalry is part of a wider portrait of urban frustration and patronage, while the older woman’s search for connection offers a different measure of what belonging might mean. The film’s emotional focus is not interchangeable with the political setting of Maachis.
Cast and production
Apple TV India lists Meena Kumari, Vinod Khanna and Shatrughan Sinha among the film’s stars and gives its runtime as 2 hours 13 minutes. Scroll.in also singles out the performances of Kumari, Khanna and Sinha. The Tuli Research Centre’s archival song-synopsis booklet credits Indra Mitra with the story, Salil Chowdhury with the music, and Raj N. C. Sippy and Romu N. Sippy as producers.
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Maachis: a distinct crisis in 1980s Punjab
Scroll.in describes Maachis (1996) as Gulzar’s most explicitly political film. Its subject is Sikh insurgency in 1980s Punjab and the cycle of violence associated in the film’s framing with police strong-arm tactics. The setting matters: this is a story rooted in a specific political crisis, not a continuation of the urban factional conflict depicted in Mere Apne.
The film’s young characters are shaped by political force and escalating violence. In that respect, it can be read alongside Mere Apne as another account of alienation and the pressures placed on young people. But the comparison should remain thematic rather than historical: the two films address different conflicts and circumstances.
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Scroll.in names Tabu, Chandrachur Singh, Om Puri, Kulbhushan Kharbanda and Jimmy Shergill among the ensemble cast, and credits the soundtrack to Vishal Bhardwaj. The available descriptions support noting music as part of each film’s production context, but not a track-by-track comparison or a claim about a particular formal contrast between the soundtracks.
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| Point of comparison | Mere Apne | Maachis |
|---|---|---|
| Release and career place | 1971; Gulzar’s feature debut. | 1996; released 25 years after Mere Apne. |
| Setting and conflict | Urban youth factions and patronage; the film adapts the story of an elderly woman who finds kinship among rival groups. | Sikh insurgency in 1980s Punjab and cycles of violence. |
| Perspective | An older woman’s search for belonging brings an outsider’s view to young people’s divisions. | Young lives are caught in a specific political crisis and escalating violence. |
| Music | Music by Salil Chowdhury, according to the Tuli Research Centre’s archival credits. | Soundtrack credited to Vishal Bhardwaj by Scroll.in. |
The meaningful through-line is not that one film predicts or repeats the other. It is Gulzar’s attention to the way structures of power and generational frustration shape relationships and constrain young people. Mere Apne approaches that concern through an older woman’s encounter with urban factionalism; Maachis places it in a separate and more explicitly political setting.
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