Twenty-five years after ‘Dil Chahta Hai’ redefined friendship on screen, Farhan Akhtar has imagined where Akash, Sid and Sameer would be today. For him, growing older wouldn’t change the essence of their bond. If anything, he believes they would still find a way to meet, even as life gets busier and years begin to pass between those meetings.
Speaking to The Juggernaut, Akhtar recalled a moment from a recent holiday that immediately reminded him of the three friends. “I saw these two men in their late 60s or 70s. They came to this little beach shack, sat at a table that was reserved for them and ate ice cream sundaes together. I thought it was the most incredible thing. That’s where I see Akash, Sid and Sameer. I see them having a table of their own where they always meet and have a chat and have some ice cream sundaes.”
The image ties back to one of ‘Dil Chahta Hai’s’ most memorable scenes, when Akash (Aamir) confidently declares that the friends should spend a week in Goa every year, only for Sid (Akshaye) to watch a ship sail by and wonder if they’ll even meet once in the next decade. It is a moment the film presents almost casually, without underlining its depth, yet there is something remarkably real about it. Beneath the humour and easy camaraderie, Sid’s thought captures a truth about friendships that feels increasingly relatable with age, that life can slowly pull people in different directions, and staying close requires effort.
Akhtar said that exchange remains one of his favourites in the film because it captures a reality that only becomes clearer with age. “Life will constantly keep getting in the way. You have to make an effort to stay in touch and just be there for each other. It’s not something that you imagine in your early 20s, that you’re not going to see your friends for five years and six years. We should prepare ourselves for it by really cherishing what we have and enjoying ourselves while we can.”
Asked how he managed to write such a prescient moment while still in his twenties, Akhtar admitted that he simply recognised it as a possibility – a thought that eventually became one of the film’s most enduring observations about friendship.
The filmmaker also revealed that the themes of friendship in ‘Dil Chahta Hai’ continue to resonate with his own life. “The friends that I had when I wrote that film; they still are my closest friends today after all these years; I just feel blessed. But …” he added with a laugh, “I don’t want to jinx it by talking about it too much.”
Released in 2001, Dil Chahta Hai went on to establish a new portrayal of friendship in mainstream Hindi cinema.
