Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna

Story:

Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna also abbreviated as KANK, is a 2006 Indian Hindi-language romantic drama film directed by Karan Johar, who also wrote it with Shibani Bathija, and produced by his mother Hiroo Yash Johar under the Dharma Productions banner. The film stars Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Abhishek Bachchan, Rani Mukherji, Preity Zinta and Kirron Kher. The film explores themes of marital infidelity and dysfunctional relationships, and was promoted with the tag-line “A Love… That Broke All Relationships”.

PLOT

Maya is a schoolteacher and an orphan who is to marry her closest childhood friend, Rishi Talwar. The two have been raised by Rishi’s fun-loving, wealthy womanizing father, Samarjit. Dev is a successful soccer player who lives in New York City with his wife Rhea, his son Arjun and his mother Kamaljit. Maya meets Dev moments before she is to marry Rishi. Although the two are strangers, they connect instantly. Right after they part, Dev is hit by a car and permanently injures his leg. As a result, he can no longer play soccer.

Four years later, Dev, who now walks with a limp, is short-tempered and embittered because of his inability to play soccer; Rhea’s successful career as a fashion magazine editor makes him feel inferior to her. Dev is now a soccer coach of a team of juniors, including his own son, but is frustrated when Arjun doesn’t play like him. Meanwhile, Maya is struggling with her infertility and lack of love for Rishi, seeing him as childish. Dev and Maya meet again, and Riya and Rishi strike a professional friendship. Sam and Kamal, having lost their spouses, become friends to help one another through their loneliness. Dev and Maya decide to do the same; they become friends and try to give each other ideas to salvage their marriages, all of which comically fail.

Dev and Maya realize they have feelings for one another and not toward their partners, and feel drawn towards one another. After their marriage anniversary dinner, Rhea mentions that she has received a promotion and Dev goes into a rant, sneering that she is trying to show off. Hurt, Rhea accuses Dev of being jealous of her professional success and makes him realize his failure of being a good husband and a good father because he cannot come out of his bitterness. At the same time, Rishi expresses his frustration at Maya’s lack of affection and his resentment toward her inability to have children. Feeling worthless, Maya meets a disheartened Dev at the train station and the two confess that they have fallen in love with each other.

Dev and Maya begin an affair but feel guilty for playing with their spouses’ feelings, as both Rhea and Rishi try their best to make their marriages work. Nevertheless, Dev and Maya give in and sleep together. They are later caught in an embrace by Sam and Kamal, who are shocked and upset that they have cheated. That night, Sam has a heart attack. On his deathbed, he advises Maya to leave Rishi as she is depriving both of them of happiness in life. After Sam’s death, Dev and Maya decide they must end their relationship and go back to their spouses, but first, they must tell them the truth about their extramarital affair because neither of them will be able to move on in the shadow of lies. Shocked and heartbroken, Rhea and Rishi divorce their spouses. Kamal, fearing that Rhea might separate her from Arjun, requests Rjea to let her live in their house after the divorce, to which Rhea reacts with a teary embrace. Dev and Maya lie to each other and say that everything is fine, believing they’ll never meet again, and Maya moves to Philadelphia.

Three years later, Dev, Rishi, and Maya have been living alone, both miserable, while Rhea and Arjun live happily together. Rishi visits Maya and reveals that he has forgiven her already, and that he has fallen in love again and is remarrying. He invites Maya to his wedding. Rhea attends with her boss Jai, whom she is now dating, and is revealed to be a friend of Catherine, Rishi’s wife. Rhea confronts Maya about the affair and reveals that she left Dev. However, as Rhea and Rishi have both moved on, they encourage Maya to get her love, Dev, revealing that he is about to leave for Toronto by train for his new job. At the train station, Dev sees Maya but avoids her, believing she is still with Rishi. However, as the train pulls away, the two lock eyes. Seeing her tears, Dev pulls the emergency brake and returns, and the couple reunites. In a voiceover, Dev reveals that although he and Maya found happiness together after many years, they sometimes wish that they did not have to cause heartbreaks along the way.