Eras pirouette, cinema morphs—here we stand in 2026, watching narratives shape-shift, and the shape-shifting is constant. However, we yet remain blind to a delicious irony: it was yesterday’s magic that rewired our emotional circuitry. The bygone songs are still stuck in an infinite replay, igniting the modern soundtracks—well, for the better. Whether we trace it back to the 2000s, 90s, 80s, or beyond, we find the same alignment: Bollywood has embedded itself in us. We grew up clutching these films like emotional mindmaps, turning every awkward moment, every triumph, every failure, every mundane weekday into a scene we’d already watched unfold on screen.
And now, we see 2000s nostalgia hitting the right chords this February—Tere Naam (2003) and Devdas (2002) are set to be re-released. The twin titans of the 2000s. We still weaponise these films, deploying them like emotional grenades whenever life serves up its choicest ironies in terms of love and romance. Romance? Murky—painted in fifty shades of chaos and contentment—that being said, Yuva (2004) is crashing this nostalgia party too. Three different stories, and we learn romance in three different ways.
However, whether you’re revisiting these films or stumbling in blind, you’ll walk out transformed, wearing a different skin than the one you arrived in.
Devdas (2002), directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, starring Shah Rukh Khan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, and Madhuri Dixit, is based on the 1917 novel of the same name by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay. The story follows Devdas Mukherjee, a wealthy law graduate who returns to his ancestral home from London to marry his childhood love, Parvati “Paro”. Their love is tragically cut short by Devdas’s family’s disapproval of Paro’s lower social status. Eventually, Devdas leads himself to self-destruction. Tere Naam (2003), directed by Satish Kaushik, starring Salman Khan and Bhumika Chawla in the leads, follows Radhe (Salman Khan), who falls in love with a priest’s daughter, Nirjara (Bhumika Chawla); however, things turn tragic for the two, and Radhe ends up in a mental asylum after suffering a head injury. Yuva (2004), directed by Mani Ratnam, is an Indian political drama that explores the lives of three men and their intersecting paths in the aftermath of a violent incident on Kolkata’s Howrah Bridge. The film features Ajay Devgn, Abhishek Bachchan, Rani Mukerji, Kareena Kapoor, and others.
Contemporary Observations
So far, these films have been dissected, meme-ified, reel-ified and woven into our own mythological recreations through songs, social media and late-night confessions. Got your heart stomped on? Your friends will call you ‘Devdas’ faster than you can get into another situationship—it is how we picked up on the film’s context as we grew up. The Tere Naam fervour is dormant in all of us; love gives a bit of a nudge to it sometimes. Yuva swaggers in with its trifecta of love stories, each one a different flavour of chaos—and somehow, the popular song from the film ‘Kabhi Neem Neem’ distils the whole beautiful, bitter-sweet mess into pure poetry.
Devdas to be re-released on the 6th of February, Yuva on the 20th of February, and Tere Naam on the 27th of February. Also, as we hail the two titans of Bollywood, fans are eyeing the year’s two highly anticipated films: The Battle of Galwan & KING.
