Yash Raj Chopra – The Master of Bollywood Romance1

Written by Parveen Maghera

As a big part of Bollywood emp­ties with Yash Raj Chopra’s depar­ture, the leg­end is reborn through his works and tal­ent, all paid off through the numer­ous num­ber of block­buster films directed and pro­duced since the late 1950s. From his direc­to­r­ial debut, Dhool Ka Phool, to modern-day romance film Jab Tak Hai Jaan, Chopra has inevitably dis­played a vari­ety of screen­plays tack­ling what he knows best : LOVE.

“Relationships inter­est me because man is one crea­ture who is capa­ble of sane as well as insane behav­iour. It’s this nature of human beings that inspires and gives room for innu­mer­able plots.” 
– Chopra

Chopra’s 1973 direc­to­r­ial, Daag – A Poem of Love, broke away from con­ven­tional film sto­ries of the era in the Indian Cinema, and was described as one of Chopra’s iconic love-triangle sto­ries of his early direc­tor days. Adapted from the novel The Mayor of Casterbridge, writ­ten by British author Thomas Hardy, Daag beau­ti­fully por­trayed the love and trust between a hus­band and wife, and the help­less­ness of a third party.

And of course, what is a Bollywood film with­out a series of good music? Daag, cat­e­gorised as a musi­cal, I must say, is one of the very few films of those days that have spaced out each num­ber, which per­fectly gel together. It couldn’t have been bet­ter with­out Rajesh Khanna’s and Sharmila Tagore’s bril­liant char­ac­ters as Sunil and Sonia, topped with bril­liant vocals by the leg­endary Kishore Kumar and Lata Mangeshkar. A few songs include Ab Chahe Maa Roothe, Mere Dil Mein Aaj and Hum Aur Tum. Ask any old film fan of Rajesh Khanna, he or she could just sing the entire song to you!

Sources have also said the film was the first ever to be housed under the Yash Raj ban­ner. Financier Gulshan Rai did warn for a luke­warm box-office response, thus the film was mar­keted in a low pro­file man­ner. Rumours claimed that Chopra approached Khanna for this film with­out a sin­gle penny! Yet, Khanna decided to carry on with the film. Regardless, Chopra claimed the Filmfare Award for best direc­tor! So you tell me, is it tal­ent or money that counts?

Another of Chopra’s films, embod­ied with emo­tions, lifted his film­ing career to greater heights. Filmfare awardist, Deewaar (1975) por­trayed a tensed, light, som­bre and com­i­cal aura which left audi­ences in awe. Even thirty years from now, Deewaar leaves a great impact on film-lovers of the Indian Cinema. It is a clas­sic, never forgotten.

Along with beau­ti­ful orig­i­nal dia­logues by Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar, Chopra’s great cre­ativ­ity pro­duced impact­ful visu­als on screen with the mind-blowing tal­ents, Amitabh Bachchan and Shashi Kapoor. The story revolves between these two char­ac­ters, who used dif­fer­ent paths to pro­vide a bliss­ful life for their mother but due to their dif­fer­ing ide­olo­gies, they cre­ate a wall of hate between them, thus the title.

Chopra’s imag­i­na­tion for films and its char­ac­ters clearly defines his style and it always leaves with them a trait often brought for­ward to other films. For instance, Chopra’s char­ac­ter, Vijay, played by Amitabh Bachchan, gave the actor him­self a title of Angry Young Man and it car­ried on in other films like Don (1978) and Shahenshah (1988).

A character’s iden­tity is defined by a director’s imag­i­na­tion, of which Chopra had gone beyond bound­aries to explore.

Kabhie Kabhie – Love is Life (1976) is Chopra’s sec­ond direc­to­r­ial film with Amitabh Bachchan and Shashi Kapoor, who were upcom­ing actors then. Of course, as the title entails, it is evi­dent that Bachan’s tough side was put aside for a much heart throb­bing char­ac­ter, and Shashi and Rishi Kapoor’s flirty per­sonas beau­ti­fied the sto­ry­line much more.

It seemed like a multi-level love story, with each character’s life entwined into another, much of which is cred­ited to Chopra’s abil­ity to con­nect his char­ac­ters into a web of love­birds. It was Chopra’s cre­ativ­ity that had led to this mag­nif­i­cent pro­duc­tion, along­side his wife’s, Pamela Chopra and Sagar Sarhadi who wrote the film. It hit the 8^th high­est grosser mark of the year at the Indian Cinema Box Office.

