Friendship: The Underrated Love Story & How Bollywood Tells It

This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at MUJ chapter.

When we think of love, the first thought is always associated with romance—the kind that we have grown up watching in the movies. Bollywood has often fed us the idea that love lies in the grand gestures, the eye contacts, the heartbreaks, or the happily ever afters. Love is celebrated, written about, sung about—it’s the centrepiece of most stories we grow up watching and hearing.
But love isn’t always loud. Sometimes it’s the quietest, most constant presence in our lives. The love that doesn’t get enough screen time but is arguably the most real form of love we experience—friendship. Before we even knew what romantic love was, we had already experienced the comfort of a best friend. Yet for all its significance, real-life friendships sometimes go underappreciated. It isn’t celebrated as the ‘forever love’ or the ‘true love’ we are supposed to find, even though it often is.
While Bollywood has always had a thing for friendships—from dramatic declarations of loyalty (‘’Tera yaar hoon main” vibes) to comic chaos, it sometimes fails to give it the spotlight it deserves. Let’s explore how friendship is our first true love and how Bollywood has helped shape this understanding.

Friendship: Unscripted Love

You like because but you love despite

That is exactly what friendships are. It’s not just about liking to be around them because they get our humour, share our taste in memes or match our brain rot level but loving them despite their inability to reply to texts on time, questionable decision-making skills or the habit of calling us at the most inconvenient of times. Friendships aren’t built on perfectly curated aesthetics or highlight-reel moments. It’s inside jokes that make zero sense, helping them out even when they do exactly what you told them not to do, hyping them up on their bad days and celebrating them on their tiniest of wins. It’s knowing their toxic ex’s entire history but still letting them vent about them again. Friendships teach us about loyalty, laughter, forgiveness, and emotional intimacy before we even have the vocabulary for it. It’s love without reason and that’s what makes it the purest love story of our lives.

From the Bollywood Lens

While Bollywood is infamous for love songs, emotional reunions, and over-the-top romance, it’s also given us some peak friendship goals over the years. Films have time and again positioned friendships at the heart of their narratives—sometimes overtly, sometimes subtly but always the one that stays till the end.
Some films don’t just show friendship, they feel like it.

• Kho Gaye Hum Kahan perfectly captures modern, messy, digital-age friendships. The trio of Imaad, Ahana, and Neil proves that no matter how lost you feel in life, your best friends will always bring you back.

• Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara was more than just a road trip—it was a messy, emotional reminder that no matter how much life changes, some friendships never do.

• Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani isn’t remembered for Bunny and Naina’s romance as much as it is for the unbreakable Naina-Aditi bond and the fractured-but-forever Bunny-Avi friendship that found its way back, proving that some connections are meant to last.

• Dear Zindagi, while often remembered for Alia Bhatt’s journey of self-love, can we talk about how her besties stood by her side? They were the ones who gave her space to fall apart and still showed up for her. Friendship goals.

And then there are the sidekicks—the ones who don’t always have a spotlight on themselves but also the ones who keep the hero’s life together.

• Toto in Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahani was the comic relief who ensured Rani always had someone to lean on, someone to laugh with and someone who constantly reminded her of what she was capable of constantly.

• The gang in Chhichhore wasn’t just hostel buddies—they were family, the ride or die we all need.

Bollywood may celebrate romance in its loudest form, but it’s in these friendships that we find the most real and effortless love stories.

When it gets a little too Filmy

As much as Bollywood gets friendship right, sometimes it takes things a little too far. There’s the ever-present self-sacrificing best friend, the one who gives up their love, their dreams—sometimes even their entire existence—for the hero’s happiness. It’s poetic, sure, but let’s be real—friendships don’t work like that. Love in friendship isn’t about erasing yourself for someone else, it’s about growing and thriving together. The one-dimensional sidekicks—the forever loyal, always available best friend whose sole purpose in life is to hype up the hero. No ambitions, no backstory, just comic relief or an emotional crutch. Real friendships aren’t that one-sided. It goes both ways where everyone’s the main character of their own story.

 Love Without Labels

Whether it’s onscreen or offscreen, friendship is the one love that has no rules, no labels, no prerequisites. Sometimes it’s simply sharing the same obsession for a T.V. show, laughing so hard your stomach hurts, sharing one look and instantly knowing the tea, sending the most unhinged voice notes or late-night rants about that teacher who keeps giving you unnecessary work to complete. Bollywood, for all its exaggerations, has always reminded us to hold our best friends closer. Because in the end, boyfriends and girlfriends may come and go but friendships? They are for life.

For more such articles take a tour of my page and also visit Her Campus at MUJ page.

• bollywood
• friendship
• love
• lovestory