- "We were friends. We are friends. And we will stay friends. Forever."
Dil Chahta Hai (The Heart Desires) is a 2001 Bollywood Coming of Age film. The directorial debut of Farhan Akhtar, the film stars Aamir Khan, Saif Ali Khan, Akshaye Khanna, Preity Zinta, Sonali Kulkarni, and Dimple Kapadia.
Akash (Aamir Khan), Sameer "Sam" (Saif Ali Khan), and Siddharth "Sid" (Khanna) are best friends in college and True Companions who are forced to decide the paths of their lives after graduation, but resolve to stay friends no matter what. The three subsequently maneuver life and love: Akash moves to Melbourne and falls for Shalini (Zinta), who is engaged to another man; Sam is set to have an arranged marriage to Pooja (Kulkarni); Sid resolves to be an artist and finds himself falling for his much older neighbour Tara (Kapadia).
Dil Chahta Hai is among the most influential Indian films of its generation, immediately marking its debutant writer-director as a star and rejuvenating the careers of several members of its cast. It is perhaps the first so-called Indian "urban film", relatably showcasing the lives of the urban upper-middle-class Indian youth; it is arguably still a significant Indian Trope Codifier for Coming of Age tropes.
Dil Chahta Hai provides examples of these tropes:
- Abhorrent Admirer: Deepa to Akash.
- Age-Gap Romance: Sid and Tara. Played, decidedly, for drama – his friends initially mock him for it, leading to him slapping Akash and leading to the two of them not talking to each other for years; her daughter is scandalized that she is dating a man possibly young enough to be her son.
- Grew a Spine: It takes a while for Sam to be able to stand up to his girlfriend Priya for the first time, but he does manage it eventually.
