Luck by Chance: Never Forget the People Who Knew You Before You Made It

Some film dialogues stay with you because they sound like something someone might actually say to you.

There is one such line in Luck by Chance. Shah Rukh Khan appears in a cameo, playing himself, and has a short conversation with Farhan Akhtar’s character. Among the things he says is a line about remembering the people who knew you before you became successful:

“Unhe mat bhulo, jo tumhe tab jaante the jab tum kuch nahi the, kyunki bas yehi hain jo tumhe hamesha sach bolenge.”

Don’t forget the people who knew you when you were nothing, because they are the ones who will always tell you the truth.

It is a simple thought. There is no big speech around it. But it feels familiar because most people eventually understand what that kind of friendship means.

Before success, your life is usually quite ordinary.

You are trying to find a job. You are figuring out what you want to do. You are making mistakes. You have plans that may or may not work. Sometimes you are confident, and sometimes you have no idea what you are doing.

The people around you during those years see all of it.

They see you when things are going well, but they also see the days when you are struggling.

And that makes a difference.

They knew you before you had anything to prove

Think about the friend who knew you before your career took off.

Maybe you met in school or college. Maybe you worked together at your first job. Maybe you lived in the same neighbourhood.

At that point, neither of you knew where life was going.

You could sit together for hours without having much money. You could complain about your boss, discuss a failed interview, talk about someone you liked, or simply waste an evening doing nothing.

Those moments rarely feel important while they are happening.

Years later, they are the moments you remember.

That friend also knows the less flattering parts of your story.

They know how many times you changed your mind. They remember the plans you were very sure about that never happened. They have heard you complain about things you later achieved.

Most importantly, they knew you before there was a reason to impress them.

That is why an old friend’s opinion can feel different.

If they praise you, you know they have seen the whole journey.

If they criticise you, you know they are not judging only the person you have become.

They remember the person you were before all of this.

Success can make friendships complicated

When things start working out, your life changes.

You meet more people. Your work circle becomes larger. You may start travelling more, earning more, or spending time in places you could not afford earlier.

Some new relationships become real friendships. That happens all the time.

But sometimes you also meet people who are interested in what you can offer them.

That is when the difference between friendship and convenience becomes difficult to see.

Someone may be friendly because they genuinely like you. Someone else may be friendly because knowing you is useful.

You cannot always tell immediately.

An old friend has one advantage here. They knew you before your success had any value to them.

They were around when there was nothing to gain.

That does not automatically make every old friend a good friend. People change, and some friendships become unhealthy over time.

But when an old friendship has survived the years, there is usually a history behind it that money or status cannot create overnight.

The person who can tell you the truth

One of the best things about a real friend is that they do not always have to agree with you.

If everyone around you says your idea is brilliant, an old friend may say, “I don’t think this is going to work.”

If you are behaving badly, they may call you out.

If you are making a decision because of your ego, they may tell you that too.

You might get annoyed.

You might even argue.

But there is a certain comfort in knowing that someone is willing to say what they actually think.

That is what the line in Luck by Chance gets right.

The people who knew you before success do not have to protect the image you have built.

They can speak to you as a person.

That honesty becomes harder to find when everyone around you has a reason to keep you happy.

You don’t have to talk every day

There is also a tendency to think that a close friendship means talking every day.

It doesn’t.

People grow older. Their lives get busy. Someone moves to another city. Someone gets married. Work takes up more time. Family responsibilities change.

You may go months without speaking to an old friend.

Then one day you call, and within ten minutes you are talking the same way you did years ago.

That is a good feeling.

The friendship has changed because life has changed, but the comfort is still there.

Of course, some friendships do end. Some people grow apart. There is nothing unusual about that either.

The point is not to hold on to every person from your past.

It is to recognise the people who have genuinely been there for you and make an effort to keep them in your life.

Sometimes that effort is very small.

A phone call.

A cup of tea.

A message asking, “How are you?”

You don’t always need a reason to contact an old friend.

Why Sudama comes to mind

The friendship of Krishna and Sudama is often used to describe this kind of bond.

According to the traditional story, Krishna and Sudama knew each other from their younger days. Their lives later took very different paths. Krishna became a king, while Sudama lived a modest life.

Yet when Sudama came to meet Krishna, their relationship was not reduced to the difference in their circumstances.

Krishna remembered his old friend.

That is the part people connect with.

The story is not really about who became rich and who remained poor. It is about knowing someone from a time when neither person was concerned with status.

That is why the comparison works so well with the dialogue from Luck by Chance.

There is something special about having a person you can introduce to the world as your own, while knowing that this person knew you long before anyone else cared about who you were.

Like Sudama knew Krishna.

Remember the people from before

As life moves forward, it is easy to get caught up in what comes next.

The next job.

The next project.

The next achievement.

The next goal.

There is nothing wrong with moving ahead. But sometimes, in doing that, we stop looking back at the people who were there when we were still trying to get somewhere.

Those people deserve to be remembered.

Not because they helped build your career.

Not because they can do something for you now.

Simply because they were there.

They knew you when your plans were still plans. They saw the mistakes you made before you figured things out. They stayed through the parts of your life that were far less interesting than the version people see today.

And maybe that is why they can still tell you the truth.

They have nothing to prove to you.

So if there is someone in your life who has known you since before things worked out, don’t assume they will always be there.

Call them once in a while.

Meet them when you can.

Keep the friendship alive.

Because success may bring new people into your life, but the people who knew you before you made it can remind you of something very simple:

You were a person before you became successful.

And sometimes, it is good to have someone around who remembers that version of you.