Memento, indian style!

Aamir Khan is going to hunt you

Ghajini is actually the name of two indian films released on 2005 and 2008 in Tamil and Hindi respectively, both directed by AR Murugadoss, with the same general plot and sharing at least one actor. This page will be about the 2008 Hindi version, as it is the most well known due to be starred by Aamir Khan and having received a number of accolades.

Sanjay Singhania (Aamir Khan), is a man who suffers of anterograde amnesia, and keeps going thorough life by using a system pf photos and tattoos. He keeps this to remind himself of his mission: find and kill the ones who murdered his girlfriend Kalpana (Asin). He is specially focused on find Ghajini Dharmatma (Pradeep Rawat), as he was the direct responsible of both her murder and Sanjay's condition. So far, he has managed to find and kill almost everyone else involved on said crime.

Sanjay's mission, however, gets complicated by, a) a medical student named Sunita (Jiah Khan), who has decided to use Sanjay's medical case for he class project and ends getting involved into more than she expected, and b) the titular Ghajini, actually a fearsome criminal lord who, after realizing that someone is killing his men and targeting him, decides to find the killer and giving him a lesson.

Amid this plot, we are told the incredibly sweet and hilarious love story between Sanjay and Kalpana, in a plot that seems ripped from very Mistaken Identity Rom Com.

Tropes used in Ghajini include:
  • Adaptation Expansion: unlike Memento, this version includes the love story the amnesiac guy is avenging.
  • Nice Girl: Kalpana. She particularly has a soft spot for children and the desventurate. This is what get her killed: she intervenes rescuing some girls from a human traffiking ring, and has the bad luck of directly confronting the ringleaders, Ghajini among them
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Sunita uses the little evidence she has of Sanjay planning to kill Ghajini and gives it directly to the guy. Granted, she didn't knew what kind of person Ghajini really was or why Sanjay wanted to kill him, but c'mon!
  • Sure, Let's Go with That: Kalpana's boss interprets the visit of the Air Voice exceutives as they being members of the Singhania family arranging her marriage with their son. Kalpana lets him believe it, as the impression that she is the girlfriend of a rich man gives her better modeling contracts. Later, Sanjay let Kalpana believe he is the lowly assistant Sachin to keep dating her.
  • Wham! Episode: The scene in the second flashback sequence where we discover that the apartment Sanjay lives was actually Kalpana's, and it was the place she was murdered