Jai is nowhere the urbane artist that Sid is, but they are both brooders, with a sense of melancholy so palpable that it transcends and finds home in the viewer’s heart. When he falls in love with Radha (Jaya Bachchan), the young widowed daughter-in-law of the thakur who has hired him as a bounty hunter, we are not surprised. Though he is Veeru’s partner in every crime - they are both playful, uncouth, opportunistic history-sheeters - Jai is markedly different from him he is so much more.
Sid reminds me a lot of Jai (Amitabh Bachchan) from Sholay. In that one scene, she gives a face, an anchor to Sid’s flights of fantasy and quiet reclusiveness.ĭimple Kapadia and Akshaye Khanna in Dil Chahta Hai In finding the artist through his art, Tara unpacks volumes about Sid, herself, and his blossoming love for her. It grows naturally, seamlessly into love after Tara - like soft sunshine - throws light on Sid’s guarded person by deciphering his paintings in a way that no Akash or Sameer could ever have.
It is when he finds that she is an art aficionado that a friendship strikes between the two, a painter and an interior designer. Initially, just like any well-meaning neighbour, he only wants to help Tara - a divorcee much older than him - move her luggage up to her apartment. In a milieu and at a time like that, Sid’s slow, reflective romance was an anomaly. Bollywood was still busy doing what it does best - normalising love-at-first-sight romances and churning out uninspired copies of old blockbusters. Tickets of soppy stories wanting you to love your family and country sold like hotcakes at the box office. It was 2001 - glossy, larger-than-life films mounted on big budgets and even bigger stars were the norm. How Sid falls in love with Tara is so close to life that it was a breakthrough for its time. Sid’s presence does to the film what the little motifs that he draws with Tara’s portrait do to the painting - add a whole new dimension discernable only to those observant enough to perceive it. Without him, Dil Chahta Hai would still have been a breezy coming-of-age story about friendship and love, but it would have lost its soul, its introspective quality that prevents it from being any other forgettable rom-com spun by the dozen every year. It is only Sid among the trio who has aged well. Today, two decades later, Sameer looks juvenile, and Akash’s humour feels trite. When I watched the film again recently, I finally knew why. What was it about him that felt so familiar? His introversion? His quiet creative genius? His negation of what should and should not be? His ability to see what others disregard? Or was it his brooding self-assuredness? I could not tell then. I had not seen anyone like him on screen before. His sensitivity, gravitas, and deep sense of melancholy resonated with me at an instinctive level. When I first watched the film as a pre-pubescent, I found Akash funny and Sameer charming, but it was Sid that stayed with me. It has been 20 years since Dil Chahta Hai released but I still cannot think of any other character in movies that has been written and performed with as much care and control. In an industry that loves to obsess over and glorify the man-child, men like Sid come once in a generation. The film also features Dimple Kapadia, Sonali Kulkarni and Rajat Kapoor in pivotal roles.Īs the film clocked its 18 years yesterday, Preity Zinta took to her Instagram handle reminiscing the memories from her favorite film and thanking the entire cast of the film.Men like Siddharth Sinha are rare.
The film stars Aamir Khan, Saif Ali Khan and Akshaye Khanna in lead roles while Preity Zinta plays the role of Shalini, who is Akash’s love interest. Directed by Farhan Akhtar, the film is all about three close friends Aakash, Sameer and Siddharth who get parted after college due to their dissimilar approaches towards love affairs and life.
The all-time favorite film, the film which gave us friendship goals, none other than 2001 film, ‘Dil Chahta Hai’, completed 18 years, yesterday.