By the end of June 1992, the Dehradun schedules had been successfully completed. Nearly every scene at Kasiga School and Welham Boys' School were finished on time, a remarkable achievement for a production of this scale.
Adil gathered the department heads in the hotel production office and spread out the revised shooting calendar across the table.
"Everything is on schedule," he announced. "The Kashmir unit is ready. Hotels are confirmed, transport has been booked, local permissions have been approved, and the equipment trucks will leave three days before the cast."
Adil studied the calendar before smiling. "Good."
He paused. Then he looked at everyone "You guys should go ahead and see the arrangements and shooting locations. I'll join you one day later"
Everyone already knew why.
On 28 June 1992, "Deewana", starring Shah Rukh Khan as a lead, was holding its grand premiere in the city. Although production schedules were tight, Adil had promised the producers months earlier that he would attend. A promise was a promise.
Mumbai's Liberty Cinema was brilliantly lit long before sunset. Television cameras lined the entrance. Photographers crowded behind the barricades. Fans had gathered since the afternoon, hoping to catch even a glimpse of Bollywood's biggest names. Luxury cars arrived one after another,actors, directors, producers, music composers, journalists, an entire world dressed in its finest.
When Adil's black Mercedes pulled up outside the theatre, the photographers surged forward immediately.
"Adil!"
"This way!"
"One more photograph!"
He stepped out wearing a tailored black suit. Although only Nineteen, he had already become one of the industry's most talked-about personalities not merely because of his films, but because of his rapidly expanding business empire.
Inside the lobby, he spotted Shah Rukh Khan greeting guests near the entrance. The two shook hands warmly.
"Congratulations," Adil said. "I've heard wonderful things about your performance."
Shah Rukh laughed, visibly nervous beneath the excitement. "I hope people like the film." Then, smiling mischievously, he added, "And congratulations to you. I hear everyone in the industry is talking about Zenith and ZEST"
Adil smiled modestly. "We're trying to build something that lasts."
Shah Rukh nodded, his expression turning quietly thoughtful. "That's rare. Most actors think only about tomorrow, You seem to be thinking ten years ahead."
A few moments later, Salman Khan joined them with a wide grin and a friendly hug.
"So, the businessman has arrived."
Laughter spread through the small group.
"I've been hearing about your new film company Zenith and restaurant chain," Salman continued, raising an eyebrow. "What's it called?"
"ZEST," Adil replied. "Fully operational by the end of July."
Salman nodded and said, "Congratulations in advance" Then he stared at him for a moment. "I heard you are the Producer, Director, Actor and Singer in your next movie?" He shook his head. "When do you sleep?"
"Not very often." Adil replied.
"Just don't start acting in the kitchens too." Salman Joked.
The group burst into laughter.
When Aamir Khan arrived a little later, his congratulations carried a different kind of weight. He was quieter than Salman, more measured, and his eyes carried the careful attention of someone who had genuinely been paying close notice.
"I've been following your business announcements," he said. "Actors earn money. But very few think about creating companies. You're building an ecosystem."
Adil appreciated the observation more than he showed. "My acting career won't last forever. I want Zenith to keep making films even when I'm no longer in front of the camera."
Aamir smiled. "That's exactly how producers should think."
The three spent several minutes discussing filmmaking, production management, and the changing direction of Hindi cinema before the doors opened and the crowd began moving inside.
As the lights dimmed, Adil watched 'Deewana' with genuine attention.
He studied not just the performances but the editing rhythms, the music placements, the way Vikram Bhatt had composed certain shots, and most of all, the way the audience reacted. Whenever Shah Rukh appeared on screen, the crowd responded with unmistakable energy. There was something magnetic about him. Something that couldn't be manufactured.
After the screening ended and the lights rose again, Adil made his way back to congratulate him. "You've made a remarkable debut as a Male lead."
Shah Rukh smiled, relief and happiness visible in equal measure. "I hope we work together once again."
Adil extended his hand. "I'm sure we will."
He left for the airport early the following morning. When he reached Kashmir, all preparations were complete, the entire production unit had reached the valley.
The contrast with Dehradun was immediate and total. Kashmir felt as though it existed outside of time entirely. Snow-covered mountains stretched across every horizon. Crystal-clear lakes caught the morning light and threw it back in pieces. Green valleys, pine forests, and colourful meadows surrounded the film unit on all sides, indifferent and magnificent.
Rajiv, as always, had arrived several days earlier and left nothing to chance. Every hotel had been confirmed. Security had been coordinated with local authorities. Medical support was on standby. Equipment trucks had arrived safely without a single delay.
Vikram stood at the edge of a ridge, looking out across the valley in silence for a long moment. "This place already looks like a film," he said quietly.
Adil smiled beside him. "Now let's make one."
