Dil Chahta Hai

Akash, Sameer and Siddharth are three friends who have just graduated from college. They each have different personalities - Akash (Aamir Khan) does not believe in commitment, Sameer (Saif Ali Khan) is a hopeless romantic, while Siddharth aka Sid (Akshaye Khanna) is mature and thoughtful. After Sameer's girlfriend dumps him, the three of them take a trip to Goa to celebrate their graduation.

On their return, Sameer's parents want him to consider getting married to their friends' daughter, Pooja (Sonali Kulkarni). Sameer meets Pooja and falls in love, but she has a boyfriend that her parents don't know about. Akash's parents want him to take responsibility in life and manage their family business in Australia. Meanwhile, Sid is growing close to Tara Jaiswal (Dimple Kapadia), a new neighbour who has moved in down the street. An older, divorced woman, Tara is barred from meeting her daughter and compensates by drinking excessively. She reads the typically reticent Sid like a book and he finds himself attracted to her. When he confesses this to his friends one night, he is met with ridicule. Akash makes a disparaging remark that leads Sid to slap him, and the night ends with the two friends seemingly going their separate ways.

Soon, Sid leaves town to attend a painting workshop, and Akash, giving in to his parents' wishes, flies off to Sydney. Left to his own, Sameer develops a friendship with Pooja, hoping that she will dump her boyfriend. When she eventually does, Sameer plucks up the courage and asks her out. After getting back to town, Sid is probed by his mother with questions on marriage and ends up revealing his feelings for Tara. Tara walks in on the ensuing argument, and refuses to talk to Sid, disappointed at the insinuation that she "led him on." It seems that Sid has managed to alienate everyone in his life, and he leaves town again to work on his paintings, this time for an extended period.

Meanwhile, Akash is growing close to Shalini (Preity Zinta), a girl from his college whom he had once pranked, and who is now his only acquaintance in Sydney. They spend time together exploring the city until Shalini's fiance turns up to escort her home for their wedding. Akash is heartbroken, realizing that he has finally fallen in love. He returns to India and decides to propose to Shalini on the eve of her wedding. The guests at the event are shocked, but Rohit's parents step in and bless the couple after Shalini reveals that she loves Akash as well.

Coming home, Sid finds Tara in an advanced stage of liver cirrhosis. He rushes her to the emergency unit and waits out the night with Sameer. In the morning, Akash shows up to bury the grudge. The three friends are united again, however Tara succumbs to her illness. Six months later, Akash, Sameer, Sid, Shalini and Pooja, are having a picnic in Goa. Sid catches the eye of a pretty woman in the distance. When she smiles back at him, he begins to move in her direction. The film ends with the three couples (Sid is with the woman he met in Goa) enjoying a lively dinner together at a restaurant.

• Aamir Khan as Akash Malhotra:

• Saif Ali Khan as Sameer Mulchandani:

• Akshaye Khanna as Siddharth "Sid" Sinha:

• Preity Zinta as Shalini:

• Sonali Kulkarni as Pooja:

• Dimple Kapadia as Tara Jaiswal:

• Ayub Khan as Rohit:

• Rajat Kapoor as Mahesh:

• Suchitra Pillai as Priya:

• Samantha Treymane as Deepa:

• Asad Dadarkar as Subodh:

• Suhasini Mulay as Sid's Mother
• Ahmed Khan as A K Malhotra, Aakash's Father
• Kannu Gill as Aakash's Mother
• Rakesh Pandey as Rohit's Father
• Smita Oak as Rohit's Mother
• Anjula Bedi as Sameer's Mother
• Yusuf Hussain as Naresh, Pooja's Father
• Shail Mehta as Pooja's Mother
• Kiran Rao as Deepa's Friend
• Raj Zutshi as Ajay's voice (Tara'a ex-husband)
• Mandala Tayde as Sid's Partner (She appears towards the end of movie where Sid looks at her in fort)
• Simran Makhija as Eesha, Tara's daughter
• Beatrice Gibson as Kristine

All lyrics are written by Javed Akhtar; all music is composed by Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy.

The movie is partially based on writer-director Farhan Akhtar's diaries on his trips to Las Vegas, his 1996 month-and-a-half long stay at New York City, and a storyline narrated to him by a friend.[2] Farhan Akhtar began work on the script in 1998; the relationship of the characters Akash and Shalini was based on a similar experience of one of Akhtar's friends.[3] Other parts of Dil Chahta Hai were adapted from Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing.[4]

Initially, Akhtar wanted Hrithik Roshan, Abhishek Bachchan and Akshaye Khanna in the three main roles.[5] While Khanna agreed to do the film, Roshan and Bachchan were unavailable.[6] Akhtar offered the part of Akash to Khanna and he offered the part of Sid to Aamir Khan. However, Khan did not want to play Sid and wanted to play Akash instead. Khanna agreed to play Sid so that Khan could play Akash. Afterwards, Saif Ali Khan joined the cast as Sameer. Preity Zinta and Sonali Kulkarni were cast as Shalini and Pooja respectively. Akhtar convinced actress Dimple Kapadia to come out of retirement to play the role of divorcée Tara Jaiswal. After 15 months of extensive pre-production, the film was shot over a four-month period in Mumbai, India and Sydney, Australia.[3]

Dil Chahta Hai's style extended to the music and its picturisation. Initially, director Farhan Akhtar had approached A. R. Rahman for composing the music. But since Rahman was busy with other engagements, he did not accept the offer.[7] Later Rahman commented that he was glad that the project went to Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy and he personally loved their work in the film.[8] One song sequence recapitulates and, to some extent, parodies Bollywood song-and-dance history. Other songs drop the usual dance accompaniment – one depicts an argument between two protagonists through the song's lyrics, another establishes the character's state of mind through a moody photo collage, while yet another imagines the beautiful and idealised world of an artist in love through a song inside a painting. There is an extended opera sequence at the Sydney Opera House, which was exclusively commissioned for the film.[3]

FILMING

The filming of the movie was done in Mumbai,Goa. A portion of the movie was also filmed at Sydney.

• All I Want Is Everything

• Dil Chahta Hai at IMDb
• Dil Chahta Hai at AllMovie
• Dil Chahta Hai at Rotten Tomatoes
• Bonobology.com: "6 Bollywood movies where the lead characters have had a huge age difference"