There was a time when a college film in Hindi cinema was never just about college. The campus served as a backdrop for friendship, first love, ambition, rebellion, failure and the peculiar freedom of being young. Over the years, Bollywood has repeatedly returned to this world, with every generation bringing its own interpretation of what it means to be a student.
Dil Chahta Hai (2001) changed the grammar of the buddy film and practically created a genre of its own. Farhan Akhtar’s film was ostensibly about three friends, but at its heart, it was about growing up. College became a space where friendships were formed before life began pulling people in different directions. The film made male friendship aspirational without making it overly sentimental and established the gang as one of the defining elements of the modern campus film.
Eight years later, 3 Idiots (2009) placed that friendship inside a pressure cooker. The campus became a battleground between students and an education system obsessed with ranks, careers and conventional definitions of success. Rancho, Farhan and Raju were friends, but their friendship also became a form of rebellion against the expectations placed on them.
With Student Of The Year (2012), the campus film moved in another direction. Karan Johar transformed college into a glossy Bollywood playground filled with designer wardrobes, sprawling campuses, romance and competition. The film was less concerned with the anxieties of student life and more invested in the fantasy of it. The campus became aspirational entertainment in its purest form.
Then came Fukrey (2013), which turned the formula on its head. Its protagonists were neither toppers nor campus stars. They were boys with questionable plans, limited prospects and an abundance of confidence. The film found comedy in their failures and made the chaotic male gang its biggest attraction. College was not about achievement; it was about surviving the next ridiculous scheme.
Chhichhore (2019) brought yet another evolution. Here, college was remembered from the distance of adulthood. The film used its campus years to explore failure, peer pressure and the fear of being labelled a loser. Friendship remained at the centre, but nostalgia gave the genre a more emotional dimension.
Now comes Prem Keetanu (2026), which appears to bring several of these strands together while returning the campus film to its most uncomplicated pleasure: being young. Its world is populated by hostel rooms, friendships, naughty banter, crushes, jealousy and heartbreak. Veer Pahariya plays a young man hopelessly lost in love, while Aparshakti Khurana brings a more assured, dapper energy into the equation. With Aafiya Sayed caught between their affections, romance becomes another complication in an already chaotic friendship ecosystem.
What makes the film particularly interesting is its commitment to the commercial Hindi-film vocabulary. The music is not incidental; four released songs — Undi Bundi, Kaho Toh, Tu Mera Raiyyo and Ishq Ka Ghulam — move through friendship, attraction, romance and heartbreak. The trailer, too, leans into colour, comedy, songs and heightened emotion.
If Dil Chahta Hai asked what happens when friends grow up, 3 Idiots questioned what happens when ambition takes over, Student Of The Year sold the fantasy of campus life, Fukrey celebrated its lovable losers and Chhichhore looked back at the people we were, Prem Keetanu is interested in something simpler: what happens when you are young, your friends are your entire world, and falling in love threatens to mess all of it up?
That may be the campus film’s most enduring evolution. The classrooms change. The clothes change. The anxieties change. But the gang, the crush and the heartbreak remain.
Directed by Apoorv Singh Karki, Prem Keetanu looks like a film that wants to put innocence back into love stories and colour back on your screens, with Veer’s lover-boy act tugging at your heartstrings and enough laughs, songs, chemistry and masala to make the journey thoroughly theatrical.
Prem Keetanu marks both Verma’s debut as an independent producer and the maiden production of his newly launched studio, Avanika Films. Co-presented by Phars Film in association with Bhavana Studios, Prem Keetanu releases worldwide in cinemas on October 2, 2026.