Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, Mansoor Khan's story of star-crossed young lovers, was a huge success, launching Aamir Khan and Juhi Chawla into stardom. Naturally, Bollywood producers set about trying to recreate the magic, and Khan and Chawla were cast in a number of films about young lovers with varying degrees of star-crossedness. Results were . . . mixed. Tum Mere Ho (1990), for instance, is notoriously bad. On the other hand, it's a schmaltzy melodrama with Juhi Chawla, an angry naga, and black magicand I like all those things, so if anybody's going to like the movie, it'll be me. Let's dig in.
When wealthy Thakur Choudhary (Sudhir Pandey) catches sight of a Naagmani (a magical gem set in a cobra's head) he is consumed by a Tolkeinian desire to possess it, so he kills the snake. Unfortunately, the snake's mother (Kalpana Iyer) is nearby. Choudhary pleads for mercy, telling her he was blinded by greed when he casually murdered her son, but for some reason she is not impressed. She vows revenge, and later bites Choudhary's four year old son, apparently killing the boy. The parents sadly set the body adrift on the river, while the angry snake watches.
I say that the boy was "apparently killed, because he's pulled from the river by Baba (possibly Ishrat Ali, but the IMDB entry isn't really clear), a kindly snake charmer and black magician. Baba draws the poison out of the boy's body using his magical powers, then decides to raise him as his on son and apprentice, because, hey, free son! he names the boy Shiva, and by the time Shiva has grown up to be played by Aamir Khan, he has mastered both his adopted father's crafts.
While performing at a village fair, Shiva catches a glimpse of Paro (Juhi Chawla), daughter of the wealthy and powerful Choudhry Charanjit Singh (Ajit Vachani). Shiva is immediately smitten, and surprisingly, so is Paro! When they meet later, she asks him to sjhow her his snake-charming technique, and soon they're wandering the hills together, singing about love and occasionally getting caught in the rain.
It can't last. When Paro's father finds out, he hires another black magician (Anirudh Agarwal) to deal with the upstart. Shiva easily wins the magical duel, so Singh decides on a more direct approacjh; he gathers a band of ruffians and has them beat up Shiva, but before he can shoot the boy, Baba arrives and pleads for his son's life, promising that he won't come around Paro anymore.
When Paro finds out about the beating and attempted murder, she's furious and confronts her father, but her mother takes her aside and explains just how starcrossed she actually is. It's not just that Shiva is a poor traveler and therefore not husband material; Paro's marriage has already been arranged. In fact, she's already married, and has been since they were small children. In fact, she's already a widow, since her husband was bitten by a snake and died soon after the wedding. (And at this point you've probably already figured out how the story will end.) In fact, in a few days Paro will go to her in-laws home to live out the rest of her days in miserable solitude as a widow, because there's no possible way she could ever remarry. Paro agrees that this is completely logical, and meets Shiva one last time. She pretends that she never loved him, he lashes out angrily, and stalks off, apparently never to return. Paro makes the sad journey to her in-laws' home, content that at least Shiva will be safe.
Of course, Shiva discovers that she lied and really does love him almost immediately, so he convinces Baba to move the entire band north, ostensibly in search of better snakes, but mostly so that he can stalk Paro. He hangs around outside her house, playing snake charming music, hoping to draw her out. It works. Shiva suggests that maybe Paro shouldn't have to spend her whole life alone and miserable because of a marriage that she didn't consent to and wasn't even told about for years. Paro is torn. She really does love Shiva, but nothing has really changed, and they still can't be together without leaving everything behind.
And then there's the angry snake lady. When she discovers that the boy she bit all those years ago is still alive, she tries to finish the job, but Shiva is a powerful magician, so she can't get to him. Paro, however, is not so well protected . . .
First things first. This movie is a product of the late eighties/early nineties Bollywood film industry, which means that the treatment of women is pretty bad. Paro in particular is seemingly born to suffer, and she's betrayed and abused at various points in the film by pretty much everybody she loves, and that does include Shiva. In the end everyone is forgiven because this is late eighties/early nineties Bollywood and the family unit must be preserved at all costs, but that doesn't make it okay.
On the other hand, Paro has a surprising amount of agency for a heroine of the period. Shiva doesn't rescue her from her dismal life as a widow, he convinces her to rescue herself, and it's not a decision that comes quickly or easily. Paro makes a choice, and it is definitely her choice.
Juhi does a fine job as the long-suffering Paro. Snake movies are essentially a subgenre of supernatural melodrama, and they demand a kind of heightened reality in the performances. Naturalistic acting wouldn't work at all. Juhi commits, and so does Aamir; they are acting well for the genre of movie that they appear in.
So, does Tum Mere Ho deserve its bad reputation? Maybe? I'm pretty sure it's not a good movie. It's dated, it's often silly, and it's certainly problematic, but I also found it compelling. It really needs more snakes and a lot less suffering, though.
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