Rajshri Productions' Hum Aapke Hain Koun...! is truly a landmark film in Hindi cinema. This monster hit raised the earning potential of films by several multiples (its collections far outstripped those of all previous hits) and introduced the Rs 100 movie ticket to hapless Hindi filmgoers.

Thematically too, Hum Aapke Hain Koun...! effected a clean revolution at a time when risqué business was ruling the roost in Bollywood (the previous year's biggest hits had been the bawdy Aankhen and Khalnayak).

Though the film was initially dismissed as a wedding video, sleaze-sated audiences warmed to HAHK's homespun charms. The Rajshris were confident enough of their in-house protégée Sooraj Barjatya's effort to daringly release the film in limited theatres only at first. But this strategy paid off -- and how. The collections showed eye-widening numbers for weeks and almost single-handedly led to hero Salman being catapulted to the top and heroine Madhuri being coronated as the queen of the nineties.

HAHK was a culture marker that delivered just what the audience wanted -- finespun moments of joint-family bonding and the primacy of tradition. In an increasingly globalised post-liberalisation India of the nineties, audiences clung to the comfort of the familiar.