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Witness History

DDLJ: India’s longest-running film

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.41.6K Ratings

🗓️ 24 September 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, the ultimate Bollywood romance was released to critical acclaim in October 1995, becoming the longest-running movie in Indian cinema history.

The premiere was held at the Maratha Mandir cinema in Mumbai, since then it’s been screened there every day for the past 27 years, stopping only briefly during the Covid pandemic.

Actress Kajol, who played Simran, starred opposite Shah Rukh Khan and they both became superstars overnight.

Kajol spoke to Reena Stanton-Sharma in 2023, about her memories of shooting the iconic film known around the world as DDLJ.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more. Recent episodes explore everything from the death of Adolf Hitler, the first spacewalk and the making of the movie Jaws, to celebrity tortoise Lonesome George, the Kobe earthquake and the invention of superglue. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: Eva Peron – Argentina’s Evita; President Ronald Reagan and his famous ‘tear down this wall’ speech; Thomas Keneally on why he wrote Schindler’s List; and Jacques Derrida, France’s ‘rock star’ philosopher. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the civil rights swimming protest; the disastrous D-Day rehearsal; and the death of one of the world’s oldest languages.

(Photo: Fans look at a poster of DDLJ outside the Maratha Mandir cinema. Credit: Indranil Mukherjee/AFP via Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:39.5

Hello and welcome to witness history from the BBC World Service, with me, Rina Stanton Sharma.

0:46.6

We're going back 30 years to the release of Bollywood Blockbuster De Luale de Ljaniar Leangay on the 24th of October 1995.

0:56.9

In 2023, I spoke to Kargil, who starred in the film alongside Sharrock Khan.

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