Unlike Dehradun, where dialogue had driven almost every scene. Kashmir belonged entirely to songs and visual storytelling.
Adil had a clear and simple vision for it: every frame should look like a postcard that someone actually wanted to keep. No clutter. No excess. Just the landscape, the light, and two people discovering something they hadn't expected.
The first romantic song began beside a peaceful alpine lake at the edge of a pine forest. Before shooting, Adil pulled the choreographer aside.
"No unnecessary dancing," he said. "I want movement, not performance. I want it to feel like something that's actually happening, not something being staged."
The choreographer nodded and quietly went away to redesign several portions of the song.
What emerged was something gentler and more alive than what had originally been planned, walking together along the water's edge, laughing at nothing in particular, running through fields of wildflowers, boat rides in the early morning, quiet conversations that the camera simply observed from a respectful distance. The natural beauty of Kashmir didn't compete with the romance. It became part of it.
Many of the sequences were filmed at sunrise, which meant the cast and crew routinely woke before four in the morning.
By five, makeup was complete. By six, cameras were rolling. Vikram was immovable on this point. "We only get that first golden light for fifteen minutes," he explained to anyone who complained. "If we miss it, we wait another day."
Nobody wanted to wait another day.
The discipline paid off in ways that were visible to everyone, even those who had nothing to do with the camera. Crew members who had spent years on film sets found themselves stopping occasionally just to look at what surrounded them. Not the shots, not the equipment, not the schedule. Just the mountains.
Despite the early mornings and the demanding pace, Kashmir turned out to be the most relaxed portion of the entire production.
Between takes, Adil, Hrithik and Aishwarya would find a spot overlooking the valley, sit down with cups of hot tea, and simply exist for a while. There were no rivalries to perform, no sports sequences to rehearse, no emotionally exhausting confrontations to prepare for. Only music. Only light. Only the particular ease that comes when people have spent enough time together to stop pretending.
One afternoon, Hrithik challenged Adil to climb a nearby hill before sunset. They chose seperate routes.
The crew immediately began cheering and taking sides.
Adil was the first to reach. Twenty minutes later, Hrithik reached the top at almost. He though he had won and started shouting. Aishwarya sat at the bottom laughing. Rajiv watched from a distance, slowly shaking his head. Entire crew couldn't control their laugh.
By the Second last week of July, every song and romantic montage had been completed. Before departure, Adil gathered the entire unit beside the production trucks and thanked every department personally, one by one. He looked across the mountains for what he knew would be the last time on this production, and something in his expression went quiet.
"Kashmir has given this film its soul," he said.
The crew applauded. One schedule remained.
The return to Mumbai carried a different feeling entirely. After nearly four months of living out of hotels, travelling between locations, and pushing through exhaustion on cold mornings, there was a strange mix of relief and weight settling over the unit. The hardest work was behind them. The most important work was still ahead.
Adil reminded everyone of this clearly. "If the audience doesn't like the movie," he said, standing in front of the assembled cast and crew on the first day back, "everything before this becomes meaningless." Nobody laughed. Everyone understood.
The final schedule of Student of the Year was filmed entirely inside a specially constructed hospital set in a Mumbai studio. Every outdoor sequence, college scene, sports competition, song, and climax had already been completed across various locations. Only the opening and closing scenes remained, both taking place years after the events of the film. These scenes would frame the entire story, beginning with mystery and ending with emotional closure.
The art department built a fully functional-looking private hospital complete with reception area, long white corridors, waiting lounges, nurses' stations, and a modern ICU fitted with realistic medical equipment. Every monitor blinked, oxygen cylinders stood beside the hospital bed, and fluorescent lights created the sterile atmosphere Adil wanted.
Before filming began, Adil gathered the entire cast around the set and explained the emotional rhythm of the sequence. The audience had to believe that several years had passed since graduation. Every actor was instructed to behave like adults who had achieved their dreams but still carried memories of their college days.
The first sequence filmed was the movie's opening. The camera slowly tracked through the quiet hospital corridor as doctors and nurses moved naturally in the background. The shot finally stopped outside the ICU where Principal Vashisht lay unconscious. Adil wanted the opening to feel calm and mysterious, so several takes were filmed until the movement of every background artist looked effortless.
The supporting cast then arrived one by one to film their individual entrances. Instead of filming everyone together, Adil preferred giving each actor their own entrance so the audience could reconnect with every familiar face. Each supporting character walked down the corridor, entered the ICU, looked silently at Principal Vashisht, and greeted the others with restrained emotion.
