Ask Dharmendra about his son's debut film shot in Pahalgam and he would have replied
saying- ' 'Mera "Beta-ab" Yahaan Shoot Hua Tha...'. If you have not heard of Sunny Deol and
Amrita Singh’s 1983-released romantic-action film – ‘Betaab’, then chances are that you
were either not born in India or not born in this era. ‘Betaab’ was a box office hit of 1983 as it
turned out to be a magical and extremely successful combination of movie-theme, star cast,
screenplay, music and locales. This cult film was produced by Dharmendra, directed by
Rahul Rawail (whose earlier film 'Love Story' was also shot here), the screenplay was
written by Javed Akhtar and music composed by R. D. Burman whose score “Jab Hum
Jawan Honge” became a timeless melody which is strummed frequently even today –
almost 3 decades hence.

The connection between this film and this valley is that Betaab valley was featured in the
movie extensively which worked like a charm for the movie and the movie became a
humungous hit. And it didn’t end there. Owing to the enormous popularity of this film and its
romantic locales, this valley was named after Betaab !!

The picturesque Pahalgam set the tone for other Bollywood films like... Piyush Jha’s
Sikandar, Santosh Sivan’s Tahaan and Imtiaz Ali’s Rockstar !!!