Think electric blue and this colour will carry you through the film. The electric bleep of the credits on a black background follows through as a blue ambulance siren wailing through the city streets, streetlights ablaze as if burning into the night. Here in the hospital walls, there in a shirt and elsewhere as a sliding liquid in a balancing frame, vibrant splashes of midnight blue and turquoise light up the screen with their energy and provide a visual continuity. As much of the story unfolds in flashback including episodes in Australia this helps to bring the film full circle.

Siddharth (Akshaye Khanna) sits at the hospital waiting for news. He phones Sameer (Saif), his college pal who informs him that Akash (Aamir) is also in town but Sid knows that Akash will not come to him. As three close college friends, they had seen some happy times. Life has however taken them on different paths. At this point, Farhan Akhtar's film careers back in time and we are introduced to the three friends. Akash is somewhat cynical, the master of quips and an attitude that smacks of a carefree and rather flippant existence. Love means nothing to him. He is insensitive but not uncaring. Sameer is a normal happy go lucky chap, bit of a dil phenk and dominated somewhat by his other two friends. Sid is a painter, sensitive and one who takes life with a bit more seriousness than the other two. They provide good foils for one another as they unscrupulously get each other into trouble. Boys will be boys but this is male bonding of a different sort where respect must edge the peripheries of masti and horsing around for the relationships to survive. The three are inseparable. Sid however, the most thoughtful of the three, at one point proposes a scenario when the friends may not be together only to be reassured by the others. This friendship is for life…But life however is not a party by the beach and packs some nasty surprises.

The film initially follows their friendship and exploits as they experience life just out of college without a care in the world…until Sid one day meets an interior designer Tara (Dimple), a divorcee and separated from her child. They strike up a friendship, which ultimately proves to be the turning point of the film. It is their story, which acts as a catalyst for the film One fateful night, Sid professes his love for tara to his two friends hoping for their understanding. They don't. Akash makes light of the whole matter by giving it sexual undertones upon which Sid slaps him. Ostensibly, their friendship comes to an end and all three friends now appear to go separate ways. Akash goes to Australia to manage his father's business. Sid goes off for a painting workshop in Kasooli and Sameer remains in Mumbai.

A story of friendship, loss and self-discovery, and ultimately hope, the film is more or less evenly balanced between the characters of Akash (Aamir Khan) Sameer (Saif Ali Khan) and Siddharth (Akshaye Khanna). Funny and moving the greatest strength of the film lies in the three-dimensionality of the main characters and the convincing dynamics between them. The film in essence is about the coming of age of these three friends, their experiences and their ultimate paths. The film is an urban flick, very modern in its outlook and yet very incisive and well observed. The film is a triumph on many levels but the biggest triumph being the director's. Farhan Akhtar makes a sensational debut. His film is an acutely observed, superbly scripted and brilliant acted film. His characters are very real as are the situations. No self-sacrificing bhabhis or lavish dream sequences. To some extent the coming of age anguish has to be dealt with by the girls as well as the boys. Preity Zinta and Sonali Kulkarni appear more in the second half of the film and their roles are not as interesting as the male leads'.

Aamir Khan manages the awesome task of making Akash someone you cannot hate despite his obvious shortcomings. He is not infallible and behind the façade of mocking arrogance and his insensitivity, lies a very real person, someone who is what he is because of life experiences. He is confident, assured, been there, done that and is eventually sees a different perspective on life through his experiences. The fact that aamir is able to show his character in sympathetic light is as much a victory for him as it is for the director. Saif Ali Khan is perfectly cast as the buffer between the boys will be boys Akash and the sensitive Sid. This is by far his best performance to date. Akshaye Khanna has always been an excellent actor but has not always the vehicle for his talent wisely. As Sid, he infuses the character with just the right mix of boyishness with a sensible head on his shoulders. An admirable piece of work.

Out of the women, it is Dimple who is the standout. Her weatherbeaten features, the crumbling visage of a lonely and embittered woman is essayed with brilliance by Dimple without lapses into melodrama or buckets of glycerine. Tara is a woman of today, defeated by the odds, who seems to have created a life for herself. But what a life. Lonely and desolate, she seeks solace in drink. Dimple never puts a step wrong, her final scene being one of the most moving in recent times. Preity Zinta has the more conventional hindi film role and it is perhaps her segment which brings the film down into the realms of mainstream hindi film but she plays it well. Sonali Kulkarni has much less of a role, but understandably so. The music is apt for the film, having a modern edge to it and Shanker Ehsaan Loy have put together an electrifying background score. The cinematography is stunning.

But this is, at the end of the day, Farhan Akhtar's film. Credited with the story, screenplay, dialogues and direction, he does not falter in any of those departments. He is in complete control and obviously an incredible talent. An immaculate film, this may not appeal in the smaller centres or even to the average frontbencher. However, that does not take away that this is Farhan Akhtar's baby, conceived and delivered the way he wanted it…and what a baby it is.