Krish Malhotra (Arjun Kapoor), a student pursuing his MBA at the IIM Ahmedabad, Gujarat, comes from a family of Punjabi heritage. He meets Ananya Swaminathan (Alia Bhatt) in his college who comes from a conservative Tamil Brahmin family. Krish and Ananya become friends and start studying together. Soon they begin dating, and stay together for their two years on the IIM campus. Krish confides in Ananya that his real passion is writing, which he wants to pursue a career in. They both have become so close to each other and also have developed sexual relationship many times during the stay in IIMA. When they complete their graduation, Krish and Ananya decide to get married. They introduce their parents to each other at the convocation ceremony. To their dismay, Krish's loud mother Kavita (Amrita Singh) does not get along with Ananya's reserved Tamilian parents Radha (Revathy) and Swaminathan (Shiv Kumar Subramaniam). After graduation, Ananya begins her marketing job in her hometown Chennai and Krish goes back to his own hometown Delhi. Krish's brash family urges him to stay in Delhi and try to discourage him from his interest in writing. They also criticize his relationship with Ananya, and tell him to get into an arranged marriage with a Punjabi girl. It is also evident that there is tension between Krish and his alcoholic father Vikram (Ronit Roy).