Movies - Dil Chahta Hai

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	Movies - Dil Chahta Hai

Dil Chahta Hai (Billed as Do Your Thing in English, although the title literally means The Heart Desires) is a 2001 Bollywood movie; it was a hit in cities in India and overseas. Those who liked it said it broke new ground by showing Indian youth as they are today.

All the characters are upper-class and cosmopolitan. They live in lavish houses, wear designer clothes, attend art exhibitions and performances of Western opera, and travel overseas as a matter of course. They even go on dates -- a Western practice which is considered scandalous by rural Indians. Some critics say that this is why the film did not do well in the villages; the lifestyle depicted was just too foreign.

City sophisticates, however, appreciated the style of the film as well as its setting. One song sequence recapitulates Bollywood dance history; one song drops the usual dance accompaniment and establishes the character's state of mind through lyrics and a moody photo collage. There is an extended opera sequence and a song-and-dance inside a painting. The director is tweaking Bollywood conventions in a knowing way.

The film's stylishness extended to the music, by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy. Many film fans thought that the music was fresh and different.

Plot

The movie is about three friends, each with a different outlook towards life, and love in particular:

Akash does not believe in love and says that one should never keep a girlfriend for more than two weeks.
Sameer is genial, well-meaning, and confused. He is prone to romantic infatuations; each time, he is sure that this time he has found true love! He is portrayed as a hopelessly romantic person.
Siddharth, or Sid, is a painter and believes in unconventional love.

Story

The story is framed by glimpses of the characters Siddharth and Sameer as they sit anxiously in a hospital waiting room. Why are they there? Flashbacks tell the story that led them to this moment.

The flashbacks tell us about three urban, rich, young Indian college students, who have finished college and are trying to find their place in the larger world.

Akash is frequently shown running from a girl (who is told to be very smart and intelligent) for no particular reason, though it can be easily speculated from his beliefs about love; that he does not believe in it. The lead actress, Shalini, is introduced as an outsider in a college annual function and Akash proposes her in a very sentimental way (shown to be actually done jokingly). He gets hit by Rohit, her current boyfriend.

Sameer, a hopelessly romantic person, has a break-up with his girlfriend over the issue of his high involvement with his friends and ignoring her. Akash plays an important role by deliberately creating misunderstanding between them and eventually leading to the break-up. This follows by a vacation taken by the trio to Goa, where Sameer again falls in love with a foreigner (Christine). A few days after Akash and Sid return, they are informed by Sameer (who has recently returned from Goa) that she was a con and robbed him of all his belongings.

Focus now shifts to Sid's life, who is shown to secretly and slowly falling in love with his newly shifted neighbour, Tara Jaiswal. She is an Interior designer and is a divorcee, the divorce taking place because of her alleged alcohol addiction. She gets very upset on her birthday when she comes to know that her plans to meet her daughter have been spoiled by her ex-husband, who also abuses her. Sid, in order to cheer her up, takes her to a restaurant, where they (along with Akash and Sameer) party for some time. Things take dramatic turn when returning from the party, Akash comments about Sid's love-choice in a sarcastic and derogatory manner. Sid slaps him and they end their friendship. Another jolt comes to Sid's life when his mother refuses to accept Tara and comments about her character. Tara happens to hear this and is shocked over the incidence. She ends her relationship with Sid after that.

Meanwhile Sameer meets a girl courtesy an arranged marriage proposal through his parents. Here again he falls in love with this girl, though comes to know that she already has a boyfriend with whom she is making out pretty well. He satisfies himself by being her friend.

Akash's parents force him to go to Sydney to take care of the business there. Onboard the flight to Sydney, he meets Shalini again. By repetitive meetings in Sydney, they fall in love but he never confesses it even after provacations by her. One day, she tells him that she is getting married to Rohit soon. Akash is heart-broken at this and returns to India.

Here, he fixes up Sameer's love life by encouraging him to propose to her, which she accepts. Then Sameer encourages him to find out why she is marrying Rohit when she is in love with Akash. It turns out that she is doing it under the gratitude that Rohit's family has done to her by raising her.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Dil Chahta Hai ]

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