Mohabbatein

An Indian film set at a boarding school. Gurukul is a hundred year old school for boys. The principal, Narayan Shankar, has set one rule: discipline, tradition, and no love. A new music teacher arrives. Raj says he will teach the students to love and comes into open conflict with the principal. There are three students and all three are in love. One with a girl from the school next door, one with a princess, one with his own childhood friend. Raj helps them. The principal notices and a two-sided struggle begins at the school. Raj has a past. Years ago he was a student at the same school and loved the principal's daughter; when she learned it was forbidden she killed herself. From there the film is a reckoning. Raj has come back and wants to change the school; the principal never speaks of his daughter's death. What the narrative is interested in is not love but rules: the film says discipline is a form of protection and does not draw the principal as a one-dimensional villain. Megha appears inside the narrative. Raj talks to her and dances with her; the film gives this not as a ghost but as a memory being carried. It runs over three hours and there are a great many songs; the narrative stops regularly. Two major stars appeared opposite each other for the first time in this film, and the marketing was built largely on that. The music is by Jatin and Lalit. Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Aishwarya Rai, Uday Chopra, Jugal Hansraj and Jimmy Shergill are in the cast. Aditya Chopra wrote and directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes classical Indian melodrama and songs. Who it is not for: anyone impatient about length and repetition; the narrative states the same idea many times.