Dhadak 2

Story:

Shazia Iqbal is the writer and director of the 2025 Indian Hindi-language romance drama film Dhadak 2 (also known as Heartbeat 2), which is also produced by Dharma Productions, Zed Studios, and Cloud 9 Pictures. Starring Siddhant Chaturvedi and Triptii Dimri in the key roles, it is a spiritual follow-up to Dhadak (2018) and a remake of the Tamil movie Pariyerum Perumal (2018) . On August 1, 2025, Dhadak 2 was launched in theatres to overwhelmingly good reviews.

Siddhant Chaturvedi plays Neelesh “Neel” Ahirwar, a legal student from a lower caste that has historically been marginalised. He is accepted into a prominent law school through the reservation system, where he plans to diligently pursue his legal studies. He meets Vidhi Bharadwaj (Triptii Dimri), a classmate from a socially affluent, upper-caste family, while he is in college. Despite coming from opposite backgrounds, the two become good friends and eventually fall in love.

The social reality surrounding them brutally becomes apparent as their friendship grows. Vidhi’s family starts to protest the connection, particularly her close cousins. Neelesh is once asked to attend the wedding of Nimisha, Vidhi’s sister. Vidhi’s cousins beat Neelesh at the wedding for “daring” to hang out with someone from a higher caste, even if her father grudgingly lets him go. To emphasise this point, one of her relatives (Ronnie) even urinates on him. Her father interrupts the physical humiliation but reiterates the warning to avoid Vidhi.

Neelesh avoids her for a while, but his internalised rage and frustration push him to rebel for his rights in other ways. For example, he chooses to sit in the front of the class, in a seat that Ronnie typically occupies, rather than in the rear with the other students from the lower caste. Ronnie gets suspended as a result of additional bullying, this time on a college campus. Neelesh’s annoyance was heightened when his father was summoned to the college as part of the disciplinary proceedings, when he was also humiliated by the bullies.

Neelesh and Vidhi reconcile as a result of their shared horrific experience, and one of their friends, Shekhar, who belongs to the same caste as Neelesh, ends up killing himself because he is too overwhelmed by the injustices and pressures in his life.

However, Shankar, a “enforcer” of caste violence who has slain others for “daring” to have similar intercaste relationships, is ultimately hired to kill Neelesh by Vidhi’s relatives, who still oppose their connection. While Shankar eventually kills himself for the shame of not doing his job well, Neelesh escapes. He discovers who planned this when he sees Ronnie at the site and follows him all the way to his house. While Vidhi avoids more escalation, Neelesh stops himself from killing Ronnie and publicly exposes all the wrong they have done to him, shaming them in the process.

Though at a very high emotional and physical cost, love ultimately “wins” in the sense that Neelesh and Vidhi are together with at least some familial approval.