Major General Khanna (special appearance) Shefali Shah as Nandini Khanna (special appearance) Anupam Kher as Kakke Archana Puran Singh as Preeto Helen as Miss Monica (special appearance) Parzan Dastur as Ayush Khanna Saurabh Shukla as Tom Paul, Sanjana's father (special appearance) Ram Mohan as Khan Baba Meghna Patel as Ishika's friend Production Before the production of the romantic drama Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995)—one of the highest-grossing films and the longest-running film in Indian cinema history—Aditya Chopra had started to write Mohabbatein to make his directorial debut. Chopra felt Mohabbatein subject matter was too mature, making Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge his first film as a director and Mohabbatein his second. Wanting his next film to have different themes, he conceived Mohabbatein as a thriller but changed his mind and decided to make another romantic film. He stated, "I realized that there is something in that story that keeps drawing me to it, so one day I just shut my thriller file and casually picked up my [...] Mohabbatein file—that one simple action decided my second film for me". Aditya Chopra started to write Mohabbatein after the release of Dil To Pagal Hai (1997) — he wanted it to be about more than just romantic stories. According to the Encyclopaedia of Hindi Cinema, the film was inspired by the 1989 American coming-of-age drama Dead Poets Society. Chopra then narrated Mohabbatein to his father Yash Chopra, who was impressed by it; the latter also produced the film under his banner Yash Raj Films. In a Screen interview, Yash Chopra described it as "a modern film, a film about today and it has all the ingredients of entertainment for people of all ages". He said the film shows the honour of Indian traditions and their values, adding, "On the whole Aditya has made an honest film, honest to God and honest to the audience who has given us so much". The project was announced in June 1999 on Yash Raj Films' website. Aditya Chopra told his father he would cast Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan in the lead roles, saying he could not think of other suitable actors; the three immediately accepted. Mohabbatein is Khan's second collaboration with Rai after Josh (2000), and the first with Bachchan. Kajol was the first choice for the role of Megha, but she declined it because of her marriage. Bachchan, playing Narayan, felt