I recently read that in yet another act of self-referencing, Break ke Baad refers to Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (KKHH) as a movie that played an important role in the romance of the lead characters. Incidentally, that same day, KKHH was playing on one of the Hindi movie channels. I happened to catch the first one hour of the movie and was incredibly depressed by it. And that’s exactly how I felt the first time I watched it when I was in school.

To start with, the movie conveys that tom-boyish girls wear ridiculous clothes. Also, they have outrageous haircuts. It almost seemed to try too hard to justify why Rahul fell in love with Tina and not Anjali. Anjali was funny, cute and an amazing friend. But Tina had the long flowing tresses and the short skirts. Can you blame Anjali for trying to look like Tina to win Rahul’s attention?

So in the end, for Rahul to finally fall for Anjali, she had to change into a demure, coy long haired, sari clad woman .. basically morph into Tina v.2. Also don’t forget Aman who loved Anjali unconditionally for who she was and yet got jilted at the altar because hey, what’s a broken engagement between two friends?

For an impressionable teenager like me this meant the following:

1)      Hot guys don’t like tomboyish women

2)      If the girl is willing to change her complete personality to accommodate the boy’s liking he will love her back

3)      If you wait for your first love perseveringly, he will love you back in return provided lesson#2 is incorporated.

So, I threw out my jeans and wore my mum’s salwar-kameezes (much to her consternation) and never got over my first crush. And for that, I blame you. Yes, Karan Johar, I am looking at you.