Plot

An estranged couple battle for the custody of their only son.

Rohit Kumar (Aamir Khan) is an aspirant playback singer while Kiran (Manisha Koirala) is a classical singer-in-training, but inside aims to be some thing like Rohit. They meet, relate to each other's sentiments and fall in love. But when Kiran's parents oppose their marriage, they decide to lead a separate life. However, after their marriage, Kiran's ambitions take a back seat as she feels suppressed by her household responsibilities and her child to look after. Time fails to abate Kiran's frustration until she decides to leave Rohit and start a new life all over again. Now a loner, Rohit is forced to look after both his son and his falling career on his own. After some obvious teething troubles, Rohit succeeds in creating a separate world of their own with Sonu, his son. Meanwhile, Kiran incidentally becomes a huge film star. When her attempts to reconcile with Rohit backfire, she decides to call the marriage off and also files a case demanding Sonu's custody. But Rohit is not giving up without a battle for his rights as a father.—B.H.Harsh

Inspired by the films Abhimaan (1973) and Kramer vs Kramer (1979), Akele Hum Akele Tum is a critically acclaimed musical drama about an estranged couple's relationship being destroyed by jealousy and how it leads to a battle for custody of their son after divorce.

Middle-class singer Rohit and wealthy Kiran Dayal meet each other and fall in love. They intend to marry but Kiran's parents will not permit her to marry beneath her class. Kiran is adamant and the marriage goes through without the blessings of the Dayals. They live in harmony for months, even after Kiran gives birth to Sunil. Then they start to have differences, which are minor for a time and then snowball. Kiran decides to leave Rohit and moves back in with her parents, leaving Sunil in Rohit's care. Years later, Kiran attempts to come back into Rohit's life again, this time as a successful and popular actress, with a motive of taking the custody of Sunil. Rohit does not appreciate this, the matter escalates to Court and no one knows in whose favor the Judge will decide.—rAjOo (gunwanti@hotmail.com)

Kramer vs Kramer Remake. Rohit Kumar (Aamir Khan) is an aspiring playback singer while Kiran (Manisha Koirala) is an ambitious classical singer-in-training. Sunita (Navneet Nishan) is Kiran's best friend. Farida (Tanvi Azmi) is Rohit's next door neighbor and his good friend. Kanhaiya (Deven Verma) is a mechanic in Rohit's slum colony. Rohit is struggling financially and has debts from almost everyone in the colony, who believe in him and support his singing career. Mehra (Yunus Parvez) gives small gigs to Rohit and shows it as a favor, but in reality he exploits Rohit by keeping proceeds for himself, and not giving Rohit any share in the upside.

Rohit and Kiran meet at a concert where Rohit is singing, relate to each other's sentiments (Kiran asks Rohit to teach her), fall in love and get married prematurely. When Kiran's parents Ram Dayal (Aanjjan Srivastav) & Mrs Dayal (Rohini Hattangadi) oppose their marriage (Ram insults Rohit by saying that singing in bars is worse than begging on the streets) (Ram also tells Kiran that she will regret her decision to marry Rohit), they decide to lead a separate life.

However, after marriage, Kiran's ambitions take a back seat as she feels suppressed by her household responsibilities and looking after her son. Time and again she wants to meet industry folks to kick start her own career, but either she is pregnant, or she has domestic stuff (with kids) to take care of. Rohit gets a meeting with music producer Gulbadan Kumar (Satish Shah) who invites him for a party, and Kiran insists that she will go with Rohit. Kaushik (Shafi Inamdar) & Amar (Harish Patel) are famous song composers, with many hits to their credit, and are close to Gulbadan. Rohit gets himself a meeting with Kaushik for a song audition, but he does not give Kiran's audio tape to Gulbadan as she wanted. Kiran feels stifled and thinks Rohit will never allow her own career to flourish. There are additional skirmishes when Rohit expects Kiran to do house chores, cook food, take care of the kids etc. Time fails to abate Kiran's frustration (which she sometimes takes out on her son) until she decides to leave Rohit and start a new life all over again. Now a loner, Rohit is forced to look after both his son and his own falling career. After some obvious teething troubles (burnt toast and omelets, late to pick up from school), Rohit succeeds in creating a separate world for himself and his son, Sunil (Adil Rizvi). Meanwhile Kaushik had promised Rohit a song recording, but fails to deliver on it, and keeps stringing Rohit along. Kaushik tries to peek at ROhit's composer album, Rohit takes it away from Kaushik. Kaushik is enraged and fires Rohit from the singing gig, after Kaushik intentionally humiliates Rohit in front of the entire crew by bad mouthing his singing and Rohit responds by re-composing Kaushik song in front of his own eyes. Now, nobody in the industry would work with Rohit.

One day, playing in the park, Sunil is injured and loses a lot of blood from his face. Rohit runs all the way to the hospital to get him attention. Meanwhile, Sunita gets Kiran a break by getting her a chorus gig for an ad. Gradually she becomes a huge film star (A assistant director watches her sing and offers her a small role in his film). The director turns out to be Paresh Kapoor (Rakesh Roshan), who takes Kiran under his wings. Paresh launches Kiran and she becomes a huge hit.. She tries to reconcile with Rohit but as luck would have it, Rohit is a proud man and misinterprets her support as her pity (Kiran had forced a film producer to sign Rohit as the composer, in exchange for acting in his movie) and things become worse (Kiran invites Rohit & Sunil for Sunil BDay party at her house. Rohit goes after Farida insists that he should. At the party Rohit runs into Amar & Kaushik who tell him that Rohit got the film only due to Kiran and not due to his talent.). Then Rohit is upset when Sunil asks Kiran for a mini car, that Rohit had promised him. To make good on his promise, Rohit tries to borrow money from Mehra, his employer. Mehra refuses and Rohit tries to steal the money and creates a ruckus inside the bar.

A court case is eventually filed for the custody of Sunil. Rohit faces a tough time preparing for the case as his financial position is not as sound as Kiran's. He sells his best songs to Kaushik at a very low price (rs 1000 per song) so that he can fight the custody battle. During the court battle, Kiran's lawyer Bhujbal (Paresh Rawal) uses every possible trick to show that Rohit does not deserve the custody of his child. He even uses the information that Rohit had told Kiran (only because he felt that she had a right to know about her son's life (the park incident when Sunil got hurt and had to be taken to the hospital)) against him.

Rohit instructs his lawyer to fight the case honestly as he does not wish to hurt Kiran and her reputation. In the end, the court rules in favor of the mother and Kiran is given custody of the child. During this time, common friends of Rohit and Kiran try to explain to Kiran that Rohit had changed for the better and that he was now very much attached to his son. Kiran also realizes that their son would never find happiness only with her. She tells Rohit that she will not take Sonu away and that she wants him to stay at his own home to which Rohit replies that this was Kiran's home as well. Kiran seemingly moves to get out of the house but then closes the door and smiles. Rohit and Kiran hug each other and their son and the movie ends.