Mumbai, Oct 21 :

Bollywood star Kajol considers Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge a special movie in her career, one that made everyone fall in love with Raj and Simran and is relatable even today.

The film, fondly called “DDLJ”, completed 25 years on Tuesday, and the actor said the romance between her character, Simran and Shah Rukh Khan’s Raj makes the Aditya Chopra-directed movie timeless.

Kajol believes people fell in love with their characters more than the beautiful locales as the story travelled through London, Switzerland and Punjab.

‘DDLJ’ is the kind of film where it’s the characters that people fall in love with more than where it is based or anything like that. Everybody wants this love story of a rebel and a conservative to work. Everybody believes that in an ideal world, it would work, Kajol said.

But the actor revealed she has seen the full movie only twice in her life.

I have actually seen the complete film twice really, other than the bits and pieces on TV. I watched it 10 years ago and at the premiere, which was 25 years ago and my instant reaction was that I loved the film.

I love the fact that I forgot I was watching myself on the screen. (It felt like I was) watching this girl Simran on the screen and that’s the biggest compliment I can give to the movie, Kajol, 46, told PTI in an interview.

The actor, who had worked with Shah Rukh earlier in Bazigaar and Karan Arjun , catapulted to superstardom along with her co-star after the film’s release on October 20, 1995.

Kajol-Shah Rukh would go on to form one of the most successful on-screen pairings in movies such as Kuch Kuch Hota Hai , Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham , My Name is Khan and Dilwale .

There are many stand-out moments and dialogues from the movie that have become almost like proverbs for film aficionados but for Kajol, the most iconic moment is the “Ja Simran ja” moment, a lined uttered by her character’s strict father, played by the late Amrish Puri, wherein he finally gives his blessing to the couple in love.

“To me the most iconic moment would be the ‘Ja Simran ja’ moment really, not because of anything else but because I thought it was the most perfect turning point in the film.

It’s the part that makes it so relatable even today that a parent has to turn around at some point and make it about the child’s happiness more than his or her happiness. And that’s what everybody relates to even today, she said.

Working on the movie was like a holiday as it gathered together her family and friends, something that the actor looks back with a lot of fondness.

Kajol said she had never met a person like Simran in her life but the way the film was written, she could get an insight into the character.

We had not interacted with a Simran kind of person, at least, I had not, but it gave me an insight into the confusion and the crisscross loyalties you face when you are born over there (London) and bred with India in your heart, she added.

In an earlier statement, the actor said she initially found Simran “a little boring”, but gradually recognised the character.

“I realized there is a lot of Simran in almost everybody we know, there is always that wanting to do the right thing in someone. Lot of people don’t do the right thing but we always want to do that.

“You want to get that approval, you want to get that feeling of you are approved of and that you are doing something right in the world. So, yes Simran was like that. I thought she was just cool, a little old-fashioned but cool.”

“DDLJ” marked the directorial debut of Aditya Chopra and was produced by his father, veteran filmmaker Yash Chopra (PTI) .