20 Years Ago, a Bollywood Film Changed How Millennials Viewed Falling in Love With Older Women

Twenty years ago, on this day, a Bollywood movie arrived on a scene that was saturated with bombastic storytelling and larger-than-life heroes – quietly injecting a sense of “cool” in cinema like Indian millennials of that time had never witnessed.

The film was a critical success and took the industry by storm with its slick haircuts, silver pants, sync-sound technology (sound recorded at the time of the filming of movies), and the introduction of a concept previously unknown to Bollywood: a script and a schedule. 

But more significantly, for many millennials, Dil Chahta Hai (DCH) gave them a more complex understanding of romance, even beyond the bromance that the movie championed.

Before DCH, not many directors had dared to dip their toes in the stigmatised water of “age inappropriate” relationships. DCH was brave enough to explore the idea of a young man falling in love with a lady much older than him. In a way, the film normalised a different kind of love – one that is not possessive or even reciprocal, but is real nonetheless. 

The film is about three friends: Akash, Sameer, and Sid (played by Aamir Khan, Saif Ali Khan, and Akshaye Khanna respectively), who have wildly different approaches to love and relationships. Akash believes love to be a scam that traps one into a life of toxic dependency and unhappiness. Sameer is a guy too easily smitten by love or perhaps the idea of it, and has no clue ki aakhir dil kya chahta hai (what his heart truly desires). 

And then there is Sid. 

Siddharth Sinha, played brilliantly by Akshaye Khanna, falls in love with Tara, a woman not only much older than him, but also separated from her husband and with a daughter. This, in retrospect, is a creatively resilient choice because it attacks the narrow definition of love that we are conditioned to aspire for in India, i.e. to attach ourselves only to people of similar age, sex, class, caste and social background. 

In a crucial scene, Tara overhears Sid confessing his feelings about her to his disapproving mother. The scene culminates with Tara telling Sid that she does not share the same feelings and is rather hurt by his confession. Sid being Sid – calm, composed and self-secure – apologises to Tara for hurting her, while explaining that he never meant for her to find out. And yet what truly makes Sid such a great male character is that he does not apologise for the way he feels about Tara. This is anti-climatic in the best way possible because it dispels the notion that romance must always end with either the reciprocity of feelings or the possession of someone.

“In Sid and Tara, Dil Chahta Hai opened up the possibilities of romance on the big screen that didn't rely on a happily-ever-after,” film critic and culture journalist Poulomi Das told VICE.

Das further pointed out that this was unlike most Hindi rom-coms that condition us to believe that very little can come between two people if they really are in love. “Dil Chahta Hai tells you the opposite; Sid and Tara never worked out because of the world of differences between them – his immaturity and her baggage, for instance.” 

She gave the example of Shakun Batra’s Ek Main aur Ekk Tu released in the year 2012. “Even though the film did pioneer the idea of an anti-rom-com, it wouldn't have been possible without Dil Chahta Hai's influence,” Das said. “In Sid and Tara's case, to love is to also let go.”

What is interesting about the storyline is that it has appealed to more than just a heterosexual demographic. Rhea Mahule, a queer woman in her mid-20s who lives in Mumbai said, “Sid was my favourite character from that film 'cause I identified with him the most ever since I was a child. And looking back, it makes sense that I, too, fell for someone much older than me.”

DCH, in essence, saves us from the dangers of a single story and the dangers of representing a single kind of love. The human experience is complex, and the stories we tell should reflect that complexity much like Sid’s storyline does in the film. The truth is that most of us fall for someone outside our age, sex, class, etc., and normalising these feelings helps to break the stigma around whom we can and cannot fall for, without the expectation of reciprocation or a relationship. 

Sid’s storyline also has the potential to liberate us from our rigid understanding of a family – there is nothing criminal about Sid wanting a life with an older divorced woman who has a daughter. If that were ever to happen in a different kind of world, why would that be any less of a family? 

In the Bollywood universe run by obsessive lovers, Dil Chahta Chahta is a beautiful anomaly. It does more than just entertain us; it encourages us not to be afraid of complexity and to accept the love we find in whatever shape, size or age it comes in, and if not, just accept ourselves.

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