Once everyone had assembled inside the ICU, the conversations began naturally. One former student recalled Abhimanyu, another remembered Rohan, while someone else spoke about Shanaya and the unforgettable Student of the Year competition at St. Teresa International College. Their conversations gradually transitioned into the flashbacks that formed the main story of the film. Adil instructed the actors not to sound overly dramatic but instead to speak with warmth and nostalgia, allowing the memories to flow naturally into the audience's imagination.
The crew filmed every conversation from multiple angles. Wide shots established the hospital room, medium shots captured the interactions between former classmates, and close-ups focused on emotional reactions. Between takes, Adil carefully reviewed each performance on the monitor, making subtle adjustments before moving on.
Several hours later, after the entire flashback portion of the film had been completed, the unit returned to the same hospital set to film the closing scene. The art department recreated every detail exactly as it had appeared in the opening sequence so that both scenes matched perfectly.
The closing scene began with Rohan, portrayed by Hrithik Roshan, entering the hospital. Rohan had fulfilled his childhood dream of becoming one of India's most successful singers. Hrithik rehearsed several versions of the entrance because Adil wanted the audience to understand Rohan's emotional journey through expressions rather than dialogue. Karan called "Action!" while Adil watched the performance carefully from behind the monitor.
A few moments later came Adil's own entrance as Abhimanyu. Since he now had to perform instead of directing, Karan Johar took complete control of the set. Karan called "Action!" as Abhimanyu entered the hospital alongside Shanaya, played by Aishwarya Rai. The two characters were now happily married. Abhimanyu had achieved his dream of becoming India's biggest businessman, while Shanaya stood proudly beside her husband. The camera followed them through the corridor before cutting to Rohan, who quietly looked at them without saying a single word. The silence between Abhimanyu and Rohan carried years of distance and unresolved emotions, exactly as Adil had envisioned while writing the scene.
After Karan called "Cut!", Adil immediately returned behind the monitor to review the footage. He discussed timing with Karan and the cinematographer before approving another take with slightly slower pacing to strengthen the emotional impact.
The final sequence centered on Principal Vashisht. As the cameras rolled, the principal slowly regained consciousness inside the ICU and smiled upon seeing his former students gathered around him. Speaking gently, he told Abhimanyu, Rohan, Shanaya, and the others that the greatest success of St. Teresa International College had never been the Student of the Year trophy. The true achievement of the school had always been the friendships its students built. He admitted that allowing Abhimanyu and Rohan to compete had unintentionally damaged their friendship, and he expressed deep regret for making that decision.
"No, Sir," Abhimanyu said sincerely. "It wasn't your fault."
Rohan nodded in agreement before adding that the principal's methods had challenged them to become stronger, more disciplined, and more confident individuals. Together, Abhimanyu and Rohan explained that without his guidance they would never have achieved their dreams. The competition had shaped them into the successful men they had become, and they would always remain grateful for his faith in them.
Adil insisted on several rehearsals before filming the emotional exchange. Every pause, glance, and line delivery was refined until the scene felt genuine. Once the final take was completed, Karan called, "Cut!"
The hospital room fell silent as Adil watched the playback beside Karan Johar. Satisfied with every performance, he smiled, shook hands with the cast, and finally announced, "This is the one."
The camera slowly pulled away from the ICU as Principal Vashisht, Abhimanyu, Shanaya, Rohan, and their friends shared one final smile together. The hospital doors gently closed, bringing the story to an emotional conclusion.
With Karan's final call of "It's a wrap!" followed by Adil's approval as director, the opening and closing scenes were officially completed. Since every other sequence had already been filmed on different locations across India, this marked the end of principal photography for Student of the Year. The entire cast and crew broke into applause, celebrating the successful completion of the film after months of hard work.
Finally, Rajiv stepped forward. The noise settled.
"Sir, Four months ago," he said looking at Adil, "Zenith Film Productions was only an ambitious dream." He paused. "Today, we've completed one of the biggest productions of the year."
Adil nodded with a smile.
Later that evening, after the cake had been cut and most of the crew had gone home, Adil stayed behind in the empty hospital set.
Props were being wrapped and packed around him. Lights were being switched off one by one. The corridors that had felt so real, that had made Hrithik stop and look twice on the very first day, were already beginning to look like what they had always been. Plywood and paint and borrowed equipment.
He walked through them slowly, one last time, not quite ready to leave.
Four months ago, they had started with empty classrooms in Dehradun. Mountains and cold mornings and song sequences in Kashmir had followed. And now it had all ended here, in a studio in Mumbai, in a set that looked like a hospital and felt, briefly, like something more.
Rajiv found him standing in the middle of one of the corridors.
"Boss, What are you thinking?"
Adil considered for a moment.
"The film is finished." Rajiv nodded. Then, after a beat: "And ZEST opens tomorrow, Vikram and Arjjun had been continuously calling me from the morning to let you remind." Adil nodded. "How can i forget that"