Darna Zaroori Hai is the sequel of Darna Mana Hai, but mostly in name. Barring the prologue that quirkily references all the negative reviews the first film got, both films follow an anthology style of storytelling before the fate of the main characters is revealed.
Much like its predecessor, Darna Zaroori Hai also features an ensemble cast and six horror stories (that an old lady tells a group of lost kids). So, let’s break it all down and decipher the ending of Darna Zaroori Hai.
Consider yourself warned: Spoilers ahead!
Darna Zaroori Hai Plot Overview
Darna Zaroori Hai starts with a prologue before introducing us to the main group of kids who run into an old lady in a mansion after seeking shelter from the rain. One of the boys tells her that he never gets scared, and she tells him, “Darna zaroori hai,” before telling the children 6 scary stories.
- Prologue — It revolves around Satish, a rather rude yet hardcore movie fan who wants to see Darna Mana Hai in the nearest theatre. His mom warns him not to go through the cemetery, but he does the exact thing he was told not to do while also mocking the dead.
(After this, the old lady commences her storytelling, and every time a kid leaves the room at the end of the story, they return as a ghost, unbeknownst to their friends.)
- The Professor and His Student — A student goes to his molecular biotechnology professor’s (named Sunil Khanna) house for extra tutoring before exams, only for Khanna to get more and more paranoid with each passing second.
- Kunal, Varsha, and Rahul — When Kunal’s car breaks down, he approaches the nearest house and asks its inhabitants if he can use the phone. However, married couple Varsha and Rahul prank Kunal by making him believe she is dead. Everything turns on its head when Varsha and Rahul realise there’s more to Kunal than he reveals.
- The Insurance Salesperson — Things go from 0 to 100 real quick when a crazed insurance seller makes it his mission to make a sale to a family — at any cost.
- Karan Chopra and His Fan —Famed Director Karan Chopra wants to foray into the horror genre despite finding success with family films. As he heads to his farmhouse to write the script, he picks up a hitchhiker who turns out to be a huge fan. However, when she reveals who she truly is, things get out of hand.
- Ajay Doshi and Sandhya — Ajay is a young man who runs into a woman while driving on a rainy night. The next morning, he wakes up tied in the jail, with the police investigating him for a murder.
At this point in the film, the kid argues with the old lady that she has only told them 5 stories, but she says she has already told him the sixth one before — the story of her and Sukhiya. After this revelation, the kid is scared witless.
Darna Zaroori Hai Ending
Before jumping into the main story, let’s break down the ending of each individual story presented in Darna Zaroori Hai, starting with the prologue.
#1. Prologue — Is There a Spirit Haunting Satish?
The prologue of Darna Zaroori Hai is very interesting because it makes use of horror tropes to make fun of Darna Mana Hai, a film that went on to achieve cult status but initially failed to make its mark.
As such, Darna Zaroori Hai’s prologue pokes fun at the supernatural, relying on a more “logical” explanation behind Satish’s death.
No, there seems to be no ghost haunting Satish, but he literally gets scared to death because of the coins in his pocket, and the old “witch” that gives him a heart attack is actually on the movie poster of none other than Darna Mana Hai.
So, what basically seems to have happened is that after Satish finishes watching the film, he decides to head home through the cemetery, only to hear the sound of a paayal. He comes across the grave of Sylvia Martis again, and the words “You are dead” are the only part of her headstone that do not have a black spot on it.
As he heads toward the gate, he also seems to remember his mother’s warning of not using the graveyard as a shortcut, but he finally does make it to the other side.
Thinking that he is now safe, Satish calms down… but then, he sees a witch and falls to the ground while clutching at his heart.
After that, it is revealed that the sound of the paayal was actually the clunking of coins in Satish’s pocket as he was running away and that the witch he saw is actually a promotional poster for Darna Zaroori Hai.
#2. The Professor and His Student — Who is the Man in the Mirror?
In the end, we see their reflections in a mirror — and a man in a black hat with a hollowed-out face is in place of the professor.
So, this begs the obvious question: who is the man in the mirror?
Is he the personification of the professor’s death, is he an evil entity, or is something else going on?
Well, there is no definitive answer to this question, and all we have are the clues given by the professor.
The first thing the academic reveals is that he can hear footsteps — as if someone else is also present in his house with them. Then, he points to what appears to be the vague outline of a person (though it isn’t clearly explained in the shot). However, the student cannot see all this and thinks his teacher is nuts.
The professor then reveals the mystery man comes and goes when he pleases, and all that has been going on for months. Whether the professor comes back from teaching or be it when he wakes up from his sleep in the night, he sees this mysterious figure that dons a black hat. It is also revealed this entity sometimes goes into the kitchen and lies down near the fridge.
