We all know Raj and Rashmi…died in the sunset. Thirty years later, we still sigh for our star-crossed Romeo and Juliet played with refreshing spontaneity by Aamir Khan and Juhi Chawla in their breakthrough film Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, or simply its shorthand, QSQT.

If schoolboy wags of 1988 called QSQT more important than NaCl, they had reason to. Gems like Sparsh or Mr. India were exceptions in ’80s Bollywood where lovers rolled on mosambis or danced on/with pots in front of an army of bizarrely costumed, gyrating strangers. In Mansoor Khan’s QSQT, Raj and Rashmi were real, relatable people who fall for each other through a series of coincidences and easy banter, tragically unaware of the epic feud between their thakur families. When they find out, they don’t ham in front of the family elders or gods, they behave like normal passionate youngsters and elope. Ultimately, it’s about two youngsters who defy society not because they want to, but just because they miss each other too much to be away from each other — and to hell with violent megalomaniacs in the family tree and their assorted henchmen.

It’s this pull, this tug of love that Bollywood romances often lose in designer songs and deluded notions of honour and duty. That’s why, QSQT, which turned the tide of Hindi cinema when it released in April 1988, is still watchable in 2018. A bonus: the songs, written like conversations by the legendary Majrooh Sultanpuri, composed and sung by then newbies Anand-Milind and Udit Narayan-Alka Yagnik, still evoke that dewdrops-on-grass feeling.