In 1985, director Vidhu Vinod Chopra made the suspense thriller film Khamosh, starring Naseeruddin Shah, Shabana Azmi and Amol Palekar. The film failed to find distributors and Chopra released a single print at Mumbai's Regal Cinema.[3] In retrospect, Chopra expressed his frustration that nobody would buy Khamosh and he decided to make a more commercial Hindi film about two brothers on the streets of Mumbai, which became Parinda.[4] The story was based on two non-fictional brothers who worked for a gangster named Ashwin Naik.[5] Chopra cast Nana Patekar in the elder brother's role after he saw him in a play called Purush.[4] Anil Kapoor, who was cast in the role of Karan, told Chopra that Patekar was not suitable for the role of his elder brother.[6] Patekar was then offered the role of Anna, the film's antagonist.[6] Shah and Patekar were considered for the role of Kishan, which later went to Jackie Shroff.[3][7] Kapoor asked Shroff to play his elder brother.[3] Shroff was initially hesitant to do the film because he did not want to get typecast in the elder brother role. Later, Kapoor made Shroff listen to the songs and he agreed to do the film.[3]
The sequence in which Karan and Prakash reunite was filmed at Kabootar Khana, a Mumbai landmark where hundreds of pigeons gather.[4] Chopra said this location was "one of the first things I spotted, probably because of all the pigeons flying around, when I stepped out of Dadar station. I thought [that] the pigeons would [...] convey the concept of emancipation of the spirit of the dying man".[4] Shopkeepers in that area shut their shops for the shoot, believing that Chopra was the younger brother of the Prime Minister.[4] The film's climax, when Anna kills Paro and Kishan, was shot at the Gateway of India over three years on New Year Eve, as they did not have the budget to assemble a crowd.[4] Parinda was shot over the course of 66 working days.[4] Some sequences were also shot at the Babulnath temple.[9] The song "Pyar Ke Mod Pe" was shot in six to seven minutes as Chopra wanted to shoot the entire song in one sunset.[10] The shoestring budget also resulted in Chopra and Patekar bringing their own water bottles to set.[11] Suresh Oberoi learned to play the flute from Danny Denzongpa, who had earlier been cast in the role of Abdul but was unable to perform in the film.[12]
In 2012, several films of Chopra were released theatrically as part of a retrospective, including Parinda.[48] In April 2017, Chopra submitted the supplementary materials from six of his films to the preservation vaults of National Film Archive of India. The materials include lobby cards, film posters, song booklets, contact sheets, promotional catalogues and working stills from Khamosh, Parinda, 1942: A Love Story (1994), Mission Kashmir (2000) and Eklavya: The Royal Guard (2007).[49] The film is also available on Netflix.[50]
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