Trama

A group of interns are going through the usual grind when suddenly an accident changes their lives. The protagonist can't get let go of it and becomes obsessed with it. What does it all lead to? Is it love or something else?

Dan (Varun Dhawan) is living the life of any carefree 21 year old, revolving around a bunch of friends and fellow hotel interns who feed off each other's everyday moments, their ups and downs. Shiuli (Banita Sandhu) is one such intern at the same hotel, who at times is at a receiving end of Dan's audaciousness. Life goes on until a sudden turn of events smashes Dan and Shiuli's lives together, into a bond that's unlike any 21 year olds. The emotional connection between them goes through a metamorphoses that brings out a form of love that's unlike any other eventually leading to an internal awakening. October is not a Love Story, but rather a story about love.—spandan888

Shuli and Dan work for a Five Star hotel where Dan is always scolded by the manager for not doing his work properly. On New Year's Night while partying with friend Shuli slips and falls from the hotel terrace which leaves her paralyzed. Dan finds that before she slipped she inquired about him why he was missing from the party. Dan feels Shuli has feelings for him and starts to take care of her, hoping she will recover someday.—alex.mjacko@gmail.com

Danish "Dan" Walia (Varun Dhawan) is a hotel management trainee working for an internship course in a hotel (The Radisson Blu in Dwarka) in Delhi. Dan is a man of careless attitude who does not like his job due to the low-class errands, contrasting with his co-worker Shiuli (Banita Sandhu) who is calmer and good at her job. Dan struggles with his job serving various departments of the hotel. He doesn't seem to have a very good relationship with his fellow staff members except for two of his friends who work at the same hotel as interns.

If Dan fails the internship, his diploma can be canceled, and his parents will have to pay Rs 3 Lakhs as bond money to the hotel. Dan's manager is Asthana (Prateek Kapoor), who takes a dim view of Dan's attitude towards work.

Dan is assigned to floor cleaning duty, when he fails to take adequate care of a child that a guest had mistakenly left behind in their room. Instead of alerting anyone, Dan put the child on the cleaning cart and ran away. The kid was eventually found and reunited with his parents by Shiuli. Asthana downgrades Dan to laundry duty. Despite his antics, his colleagues like Dan, and try to cover him in front of Asthana, as much as possible.

On New Year's Eve Shiuli and the other hotel interns party at the top of the terrace, but Dan is nowhere to be seen. Shiuli falls from third floor of the hotel and gets injured.

Critically injured, Shiuli is admitted to the hospital and goes into a comatose state. The doctors perform surgery on her brain and remove a large clot to help her survive. Shiuli fell from a height of 30 feet and has Subdural Hematoma on the right side, and her spine is also impacted. When Dan learns about Shiuli's accident, he visits her in the hospital. Empathizing with her condition he develops an emotional attachment towards her when he comes to know that her last three words before her fall were just about him. She had asked "Where is Dan". Shiuli is covered in tubes and is kept alive by a ventilator. She is in a pitiful state.

Dan starts visiting the hospital every day, despite that negatively affecting both his job and his relationship with his friends who still cover his shifts and help him financially. After a scuffle at the hotel, Dan is terminated. He finds comfort being with Shiuli who slowly starts to improve and Dan's mere presence calms Shiuli. He devotes his entire time to taking care of her.

Dr Ghosh (Ashish Ghosh) is the neurologist attending to Shiuli. After seeing her CT scans, he says that there is extensive damage to her white brain area, which is very difficult to recover from. Ghosh suggests that they keep Shiuli on ventilator a little more to give her a chance to fight. Dan becomes obsessed with Shiuli and starts camping at the hospital. He becomes a regular with the hospital staff who is unable to ignore him due to his "in your face" attitude. Dan regularly flouts hospital rules to meet Shiuli in her ward and talk to her, even though she cannot respond or even hear him. Shiuli's mother Prof. Vidya Iyer (Gitanjali Rao) teaches at IIT Delhi. The bills at the hospital start piling up.

Due to his frequent visits to the hospital, his internship at the hotel suffers and he is fired. Shiuli has a stroke and an epilepsy attack after a couple of months on the ventilator. When the bills pile up, and the doctors start giving up hope, Dan intervenes to convince everyone that Shiuli can still come back. Dan is particularly harsh with Shiuli's uncle Jairam (Shekhar Murugan), who is very negative and always advises Shiuli's family to remove the plug as he doesn't think Shiuli can ever recover and the family cannot bear the expenses to keep her alive. Dan says that he does not believe that Shiuli would want to die and that nobody else should have the right to decide on her behalf.

Dan remembers that Shiuli was fond of Jasmine flowers and keeps some by her bedside. Shiuli's nose twitches due to the Jasmine flowers and that indicates that she is conscious. As months pass by, Shiuli slowly starts to recover, but she doesn't recognize Dan. Dan is kicked out of his apartment by his flat mates Ishani (Isha Chaturvedi) & Manjeet (Sahil Vedoliyaa) (as he doesn't pay rent and has borrowed money from both of them).

Eventually Dan's mother (Rachica Oswal) has to intervene and get Dan to come to his senses as she thinks he is wasting his life away over a stranger. Shiuli's mom Prof. Vidya Iyer asks Dan to leave. Seeing Dan's career and personal life drowning due to his devotion towards Shiuli, her mother Vidya decides to make him go and take care of himself. Dan joins another hotel in Kullu as manager but is unable to take his mind off Shiuli. Soon he learns of Shiuli's failing health in Delhi and returns. He apologizes for leaving her abruptly and promises to stay with her. When Shiuli is discharged and taken home, Dan continues taking care of her. He takes her to a park and asks her why she remembered him before her fall. Shiuli responds by trying to say his name aloud.

The following night Shiuli suffers a seizure and dies as her lungs collapsed. Emotionally broken, Dan visits Shiuli's home and comforts her family. Afterwards, he is seen collecting her death certificate tearfully.

In a later scene, Vidya tells Dan that she was named Shiuli because of her fondness for the Shiuli flower, which she loved collecting as a child with her grandfather. She further remarks how Shiuli flowers are short-lived, as they live all night and die by dawn; to which Dan sorrowfully points out, her daughter too, was short-lived like her namesake flowers.

Several months later, Dan is rehired by the hotel where he completes his diploma and now works as a sous chef. One day, he notices several missed calls from Vidya and visits her. Pointing at the Shiuli plant in the backyard, Vidya tells Dan about her family shifting to their hometown Trichy. She doesn't wish to leave Shiuli's plant behind, but Dan assures her that he would take care of it.

As the story ends, Shiuli's family has moved and Dan carries the Shiuli plant with him, as a symbol of his devotion to Shiuli and the effect she had on him.

Shiuli means Night Jasmine, a flower that blooms for a brief duration only in the month of October.