Dil Chahta Hai

The film is about three inseparable childhood friends. They just are out of college(finally). Nothing comes between them until they each fall in love. Akash(Aamir Khan) with Shalini(Preity Zinta), a girl who Akash has irritated, Samir(Saif Ali Khan) with Pooja(Sonali Kulkarni),a girl who is in love with another man, and Sid (Akshaye Khanna) with Tara(Dimple Kapadia), an older divorced woman. This film is a funny tale with friendship, comedy, and of course romance!

## Plot:

The film follows the journey of Akash, Sameer and Siddharth, three friends who have to navigate relationships, family and love after graduating from college. Akash (Aamir Khan), the wealthiest of the three, believes in living in the moment and is afraid of commitment. By contrast, Sameer (Saif Ali Khan) is a clueless romantic who falls in love easily, while Siddharth aka Sid (Akshaye Khanna) is mature and thoughtful, often the sane voice of reason within the group.

On their return from a trip to Goa, Sameer is set up by his parents to meet Pooja (Sonali Kulkarni) for marriage. Pooja is not single but comes to meet him anyway. True to his nature, Sameer immediately falls in love, but is forced to play it cool. Meanwhile, Sid befriends his new neighbour, Tara (Dimple Kapadia), who has just moved into a house down the street. Tara lives alone but has a teenage daughter from a previous marriage. Sid spends time with her discussing life and art, and is soon attracted to her intelligence, a fact he confesses to his friends. While Sameer takes him seriously and reminds Sid of the age gap, Akash treats the whole thing as a joke and mocks him. Sid feels insulted and slaps him in return. Akash leaves angrily and it seems the two will not talk to each other again.

Soon, Akash leaves for Sydney to manage his family business. Sameer starts hanging out with Pooja and her boyfriend, in the hope that he can ask her out should the two break up. This inevitably happens and Sameer confesses his feelings to Pooja. She laughs at his proposal but the pair soon start dating. Meanwhile, Sid is forced to tell his mother that he likes Tara, a conversation that ends disastrously when Tara walks in on the subsequent argument. She is disappointed with the accusation that she led Sid on even though they were only friends, and wishes not to speak with him. Sid decides to leave town for a while to focus on his paintings.

In Sydney, Akash has made a friend in Shalini (Preity Zinta), an awkward acquaintance from college who is now showing him around the city. With every meeting, Akash seems to be changing and falling more for her. However, her fiancé, Rohit (Ayub Khan), shows up from India and escorts her home for their wedding. A heartbroken Akash returns home as well. He is encouraged by his father to express his feelings to Shalini, and learns from Shalini's uncle, Mahesh (Rajat Kapoor) that the wedding is an obligation for Shalini, who is burdened with gratitude for Rohit's parents who adopted her as a child. Convinced that Shalini loves him back, Akash crashes the wedding and proposes to her. Rohit's parents give their blessings to the two, noting to Rohit that Shalini is unlikely to remain happy after marriage if she loves somebody else.

In the present day, Sid returns to find Tara in an advanced stage of liver cirrhosis and rushes her to the emergency unit. He asks Sameer to wait with him at the hospital. Sameer calls Akash, who shows up the next morning to bury the grudge with Sid. The three friends are united again but Tara passes away, asking Sid to remain happy in her final moments. Six months later, the three friends return to Goa for a visit, this time with Shalini and Pooja. At an outdoor picnic, Sid catches the eye of a woman walking in the distance who smiles at him. He proceeds in her direction, and the film ends with the three couples enjoying dinner together at a restaurant.

## Cast

* Aamir Khan as Akash Malhotra:

*One of the main trio of characters and the son of wealthy industrialist A. K. Malhotra, Akash is shown as a carefree, sometimes irresponsible individual who grows from having a two-week life-cycle for relationships to crashing Shalini's wedding to keep her in his life. Amongst the group, Akash frequently uses Sameer as the target for his jokes and pranks, even going to the extent of causing a fight that eventually led to a breakup between Sameer and his girlfriend Priya, only because he did not like Priya's bossy attitude.*

* Saif Ali Khan as Sameer Mulchandani:

*One of the main trio of characters, Sameer is shown as a hopeless romantic who cannot stop himself from falling in love with every girl he meets. (Akash and Sid laugh at him for that) After Sid and Akash's fallout, Sameer is left to play the mediator in the group. While being the target of Akash's jokes, Sameer takes them sportingly and rarely feels insulted. He is shown as a loyal friend to Sid and Akash, refusing to take sides in their fight, while also sticking with Akash when his girlfriend Priya resents their friendship.*

* Akashaye Khanna as Siddharth (better known as Sid) Sinha:

*One of the main trio of characters, Sid is the quiet and reticent one in the group. He falls in love with a divorced alcoholic and struggles with his feelings not being understood by his family and friends. While Akash frequently targets Sameer in his pranks, Sid is shown to be the supportive one who tries to be the sane voice in the group. He is also not above pranking Akash himself, as seen in him casually undercutting Akash's attempts to escape Deepa by informing her of his whereabouts. Though his own relationship remains unfulfilled, he provides the impetus for Sameer to finally confess his love for Pooja, leading to the two of them to get together.*

* Preity Zinta as Shalini: *Shalini is Akash's love interest for the second half of the film. She is engaged to marry Rohit, the son of her father's business partner who, along with his wife, adopted Shalini when her parents died early. She feels indebted to them, but also shows that she is not above enjoying herself and standing up to Rohit when needed, even though she remains devoted and loyal to his family. She shares a close relationship with her uncle Mahesh, who is both a father-figure and a brother, owing to his being relatively close to Shalini in age.*

* Sonali Kulkarni as Pooja:

*Pooja is Sameer's love interest after his breakup with Priya. Pooja is dating Subodh and seems to be in a committed relationship, but still agrees to meet with Sameer complying with her parents' wishes. She is reluctant to reveal her relationship to him, which may arise from her not being "sure" of how much she likes Subodh. Eventually, it is hinted that she tires of Subodh's overly disciplined nature and dumps him, accepting Sameer's proposal when he asks her out.*

* Dimple Kapadia as Tara Jaiswal:

*Tara is a divorced alcoholic who has a daughter from her past marriage and moves into Sid's neighbourhood after he graduates from college. Tara is shown to be frustrated in her personal life, not having separated on good terms with her husband who stops her from seeing their daughter and remarries. Tara's birthday becomes an important day in the story as it is revealed to also be the day her husband divorced her on 9th April, 1995, as well as being the day Sid discusses his feelings for her with Sameer and Akash, leading up to the fallout between the two. While Tara hints at the end of the film that she may have considered Sid as more than just a friend, their relationship remains platonic and she seems to share Sid's mother's views on the inappropriateness of their relationship.*

* Ayub Khan as Rohit:

*Rohit is the domineering and possessive fiancee of Shalini. Rohit is portrayed as hot-headed and frequently violent, as seen from the final sequence when he ends up pushing his own father away when he stops her from marrying him. His character acts as the foil to Akash, especially in the second half of the film. During a pivotal moment in the Akash-Shalini's storyline, Akash sees an old beggar approaching Shalini in the train subway late at night in Sydney, but resolves the situation by hugging him and scaring him away instead of resorting to violence as would be expected of Rohit.*

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 *Dil Chata Hai on Wikipedia*