Taal () is a 1999 Indian Hindi musical romantic drama film co written, edited, produced and directed by Subhash Ghai. The film stars Aishwarya Rai, Akshaye Khanna and Anil Kapoor in lead roles, while Amrish Puri and Alok Nath feature in supporting roles. It was also dubbed in Tamil as Thaalam. Taal was premiered at the Chicago International Film Festival, the "official selection" at the 2005 Ebertfest: Roger Ebert's Film Festival, and retrospectively at the 45th IFFI in the Celebrating Dance in Indian cinema section. Taal released on 13 August 1999, coinciding with the Indian Independence Day weekend, and proved to be a major commercial success at the domestic and overseas box office, becoming the first Indian film to reach the Top 20 on Variety'''s box office list. The film received widespread critical acclaim upon release, with major praise directed towards the direction, story, screenplay, dialogues, soundtrack, costumes, choreography and performances of the cast. At the 45th Filmfare Awards, Taal received 12 nominations, including Best Film, Best Director (Ghai) and Best Actress (Rai), and won 6 awards, including Best Supporting Actor (Kapoor), Best Music Director (Rahman) and Best Lyricist ( for "Ishq Bina"). Synopsis Jagmohan Mehta arrives in Chamba, India for a long vacation with his rich and affluent family, including his son Manav. They meet Mansi, the beautiful daughter of poor spiritual singer Tara Shankar Manhuja. As the owner of the Mehta & Mehta Group of Companies, Jagmohan is looking to invest in Chamba with Manav. Over time, Jagmohan and Tara become friendly with each other. Eventually, Mansi and Manav fall in love. Reluctant after knowing this, Jagmohan disapproves of Mansi due to her poor socio-economic background. After learning the same, Tara is earlier angry but later reaches Mumbai to visit his journalist cousin Prabha, and to meet the Mehtas. Unfortunately, the family insults Tara. Deeply hurt, he leaves with Mansi, who breaks up with Manav. Mansi soon meets famous music producer and director Vikrant Kapoor, who happens to be Tara's fan. She signs a 3-year contract with him, and performs dance numbers and remixes of his productions and Tara's songs. She wins awards and becomes a sensation. Slowly, Vikrant begins falling for Mansi. Manav finds out his family was in the wrong when they ill-treated Mansi and Tara. Manav goes to apologise to Mansi for what his family did. She rejects him out of grief for how Tara