The idea of the film was so exquisite that its implementation by Raj Kapoor could not have been any less. He has a strong spiritual quality that pulls him to the mighty mountains and makes him feel so much at home there, just like Swami Vivekananda did). This name has obviously been given to him deliberately as he is different from his family and their friends. The hero comes to Gangotri from Calcutta and is called Naren or Narendra (the name of Swami Vivekananda). She looks truly ethereal in the film and powerfully symbolises the Ganga river. The heroine, Mandakini, was a perfect choice for the character Ganga who is a resident of the Himalayas. The innocence of hill folk is also brought out very well in this film of 1985 which remains an ode to the beauty and purity of the Himalayas and the Ganga and also a dirge for the pollution that defiles the Ganga as it begins to descend into the cities. However, his film Ram Teri Ganga Maili is a beautiful record of the pristine beauty of this hill region, its purity and its spiritual dimension. The State of Uttarakhand did not exist in those years. When he was thinking about this story, his connection was established forever with this Himalayan region. It began when he conceived the idea of the journey of the Ganga as it travels from its origin at Gaumukh in Uttarakhand down the hills towards the plains and finally reaches the Bay of Bengal.
I would like to dwell upon the connection that he had with the Uttarakhand region. Decemis the 94th birth anniversary of the great actor and director Raj Kapoor who was a living legend-the grand showman of our film industry.