End of the love saga in Yash Chopra's passing

He captured pulsating hearts and dreams of lovers transcending generations. Romance may never find its Yashraj expression again...

The man who made us fall in love with romance is no more. Roughly three weeks before the release of his last directorial venture, Jab Tak Hai Jaan, filmmaker Yash Chopra succumbed to dengue fever at the Lilavati hospital in Mumbai on Sunday evening. He had been admitted there on 13 October. He was 80.

It would be difficult to summarise Yash Chopra and his filmmaking in just a few words. Do we delve on the innumerable dialogues - some heart-touching, some heart-wrenching - that most of us know by heart? Should we highlight the classic Yash Chopra heroine, in pastel chiffons, sometimes dancing in the mustard field and sometimes twirling on the Swiss Alps. Or should we just marvel at the myriad of topics touched?

Chopra was born on 27 September 1932, the youngest of eight children. He grew up close to his elder brother, filmmaker BR Chopra, and it was with him that Yash Chopra got his first directorial opportunity with the film Dhool Ka Phool in 1959, starring Mala Sinha and Rajendra Kumar.

The story of a Muslim man bringing up an illegitimate Hindu child, the film was a surprise hit. It also set the tone for most of Chopra’s films that followed; high on emotional drama and mostly ahead of their time.
Whether it was the 1965 Waqt, which became one of Indian cinema’s first multi-starrers with an ensemble cast including Sunil Dutt, Raaj Kumar, Shashi Kapoor, Sadhana, Balraj Sahni, Madan Puri, Sharmila Tagore, or the 1991 Lamhe that captured the romance between an older man and a young girl with such sensitivity. Lamhe did not enjoy commercial success in India. But over the years the film has been hailed as a classic. It was featured in Outlook magazine’s list of All-Time Great Indian films.

And then there were the down and out artistes such as Rajesh Khanna and Shah Rukh Khan, who Yash Chopra turned into superstars overnight with blockbusters like Daag and Darr. It was his Deewar (1975) that established Parveen Babi as the liberated Bollywood woman setting the trend for many more such roles for actresses in Hindi cinema. Deewar also cemented the success of writing duo Salim-Javed, who went on to write many more blockbuster films, becoming one of the most memorable writer duo in Hindi cinema. Deewar’s success, it is said, is what made Bollywood sit up and start taking its writers seriously.

Would we have known SRK as supposedly ‘Bollywood’s best lover boy’, had there been no Yash Chopra? Khan earned commercial success with Abbas Mastan’s Baazigar but it was his portrayal of an obsessed lover in Darr (1993) that made him an actor to reckon with.

Jab Tak Hai Jaan would have been Chopra’s last in a career spanning more than 50 years that saw him winning six National Film Awards and 11 Filmfare awards. He is survived by his wife Pamela and sons Aditya and Uday.

Chopra does leave behind a void in film-making. He wielded his director’s baton with such élan that the Yash Chopra style became moniker in itself. Mush was never more mushy and probably never will be again.


Note: This article first appeared in the 22 October edition of FW