It was only the other day that we saw Shah Rukh Khan interviewing Yash Chopra on the occasion of his 80th birthday celebration. What came through was what people saw when they met him in person: simplicity and directness,a dedication to film-making and an abiding concern and care for his artists and associates.
In the 1950s,the Chopra making headlines was his older brother B.R. Chopra,who made films with a serious purpose that were also box office hits. There was Ek Hi Raasta with Meena Kumari,Ashok Kumar and Sunil Dutt on widow remarriage,Kanoon with Ashok Kumar and Rajendra Kumar on the theme of injustice also a film without songs and Chandni Chowk with Meena Kumari,Shekhar and Sohrab Modi on the issue of feudal snobbery ruining young lives. For Sadhana,a film about prostitutes starring Vyjayanthimala and Sunil Dutt,his younger brother was an assistant director. Yash Chopra joined him as director for Dhool ka Phool in 1959,starring Mala Sinha and Rajendra Kumar. This film,about an unmarried mother,was a hit.
He went on to make 50 films and set up his own company in 1971. Financiers were willing to help him even when he was hard up because he was known for quality. And he delivered. There was hit after hit as he won 11 Filmfare awards,including four for Best Director,and six National Film awards and the Dadasaheb Phalke award in 2001. His films won many more awards for the artists,music and production. He made great films with Amitabh Bachchan Deewar,Silsila,Kabhi Kabhie and launched SRK with Darr,making him a star with Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge.
With a career spanning six decades and 50 films,Yash Chopra most resembles that great director/producer/showman of the 1940s and 50s,V. Shantaram. Like Shantaram,although his early films had a serious bent,many were hits. But when he found himself being copied or rejected at the box office,he switched to romantic films with Chandni and a new Yash Chopra brand was created. V. Shantaram similarly surprised his fans when he made Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baaje and Navrang. Both films emphasised music,dance and colour,unlike his earlier films that were on social issues.
Yash Chopra put women at the forefront in this phase of his career. He treated beautiful women with respect. Silsila,my own favourite,had given us a taste of what he could do with Rekha and Jaya Bachchan in a bold,experimental film hinting at adultery. The women were beautiful and stunningly dressed,and at the same time,vulnerable. Sridevi,who has just made a comeback,is remembered for her roles in his films Chandni and Lamhe.
With these two films,he ushered in a softer era in Bollywood films after a decade of violent films with angry young men. He began to sell dreams of an India that was more at ease with itself as better times arrived. The India of poverty and misery was giving way to an India connected with the world through the NRI diaspora. Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge succeeds because it has the foreign touch,but the hero never forgets his roots. It is not he who has to change. It is the older generation that has to understand the young and acknowledge that there are many ways of being global,yet remaining Indian.
He was ahead of many of his contemporaries in using foreign locations. Switzerland,a rarity in Bollywood first explored by Raj Kapoor in Sangam,became a familiar setting for dozens of Yash Chopras songs. Indeed,he is loved and honoured in Switzerland for what he has done for the countrys tourism. The French Legion dHonneur and Padma Bhushan,as well as many more national and international awards,were rightly awarded to him.
Yash Chopra slowed down on directing by the early 1990s,but continued producing until the end. Yash Raj Films has adapted to the new era in which Hollywood wants to invest in Bollywood because the future of popular cinema lies there. Aditya Chopra will no doubt carry on his fathers work and already has many hits to his credit. What is unique about Yash Chopra is that he started in the simpler days when filmmakers were entrepreneurs who risked their all in film after film. They continued making films because that was their livelihood and there was not much scope for a single film to make a serious fortune. Yash Chopra ended up inaugurating the more prosperous era of Bollywood with multi-starrers,multiple locations,rich costumes and sets,and generously financed films. His studios are a successful multi-million dollar business that encompass every aspect of filmmaking.
Yash Chopra will be remembered as the last of the great filmmakers who connected the Golden Age of Hindi cinema in the 1950s to the more recent Platinum Age of the 1990s,which he,more than anyone else,helped to create. Above all he was a simple man and has left us a rich legacy to enjoy.
The writer,an economist and Labour peer,is the author of Dilip Kumar in the Life of India ,express@expressindia.com
