Mohabbatein (English: Love Stories) is a 2000 Indianmusical romantic film directed by Aditya Chopra. It was Chopra's second directorial venture after Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge and was filmed in India and the United Kingdom. The film stars Amitabh Bachchan, Uday Chopra, Shah Rukh Khan, Jimmy Sheirgill, Jugal Hansraj, Shamita Shetty, Kim Sharma, Preeti Jhangiani and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan in the lead roles. The film's soundtrack was composed by Jatin-Lalit, while the lyrics were penned by Anand Bakshi. The film is notable for being the first time that Bachchan and Khan appeared on-screen together.

Mohabbatein

Theatrical release poster

Directed byAditya ChopraProduced byYash ChopraWritten byAditya ChopraStarringAmitabh Bachchan
Uday Chopra
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan
Shah Rukh Khan
Jugal Hansraj
Jimmy Shergill
Shamita Shetty
Kim Sharma
Preeti Jhangiani
Anupam Kher
Archana Puran Singh
Amrish Puri
Shefali Shah
HelenMusic byJatin-LalitCinematographyManmohan SinghEdited byV.V. Karnik
Singh TaranjeetDistributed byYash Raj Films

Release date

27 October 2000

Running time

216 minutesCountryIndiaLanguageHindiBudget₹190 million[1]Box office₹900 million[2]

The film went on to do well both critically and commercially. It was the highest Bollywood grosser of 2000, followed by Rakesh Roshan's Kaho Naa... Pyaar Hai.[3] It also won several awards including the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor and the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor, for Khan and Bachchan respectively.

Narayan Shankar (Amitabh Bachchan) has been the strict Headmaster of Gurukul, a prestigious all-boys college, for 25 years. He believes in bringing the best out of his students by emphasizing tradition and discipline, with no room for fun and games. He is particularly intolerant of romance, decreeing that any student who is caught having a romantic affair will immediately be expelled.

Despite this draconian rule, three Gurukul students – Sameer (Jugal Hansraj), Vicky (Uday Chopra), and Karan (Jimmy Sheirgill) – all fall in love. Sameer is head over heels for Sanjana (Kim Sharma), his childhood friend who already has a steady boyfriend; Vicky falls for Ishika (Shamita Shetty), a student at the neighbouring all-girls college who rebuffs his attempts to flirt with her; and Karan has a crush on Kiran (Preeti Jhangiani), a beautiful young widow whose military pilot husband has been shot down and whom he sees alone one night in a train station.

Meanwhile, Narayan Shankar hires Raj Aryan Malhotra (Shah Rukh Khan) as Gurukul's new music teacher. Friendly and a firm believer in the power of love, Raj Aryan makes it his mission to spread love throughout Gurukul. He sympathizes with the predicaments of Sameer, Vicky, and Karan, and encourages them to not give up and stay loyal to their loves. He tells them that he has a special love himself, Megha (Aishwarya Rai Bachchan), saying that although she is dead, he imagines her to be by his side every day.

One day, as part of his plan to spread love throughout the school, Raj Aryan throws a party and invites the students of the all-girls college. Narayan walks in on the party, shuts it down, and furiously threatens to fire Raj Aryan. At this point, Raj Aryan reveals that he had been a student at Gurukul over a decade earlier and that he had fallen in love with Megha, who happened to be Narayan's one and only daughter. Narayan had expelled Raj Aryan from the school without even seeing his face, and a distraught Megha, unable to live without Raj, committed suicide. Raj Aryan declares that he has come back to Gurukul to honour Megha's memory by reversing the school's zero-tolerance policy on romance, and promises that before he leaves he will fill the school with so much love that even Narayan will be unable to stop it. A shocked Narayan takes this as a challenge and allows Raj Aryan to remain for a while longer.

Sameer, Vicky, and Karan are all able to win over their loves, but Narayan retaliates by tightening the rules of Gurukul. The student body, however, encouraged by Raj Aryan, continues to defy the rules, and in a last-ditch effort to preserve the school atmosphere he has built up for 25 years, Narayan expels Sameer, Vicky, and Karan. Raj Aryan speaks up on their behalf, stating that they did nothing wrong by falling in love and accusing Narayan of causing his own daughter's death with his intolerance of love. He also says that he feels Narayan lost the challenge because his daughter left him and now Raj (who considered Narayan an elder) is leaving him as well.

Raj's harsh words sting Narayan, and he tearfully realizes his strict no-romance policy has been misguided. He apologizes to the student body and resigns as headmaster of Gurukul, and nominates Raj as his successor, who accepts.

Amitabh Bachchan as Narayan ShankarUday Chopra as Vicky OberoiShah Rukh Khan as Raj Aryan MalhotraJimmy Sheirgill as Karan ChaudhryJugal Hansraj as Sameer SharmaShamita Shetty as Ishika DhanrajKim Sharma as SanjanaPre