When the professor freaks out again, he points at the mystery figure, only for the student to see his own reflection in the mirror, which is when the latter lashes out and tries to leave.
The professor tries to convince his student about the presence of a malevolent entity, even claiming that this mystery figure wants to completely take over his (the professor’s) life.
Finally, the professor shows his student who he is talking about in the mirror — and we see a man with a dark face wearing a black cap. No other clues are given to us.
Well, one possibility is that this mystery man is some evil spirit, who, like the professor says, wants to take over his life. (And we shouldn’t be too quick to discount this theory because later on in the film, the spirit of the tortured Sandhya does take over Ajay and the cop).
However, it is also possible that this figure represents something that the professor is scared of — maybe loneliness… or even his own death.
First of all, there’s the fact that no one apart from the professor can really see this entity, and even towards the end, while we see a perplexed emotion on the student’s face, we don’t get exact confirmation if he actually believes what his teacher is saying.
Now, someone might feel as though this figure is the professor’s reflection, but that doesn’t seem to be the case either.
Notice that the outfits of the entity and the professor are different, and while the latter is actually pointing at the mirror, we don’t see that being reflected in the mirror.
So, thus far, it seems as though the professor’s claim — that someone is in his house — seems to be at least partially true.
However, one of the main themes in this film — and something that is actively shown in the prologue — is that sometimes, even the mere presence of emotions like fear can disrupt a person’s life (and in Satish’s case, even lead to his death).
Moreover, old age comes with its own unique set of challenges, especially for someone as seemingly lonely as the professor… and when an emotion seeps in, it can take a toll on an individual.
So, clubbing together these two points, it could be the case that the man in the mirror is a manifestation of the professor’s fears and emotions. As an old man, maybe he is worried about dying alone, not being remembered, or any number of such things.
The man in the mirror, himself something…scary, could be the symbol for all the professor’s anxieties.
Perhaps, he is symbolic of the professor’s decay.
#3. Kunal, Varsha, and Rahul — Who is the Actual Spirit?
Though for most of this story, Rahul and Varsha try to prank Kunal by making him believe Varsha is dead, the twist is that it is Kunal who is the ghost.
Rahul was trying to call spirits to visit them, and Kunal, who seems to have died in his car just a few moments ago, shows up at the house. Unbeknownst to the couple, Kunal is the spirit they end up calling.
Towards the end, the couple spots the dead body of Kunal, and the spirit lets them know that while it’s easy to call upon the dead — and that ghosts do show up — it’s quite difficult to make them leave.
As such, the audience is left wondering whether Kunal will leave Varsha and Rahul alone, and given his menacing words, it seems highly unlikely that Kunal will go away anytime soon.
#4. The Insurance Salesman — Is He Dead or Alive? Who is He?
Once again, much like in Darna Mana Hai, it seems like one of the creepiest stories in Darna Zaroori Hai has gone to Rajpal Yadav, who plays an insane insurance salesman named Prabhakar Pandit hell-bent on selling a policy, no matter what it costs him.
Prabhakar tries to sell insurance to Vishwas Talegaonkar, a family man, but instead of, say, listing the various benefits of the policy, the former keeps reiterating how uncertain life can be.
The insurance salesman keeps telling Vishwas that accidents don’t knock at the door before arriving, even going as far as to light a fire in the house (before setting it out with a fire extinguisher).
At one point, it seems like Prabhakar is being so intent because he needs to meet a quota that Vishwas could help him meet.
But Vishwas kicks the insurance seller out of his house — only for Prabhakar to come back and pull a gun on the family, citing how “unpredictable” life can be.
The insurance seller also keeps a whole bunch of items, like poison, on the table before insinuating that “someone” who is trying to sell insurance on a Sunday could be a robber as well and that people aren’t always safe in their homes.
After a lot of pleading, Vishwas still refuses to buy the policy, so the salesman threatens to shoot them, but after a tussle, Prabhakar himself gets shot instead. The family then looks on in shock before the story ends.
So, who was the insurance salesman who ended up giving his life to ensure a measly sale? Well, he could represent a vast majority of people in the country, all of whom are burdened and bound by various constraints, like the seller and his quota.
In particular, this story appears to rely heavily on the “one bad day” trope. Even though we don’t know exactly why, maybe there was some financial reason behind Prabhakar being really desperate for the sale, even going to work on a Sunday.
Perhaps, in some twisted way, afraid of what could happen if he failed to hit the necessary target, the salesman ventured into Vishwas’s house, determined to sell the policy at all costs. However, it could also be because of this fear that the character ends up losing his life, reiterating the theme of how an emotion like fear could end up killing people.
Though Prabhakar also suggests he could be a robber at one point, it seems highly unlikely that he is a career criminal. Though he has weird things like rope and poison, he shows the family that the knife is fake. Furthermore, he easily lost control of the gun when Vishwas tackled him, so there’s not much to suggest some evil mastermind was behind all this.
