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

Nothing wrong with mindless fun!

I HAVE to confess, I didn’t go in to watch Student of The Year (referred to as SOTY henceforth) with much, make that any, expectations. Can you blame me for not looking forward to a tennybopper film based out of a college that looks like the poshest of the posh hotels, where the female (teen) protagonist carries around varied hues of only the most-expensive handbags on this planet, where the male leads were brandishing their eight-packs and not their 8.0 GPAs.

Yes, SOTY is all this and even more, it is corny and unbelievable to the core. But it is also directed by Karan Johar and by god K Jo can make corny fun. So he gives us a story of love and friendship in the times of college: Shanaya (Alia Bhatt), Rohan (Varun Dhawan) and Abhimanyu (Sidharth Malhotra) are three different individuals looking for different things while standing on that tough road of life called growing-up. Rohan and Abhimanyu come from different walks of life, but after a rocky start become best friends. Shanaya is the most popular girl in school but is still not the happiest. Their intertwined story of highs and lows is of course what makes up the film. And at roughly three hours it’s a long film. But a flow to the story (even though there’s a lack of it) and a brilliant soundtrack ensure that those 180 minutes are quite a breeze.
There was another apprehension I went in with: three brand new actors, three young, a little boring first-impression making actors. Were we going to once again cry when they laugh and laugh when they cry (a la Nargis Fakhri).

But hold on, these guys can act. No really, they actually can. There’s something about Alia Bhatt: she’s not drop-dead gorgeous, she doesn’t have the long legs and the sculpted figure, what she does have in abundance is an endearing quality that’s part-Lolita and part-child.

Now to the most embarassing confession, but one that I’ve been ensured I wasn’t alone at: I could never tell apart the two male leads (Sidharth Malhotra and Varun Dhawan) all this time that the songs and the promos have been all over the place. They were tall and brawny and chiselled; but I couldn’t figure out anything beyond that. But yes they are different and quite so. Sidharth as scholarship student Abhimanyu is fresh-faced and very likeable. He’s also very drool-worthy for those aged between 13-30. But it is Varun Dhawan who really steals the film. Varun is a natural. He was born to filmmaker David Dhawan, and the acting gene shows. It doesn’t seem to be the first film for any of the three, which is a good thing. Because this certainly won’t be the last we see of them.

Johar’s SOTY won’t win film of the year, it won’t impress the sternest of critics or the tutting intellectuals. But come on, can’t we for once enjoy something just in the name of mindless fun?


Note: This review first appeared in the 20 October edition of FW

V for vague

So Vogue sent in a preview of their five covers celebrating five years of us talking in Vogue language! Sigh, I remember the times I used to splurge on Femina, then Cosmopolitan, and oh yes Elle...the 50 rupee price tag used to seem so extravagant :p 

So here are those covers, ranked in an order we liked most, based purely on the look and not the designer tag. 

P.S. Forget the whole 5 actors, 5 covers thing...its slightly tried and tested...but we are severely disappointed at the absence of them in Indian attire...it is five years of 'Indian' Vogue after all!

Priyanka: Best figure hands down. Gorgeous gown check. Gold check. Smoky makeup check.

Deepika: Only her tall, lean frame could have carried off those embossed flowers so non-garishly.

Anushka: We don't loooveeee it...but then you haven't seen the other two! A classic case of pick the lessest (yes we know its not a word) evil.

Katrina: Did someone lose Snow-ick-white?

Sonam: It's the pose, the general discomfort coming across and the feeling of deja vu that makes us yawn at this cover. Just how many blah dee blah designer gowns can one see SK in?



Which one is your favourite? Write in to us, the only condition being that the comments should be funny/fun. Now here's the million-dollar question: Where the oops is Kareena 'heroine' Kapoor? I smell a filmi story here.

Covers credit: Vogue

A film for someone we all know...

Sridevi’s done it, oh yes she has…in a film that rests solely on her shoulders, playing a character that proudly claims her age and with the aid of no dance-numbers. Now how many comebacks can boast of that? None that we remember. In an era where comebacks almost always spell big, bigger, biggest…Sridevi chose a role that has substance over glamour. 

We don’t mean to sound so giddy, but in between fighting back tears, laughter and rolling on the floor…Sridevi took us on a rollercoaster into a world where good films don’t have a formula or 100 crore tags…they just make do with scripts that make sense, a story that needs telling, handled in a manner that could potentially describe the word mature.

Sridevi plays Shashi Godbole…a loveable, doing right by everyone housewife who spends her days making life comfortable for her family and her spare time dishing out gourmet delights. Only all she gets in return is mirth from her husband because just how difficult can making ladoos be and disgust from her daughter who thinks of her mother’s non-english speaking skills as potent embarrassment.

It really hits home because really haven’t we all seen this everyday everywhere…husbands not taking their brimming with wives talent seriously, a cringe here and there when you hear or see English misspelt or god forbid mispronounced. These people are you and these people are me, who’ve made language a meter of judging our ‘coolness’.

Sridev and Dreamboat (Mehdi Nebbou)

A family wedding take Shashi to New York and a humiliating incident in a café later, she joins English-speaking classes. Amongst people from different walks of life and countries, Shashi learns the language and more importantly the confidence to not really care about a thing like language. 

She also learns how to love herself, thanks to French classmate and chef Laurent (with someone who looks like Laurent, we’d be willing to learn Newton’s laws). Director Gauri Shinde has cast Mehdi Nebbou, a French-Algerian actor so right, you want Sridevi to not do the ‘right’ thing in the end…oh well a girl can always dream right?

Full marks have to be awarded to the casting of English Vinglish. Absolutely no one is a sore thumb, even the sole cameo (Amitabh Bachchan) is such an apt fit. The only disappointment, and we really had to scrounge around for this one, is the music. The supremely talented Amit Trivedi delivers some pretty lacklustre fare, that doesn’t really connect in an otherwise emotional story.     

If this is Gauri Shinde’s first film and if this is what she can do with it, oh boy gimme more!