25 years of Dil Chahta Hai: Women who quietly shaped the three men's journeys

As Dil Chahta Hai completes 25 years, let's have a look at how Shalini, Pooja and Tara shaped Akash, Sameer and Sid. The film's women had flaws, choices and lives beyond their relationships with the three men.

In Short

• Shalini, Pooja, Tara shape emotional growth of men in Dil Chahta Hai
• Shalini taught Akash love's seriousness, not a game
• Pooja made Sameer mature beyond romance thrills

For 25 years, Dil Chahta Hai has been remembered as the film that changed the way Bollywood looked at friendship. Akash, Sameer and Sid (Aamir Khan, Saif Ali Khan and Akshaye Khanna) became shorthand for a generation of young men who wanted to travel, fall in love, make mistakes and, most importantly, figure life out on their own terms. But revisit the film today and another story quietly emerges — one about three women, Preity Zinta, Dimple Kapadia and Sonali Kulkarni, who, in very different ways, shape the men they love.

Shalini, Pooja and Tara are often remembered as the romantic interests in the stories of Akash, Sameer and Sid. But reducing them to that would be doing the film a disservice. Each woman brings something different to the three men's journeys. They challenge their immaturity, expose their vulnerabilities and, in some cases, force them to confront emotions they would rather avoid.

That becomes particularly interesting when you watch Dil Chahta Hai through a 2026 lens. The film certainly isn't a feminist manifesto, nor does it always give its female characters the narrative space it gives its three protagonists. Yet, for a mainstream Hindi film released in 2001, the women are surprisingly complicated. They have histories, flaws, choices and, importantly, lives that don't revolve entirely around pleasing the men.

Shalini (Preity Zinta) taught Akash (Aamir Khan) that love isn't a game

Akash begins Dil Chahta Hai with an almost adolescent understanding of relationships. He flirts, jokes, teases, and treats romance as something that can be picked up and dropped whenever he pleases. His confidence is part charm and part emotional immaturity.

Their relationship works because she doesn't simply become another person in Akash's long list of romantic conquests. She pushes back. She has her own reservations and doesn't allow him to dictate the terms of their relationship.

That becomes particularly important when Akash realises that what he feels for Shalini is different. Suddenly, the man who was perfectly comfortable making jokes about love has to take his own feelings seriously. Shalini doesn't transform Akash by preaching to him. She simply refuses to play along with the version of love he initially understands.

And perhaps that's what makes their relationship still work. Akash's growth isn't about becoming a different person overnight. It's about finally understanding that another person's feelings aren't something to be toyed with.

Pooja (Sonali Kulkarni) made Sameer ( Saif Ali Khan) slow down

Sameer's relationship with Pooja is lighter, funnier, and much closer to the traditional romantic track in the film. But it also serves an important purpose.

Sameer is the hopeless romantic of the trio, except that his idea of romance is often more about the thrill of falling for someone than understanding what a relationship actually demands. He falls easily. He gets excited easily. He gets heartbroken easily. Pooja brings some reality into that equation.

She isn't simply the girl who eventually falls for the lovable guy. Sameer has to actually earn his place in her life. His journey with her is about moving beyond attraction and learning that relationships require patience, understanding and a degree of emotional responsibility.

In a film where Akash and Sid have more dramatic emotional arcs, Sameer's journey can seem comparatively simple. But perhaps that's the point. His growth is quieter. He doesn't need a grand heartbreak or a life-changing revelation. He simply needs to grow up.

And then there is Tara (Dimple Kapadia - Akshaye Khanna)

If there is one character who makes the film look startlingly different 25 years later, it is Tara.

Dimple Kapadia's Tara remains one of the most unusual female characters to appear in a mainstream Hindi film of that era. She is older than Sid, divorced, separated from her daughter and struggling with alcoholism. She is lonely, vulnerable and far from the neatly packaged female characters Hindi cinema often preferred.

And then Sid falls in love with her.

Their relationship is complicated precisely because the film doesn't present Tara as a conventional romantic heroine. She isn't waiting for a man to rescue her. In fact, Sid's affection cannot magically fix the problems she is carrying.

There is something remarkably empathetic about the way the film allows Tara to exist as a woman with a past. Her alcoholism is not merely a plot device. Her failed marriage isn't reduced to a convenient backstory. Her relationship with her daughter gives her an emotional life beyond Sid.

Even the age difference between her and Sid makes the relationship uncomfortable and unconventional. It raises questions about whether Sid understands the emotional complexity of what he is entering into, and whether love alone can bridge the very different stages of life they occupy.

Most importantly, the film doesn't turn Tara into a prize at the end of Sid's journey.

There is no conventional romantic victory.

Instead, Tara's story becomes one of the film's most heartbreaking reminders that sometimes people can profoundly affect each other's lives without necessarily ending up together.

The women aren't there to "fix" the men

This is where Dil Chahta Hai gets more interesting than a simple “the women changed the men” reading.

Shalini doesn't cure Akash's immaturity. Pooja doesn't magically make Sameer perfect. And Sid certainly doesn't save Tara.

Rather, their relationships become mirrors.

The three men see versions of themselves through these women. Akash discovers vulnerability. Sameer learns patience. Sid confronts the limits of love and the pain of watching someone he cares about struggle.

That is quite different from the usual Bollywood template where a woman enters a hero's life, transforms him and is rewarded with a happy ending.

Here, the women have consequences on the men's lives without necessarily existing for those consequences.

But was Dil Chahta Hai really feminist?

This is where it is worth resisting the temptation to rewrite history. Calling Dil Chahta Hai a feminist film would be a stretch.

The narrative remains firmly centred on three men. Their friendship, careers, relationships and emotional journeys drive the story. The women don't get anything close to equal screen time or narrative space.

Yet that doesn't mean the female characters were insignificant.

In fact, perhaps the more interesting question is whether Dil Chahta Hai was accidentally progressive.

It gave us a divorced woman who was allowed to be flawed. A woman who was older than the man she loved. A female character who wasn't defined by marriage or motherhood. Women who could say no, have emotional baggage, and make their own choices.

And it did all of this without making a big announcement about how progressive it was.

What would happen if Dil Chahta Hai were made today?

This is perhaps the most fascinating question 25 years later.

Tara's story would almost certainly be discussed differently today. Her alcoholism, mental and emotional state, relationship with Sid, and separation from her daughter would invite far more scrutiny.

Shalini's agency would probably be explored more deeply. Pooja too might be given a larger character arc instead of primarily existing within Sameer's romantic storyline.

And perhaps that is the biggest change of all.

In 2001, Dil Chahta Hai was revolutionary because it showed three young men who wanted more from life than marriage, jobs, and settling down. In 2026, we would probably ask the same question of its women.

What did Shalini want beyond Akash? Who was Pooja outside Sameer? And what happened to Tara after Sid walked away?

The fact that we can still ask these questions 25 years later is perhaps the reason the film continues to invite conversations beyond its iconic friendship scenes, Goa trips and soundtrack.

Dil Chahta Hai may have been sold as a story about three friends growing up.

But somewhere between Akash learning to love, Sameer learning to commit and Sid learning that love cannot always save someone, the women in their lives were growing too.

And perhaps that is the part of the film we are only now learning to look at.

- Ends