Anokha Rishta

Anokha Rishta अनोखा रिश्ता
Promotional Poster designed by P. N. Menon
Directed by	I.V. Sasi
Produced by	Raju Mathew for Century Pictures
Story by	P. Padmarajan
Starring	Rajesh Khanna Smita Patil Tanuja Shafi Inamdar Satish Shah Karan Shah Beena Banerjee Sabeeha
Music by	R. D. Burman
Release date	29 August 1986 (1986-08-29)
Country	India
Language	Hindi

Anokha Rishta is a 1986 Hindi film directed by prominent Malayalam director I.V. Sasi and starring Rajesh Khanna in the lead supported by Smita Patil, Sabeeha, Tanuja, Shafi Inamdar, Satish Shah and Karan Shah. A remake of the director's own 1984 Malayalam film Kanamarayathu, the story revolves around three characters played by Rajesh Khanna, Smita Patil and Sabeeha. The original film was written by prominent Malayalam writer P. Padmarajan and was loosely based on Jean Webster's 1919 novel Daddy-Long-Legs. Anokha Rishta was debut of Sabeeha, the daughter of yesteryear actress Ameeta. Subsequently many films inspired from Anokha Rishta were made like Lamhe, Nishabd and Joggers' Park.

Anokha Rishta is the story of an unusual relationship between Mary (Sabeeha) and Robert Brown (Rajesh Khanna). Teenager Mary is a 19-year-old orphan and lives in an orphanage run by nuns. She is good at studies and scores 92.5% in her last year of school exams and is artistically talented. Until her adulthood, her school education was being sponsored by a philanthropist (old Rajesh Khanna). Her sponsor, a rich old man whom she has never met but has only corresponded with through the nuns, passes away, leaving her dreams of a college education in shambles. Though she has never met her sponsor, the old man, she loves him but she is never given the name of that old man by Mother Superior, chief of the orphanage run by nuns. Her sponsor one day dies but this is not told to Mary as she would get depressed and also since at the time of his death, Mary was giving exams and she never had seen him. Mother Superior is aware that Mary and old man used to write to each other lots of letters and that Mary respected and loved him a lot. That old deceased sponsor person's son says he is not interested in funding college education of Mary. Mother Superior then decides to find a new sponsor for her education but since it would take a further month to find a new sponsor and by that time admission process would get over in colleges, Mother decides to convince old man's son one last time. Mother Superior of her orphanage (Tanuja) meets up old philanthropist's son Robert Bob (young Rajesh Khanna) to continue to sponsor her college education till the time the orphanage finds a solution to what Mary will do in future. Mr. Robert Brown (Bob), who is now at the helm of affairs of his father's business, agrees to continue her sponsorship only after consulting his father's trusted aid Nasir Khan who makes Robert go through files containing letters written by Mary to his father over the years. Robert asks his own mother (Sukumari) on whether she was aware of his Dad's charity activity of sponsoring Mary's school education till date for 10 years. Mother Superior advices Mary that in the city college and city hostel, she would not tell any one that she is orphan and that she must say her parents are staying in Dubai. Meanwhile, Bob also insists to Mother Superior that Mary should not be told of her uncle's death(i.e. Bob's father) so that Mary keeps writing letters to him and he can read them compassionately and fulfill all her wishes. Robert Bob does not know how Mary looks but keeps receiving letters from Mary asking for new pens, new dresses for her college days etc. Mother Superior tells Mary that she would not give away the mail address or the photo of her sponsor as the sponsor-er wants to keep it that way and that's the reason for all these years the actual sponsor-er never came to meet Mary in person but Mary can still write letters to her sponsor and deliver it to Mother Superior, who will in turn post it to residence of the sponsor-er. Bob is a good looking bachelor, who is a rich businessman, aged above 40 and Mary falls in love with Bob after meeting him few times accompanying Sweary (Shaloo), a classmate of Mary and Robert Bob's niece, in their college premises.