Shilpa Shetty and Akshay Kumar in Dharmesh Darshan's Dhadkan. (Photo: Express Archives)There’s a time in one’s life when even the most mundane memories start gaining a special status. For 90s kids, this time came a few years ago when they began romanticising landline phones, cassette tapes, and Nadeem-Shravan’s music of the decade that was shamelessly copied. These parcels of the past are a reminder of simpler times – the times when life was largely about finding ways to skip school, sweating over exams, and calling teenage crushes over those same landline phones. These moments from the past are often reminisced with fondness, even if they weren’t exactly lovely to experience at the time, and it is with this romantic lens that many movies from the past gain some sort of popularity, even if they have aged poorly; and are sometimes discussed as if they are a part of some cinematic history. One such film is Dharmesh Darshan’s 2000 film Dhadkan, starring Shilpa Shetty, Suniel Shetty and Akshay Kumar, which released 25 years ago.Shilpa, Suniel and Akshay, who started working in the movies in the early 1990s, have spoken at length about one of the most popular films of their careers, which has generated a ton of memes. This is the film where Suniel said his much-memed dialogue, ‘Anjali tum sirf meri ho’, and Akshay tried too hard to play a version of Lord Rama, years before Prabhas failed at it, and Ranbir Kapoor attempted it. This was also the film where Shilpa got her heart broken in real life, and supplied enough fodder to the film tabloids that 25 years later, eyebrows are raised when Akshay and Shilpa greet each other in public.Dhadkan released in the same year as Mohabbatein and Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai, so clearly, the audience wasn’t starved for romantic films. Yet, Dhadkan gained some popularity with its music, composed by Nadeem-Shravan. The film had been in the making for almost three years and by the year 2000, Nadeem-Shravan had stopped composing actively, as Nadeem was embroiled in the Gulshan Kumar murder case. It is now famously known that the songs ‘Dil Ne Yeh Kaha Hai Dil Se’, and ‘Aksar Is Duniya Mein’ were plagiarised but that was the era where no one would have found out anything about it. The film was a love triangle, which was pretty much similar to Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam in spirit, but looked like a badly lit Balaji TV serial.ALSO READ | Madhuri Dixit’s ‘Dhak Dhak’: Plagiarised music, CBFC’s censorship and the song that originally belonged to Sridevi Suniel Shetty and Shilpa Shetty in a still from Dhadkan. (Photo: Express Archives)Dhadkan was also the film whose release opened a can of worms for its lead actors – Akshay and Shilpa. They had been famously dating for years and broke up while filming. It was after the film’s release that Shilpa opened her heart and accused Akshay of cheating on her with Twinkle, whom he eventually married. In an interview with Indya.com in 2000, Shilpa said that she loved Akshay deeply, but he cheated on her. “When you love someone and all along don’t realise that you are being taken for a ride, it can be very annoying. I never imagined that he could two-time me, and that too, all along our relationship,” she said.Shilpa said that she had decided to stay quiet until the release of Dhadkan so the film wouldn’t suffer, but immediately after that, she held nothing back. Shilpa was clearly asked if she blamed Twinkle for this ordeal, but she categorically refused to villainise her. “What’s her fault if my man was cheating on me? There is no point blaming any other woman; it was entirely his fault. Akshay Kumar used me and conveniently dropped me after he found someone else. The only person I was upset with was him,” she said.Akshay acknowledged their break-up in another interview with Subhash K Jha and said, “So okay, we broke up. Heartbreaks are a part of life. I think she should get on with her life and let me get on with mine.” He did not address her accusations of infidelity and implied that she was being misled by those around her. “Shilpa and I have separated… She has made sure that the world knows it. Now that she has beaten her drums loud enough, she should stop lashing out at me. I feel very sorry for the way she has been speaking. There’s so much bitterness in her. My advice is, please go ahead with your life and let me go ahead with mine,” he said.Story continues below this ad Shilpa Shetty and Akshay Kumar broke up during the filming of Dhadkan. (Photo: Express Archives)ALSO READ | Bollywood actor who played James Bond villain had an open marriage with first wife, ended in divorce: ‘My wife’s relationships with other men bothered me’Dharmesh claimed that the filming of Dhadkan extended over three years because he was keeping busy with Aamir Khan’s Mela but tabloids and film magazines of the time suggested that it had a lot to do with the growing discomfort between Shilpa and Akshay. Not just these two, even Akshay and Suniel were at odds with each other. In an interview with Bollywood Hungama, Dharmesh said, “Akshay ji and Suniel had a major problem, probably after working in Mohra. Nevertheless, I was fixated with Suniel Shetty. I saw him as Dev.”The casting that looked promising on paper proved to be a logistical challenge for the makers and to rescue their sinking ship, they brought in Mahima Chaudhary. In a chat with Lehren Retro, Dharmesh said that he wanted to sprinkle some life into the film’s second half. “I was worried picture Kaagaz Ke Phool na ban jaye,” he said as if Dhadkan could ever be compared to the Guru Dutt classic.In the years since, Dhadkan has had enough reruns on satellite television, and much like Sooryavansham, or any other film that’s played enough number of times on TV, it has become a popular film, despite its quality. Dhadkan doesn’t represent the best of its era, but perhaps it holds too much meaning to those who saved their pocket money and bought its cassette, and in trying to justify that memory, Dhadkan is still being celebrated in the books of nostalgia.Click here to follow Screen Digital on YouTube and stay updated with the latest from the world of cinema.© IE Online Media Services Pvt Ltd