Still, given that the story of the salesman is the most rooted in reality, the climax also makes it that much more intimidating.
#5. Karan Chopra and His Fan — Is He Dead? Who is the Hitchhiker?
The famous director, Karan Chopra, picks up a hitchhiker who turns out to be a huge fan of his. She also tries to creep him out during the drive by saying she is a ghost before changing the conversation.
Once they reach the farmhouse, the lights go out, and she uses this opportunity to once again tell him she is dead. She also scolds him for sending out the chowkidaar when the two were alone at home, insinuating that he had some deviant plans.
At first, he doesn’t believe her, but she reiterates that she is a ghost and was killed when she was thrown out of a moving car by people who tried to sexually assault her. She says she died in agony and kept searching for her culprit even as a spirit.
However, she reveals that more men are like her assailants, and so she has taken it upon herself to “cleanse” the world of such people, and Karan is going to be an addition to that list. When he sees her rotting flesh, he gets a heart attack and seemingly dies.
The girl panics and reveals that she is no ghost. She takes off the creepy makeup and says that she is an actress who was simply auditioning for his horror movie. But it is too late, and Karan has passed away.
#6. Ajay Doshi and Sandhya — Who is the Spirit? Will Ajay Survive?
The story of Ajay Doshi and the scorned bride is, in my opinion, the best tale in Darna Zaroori Hai.
It all starts when Ajay is driving on a lonely highway on a rainy night but swerves after he sees a woman on the road. Later, he wakes up with one wrist handcuffed in a police station. He has been identified as a man’s murderer.
However, when the victim’s mother comes to the police station to see Ajay, it is revealed that the spirit of the woman he saw on the road has actually taken over him, and it is she, Sandhya, who killed the man in question.
Sandhya’s spirit, while still in Ajay, recounts the story of how the other woman (who turns out to be her evil mother-in-law) and her family burned the newly-wed bride alive. Sandhya then shifts to the cop’s body and shoots her mother-in-law dead.
After Sandhya leaves the cop’s body, the latter takes Ajay along and buries the mother-in-law’s body (mostly to save his own skin). Then, as Ajay goes his own way, we see Sandhya’s spirit in his car, asking him to drop her to Pune so she can hunt down her father-in-law, the only remaining member of the family.
It honestly doesn’t seem like Sandhya is out to get Ajay and that she will leave him alone in order to kill her father-in-law. She is a scorned spirit and even in life, she was abused. Not only did her new family end up setting her on fire while she was alive, but even in death, the mother-in-law continues to defame Sandhya as an adultress.
Naturally, it becomes clear that Sandhya’s spirit is out for revenge — and that Ajay is not her intended target anyway. He was just the means to an end.
Darna Zaroori Hai (Main Arc) Ending
Are the Children Dead?
The five kids who make their way to the old lady’s house are all affected by the supernatural and die.
After every single story that the lady tells the children, one of them disappears somewhere in the house and returns in a trance-like state. So, by the end of all the tales, only Ashu is left unchanged. All of his friends, however, have been turned into ghosts.
This is evident in the one scene where after the lady “accepts” defeat in not being able to scare Ashu, the lights suddenly come on, and he sees there is no one in the room — neither the lady nor his friends.
Scared, he tries to run away but is unable to do so successfully.
When the old lady comes in front of him again, she tells him not to get scared, but he is terrified. The next day, it is revealed in the news that the body of five kids was found in the house and all of them died of a heart attack that was brought on by fear.
Who is the Old Lady?
The servant reveals that the old lady had, indeed, died and that she was all alone when it happened; there was no family in the equation as never ended up having kids. However, she loved children dearly.
This story aligns with what the old lady told the kids before — that the story of her sending her servant to buy her medicines was a “scary” one (because this is when she died in real life).
As such, it seems that the old lady’s spirit had been very lonely. While it doesn’t seem like she planned to prey on the kids from the very beginning, maybe when she saw the opportunity, she couldn’t resist but do something about her loneliness, especially because of her fondness for children.
Maybe this is something that she wanted to experience in the afterlife since the old lady never had her own children.
We also see everyone in the final shot sitting together and having a gala time… so what if they’re not alive?
Darna Zaroori Hai Cast Details
- Manoj Pahwa: Satish
- Amitabh Bachchan: Professor
- Riteish Deshmukh: Student
- Arjun Rampal: Kunal
- Bipasha Basu: Varsha
- Makarand Deshpande: Rahul
- Rajpal Yadav: Prabhakar Pandit
- Suniel Shetty: Vishwas
- Anil Kapoor: Karan Chopra
- Mallika Sherawat: The Hitchhiker
- Randeep Hooda: Ajay Doshi
- Ava Mukherjee: The Old Woman
