For example, our boys in
ZNMD play the same word game to reveal each
other's woes which Rahul and Anjali played in
Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, more than a decade ago. It can be easily said that the film is hinged on its star cast; it's not a bad deal to watch
Rahul Khanna (Shahrukh Khan) and the tomboy Anjali Sharma (Kajol) are students at St. Xavier's College. They are the best of friends. One day Tina Malhotra (Rani Mukerji), the principal's daughter, enrolls at St. Xavier's. She comes from London, and she is beautiful, feminine, and sophisticated; she is the antithesis of Anjali. Rahul falls hard for Tina as soon as he meets her and actively pursues her.
However, a comment he makes in class about love, saying he can only love his best friend, makes Anjali realise that she has feelings for Rahul. A love triangle begins to develop. Seeing Rahul's interest in Tina, Anjali strives to be more like Tina and, for the first time in her life, begins to act more feminine. However, her attempts are only met with laughter from the rest of the school and from Rahul himself, although Tina scolds him for it. Anjali is finally motivated to tell Rahul outright that she loves him, however, before she can, Rahul confesses to her his love for Tina, leaving Anjali's heart broken.
Anjali leaves college suddenly, despite Rahul and Tina's attempts to convince her to stay as her train is leaving. When she admits that she may never return, Rahul, still unaware of Anjali's feelings for him, feels betrayed that she didn't tell him. They exchange tearful goodbyes, and Rahul is devastated. Anjali never calls or writes.
Tina and Rahul marry and have a daughter but, due to complications, Tina dies shortly after childbirth. Before she dies, she makes Rahul promise to name their daughter Anjali. She leaves her daughter a series of eight letters, to be given to her on each of her birthdays until she turns eight. Every year, on Anjali's birthday, she is given a letter and hears her mother's loving wishes for her; these letters become treasured memories of the mother she never knew.
In the eighth and last letter, the little girl is told about her namesake. Where Rahul had been blind, Tina had noticed Anjali's emotions and pitied her deeply. Tina had always felt guilty for coming between what she recognised as a deep love. In the letter, Tina instructs her daughter to find the older Anjali and reunite her with Rahul. Because Rahul hasn't remarried, perhaps his first love could be the mother that the young Anjali needs and wants. Taking her mother's words to heart, young Anjali soon recruits her doting grandmother (Rahul's mother, played by Farida Jalal) and grandfather (Tina's father, played by Anupam Kher) as accomplices.
It is revealed that the older Anjali has changed considerably from her tomboyish college days and is now a beautiful, well-groomed woman, engaged to be married to Aman Mehra (played by Salman Khan). Though Anjali confesses privately that she doesn't love her fiancé and will never love anyone but Rahul, she is set to marry Aman within a week. When little Anjali hears of this, she begins to pray. Miraculously, her prayers are answered, and the wedding is postponed to December.
Younger Anjali and her conspirators learn that the older Anjali will be a dance instructor/counselor at a summer camp. The younger Anjali begs Rahul to let her go; he relents, with her granny accompanying her. Her namesake discovers, without the younger girl's knowledge, the truth of her new charge's parentage. Rahul greatly misses his daughter while she is away; when she sneezes during a phone call home, he immediately rushes to be at her side. When he arrives, he and his former best friend are shocked to see each other again. After a basketball game reminiscent of their college days and a revealing game of charades, they soon find old feelings reviving. They share a tender moment alone, but Anjali is stricken with guilt, since she is engaged. To complicate matters, Anjali's fiancé arrives at the summer camp, and Rahul soon finds out that they are engaged. Though hurt by this news, he tells Anjali how happy he is for her and, interpreting his happiness as another rejection, she decides to leave camp and move up her wedding date.
The wedding date arrives, and a deeply unsettled Anjali prepares to be married, which would mean losing Rahul forever. Rahul and young Anjali attend the wedding, both of them clearly devastated. Rahul goes to see Anjali before she descends the stairs and, as a result, Anjali gets cold feet. Aman, following on something he earlier joked about, drags her down the steps to the wedding. Aman realises he'd be coming between a fated love and decides to step aside to let them be together at last. As the ecstatic Rahul and Anjali get married, a beaming vision of Tina appears and gives the thumbs up to little Anjali.