Silsila (1981) appeared to be a love-triangle on a sur­face, how­ever, the story lies within the film. It is one of Chopra’s mind­works behind this film, penned by him and Sagar again. Although the film did not do quite well at the box office, it was watched by a wide Indian audi­ence. Known to be a true story of the actors them­selves (Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya Bachan and Rekha), Chopra’s touch of romance made the film one of his kinds.

Seemed as a con­tro­ver­sial film of that time, due to rumours of Bachchan’s affair with Rekha, the film was tough to digest among the Indian audi­ence, as it involved one of the major Bollywood stars, Big B him­self (thus the down­fall at the box office). Yet, with melo­di­ous sound­track and the heart­throb Bachchan, topped with the ele­gant Jaya and the gor­geous Rekha, it remains as a must-see till today!

Darr (1993) comes as one of a twist in Chopra’s film­mak­ing career as it explored a dif­fer­ent angle of love. Written by Honey Irani and Javed Siddique, Darr is, what it shows, a vio­let love story, where a woman is caught between a her man’s love and another’s obsession. 

Starring Juhi Chawla, Sunny and Shah Rukh Khan, Darr was known to be “an answer to Bollywood’s fatal attrac­tion” and much credit of this film’s amaz­ing plot was given to the antag­o­nist, Shah Rukh Khan.

Chopra’s direct­ing sprouted the evil in Khan’s act­ing (K-k-k-kiran – Bolly fans, you will know this), which was fur­ther seen in movies like Baazigar (1993), Anjam (1994) and even Don (2006). Though they weren’t Chopra’s direc­to­ri­als, it was him who spot­ted the poten­tial in Khan as a vil­lain. Khan was also nom­i­nated as Best Villain in the Filmfare Awards. Chopra was awarded the Silver Lotus Award at the National Film Awards for the best pop­u­lar film pro­vid­ing whole­some entertainment.

Next comes, Dil Toh Pagal Hai (1997), which hap­pens to be Khan’s sec­ond film with Chopra. As the sec­ond high­est gross­ing movie of 1997, this musi­cal roman­tic drama man­aged to cap­ture a huge seg­ment of the younger audi­ence. Yes, the film touches on the mod­ern day love scene of the time, with, of course, Khan as the ever young and dash­ing lover boy who, like every other, never believed in love. The film car­ries for­ward a tagline, “Someone some­where is made for you” which pulled together the entire story, and just like Chopra’s films, char­ac­ters’ lives are entwined into one another’s. Madhuri Dixit and Karishma Kapoor star along­side Khan, enhanc­ing view­ers’ expe­ri­ence with their ever-so mes­mer­iz­ing personas.

Written by Chopra him­self, along with his wife Pamela Chopra and Tanuja Chandra and dia­logue by his son Aditya Chopra, Dil Toh Pagal Hai swept away with numer­ous awards, a few of which were Best Dialogue and Best Actor and Actress.

Another of Chopra’s major block­buster hit would be his all-time favourite, Veer Zaara (2004). The film depicts a love story between a Muslim girl and a Punjabi boy and as the film pro­gresses, the story takes a unique fold, inten­si­fy­ing audi­ence till the very end. This was one of the films that have got many eyes swollen red with tears.

Chopra’s work on the char­ac­ters, act­ing and emo­tional devel­op­ment through­out the film gave it a unique iden­tity by itself. His film style clearly por­trayed his pro­fes­sion­al­ism and never by far has any film (to me at least) reached the emo­tions of a mass. It also edu­cated the pub­lic on the issue of racism, hon­our and sac­ri­fice every human being is enti­tled to, may he/she be a Muslim or a Sikh and had noth­ing to do with politics!

“Though it’s a film about cross-border love, there isn’t a word of pol­i­tics in it. Forget pol­i­tics, there isn’t slap, not even a raised voice in Veer-Zaara. It’s a very intense, humane and emo­tional story.”
– Chopra

Fully writ­ten by Aditya Chopra, Veer Zaara deserves more than just 20 awards on its list, includ­ing Filmfare and National Film Awards. It, how­ever, comes to my sur­prise that Chopra was just nom­i­nated for the Filmfare Awards when he deserved a hell lot of praise and credit as a direc­tor. He truly deserved the award! Nevertheless, he won the Golden Lotus Award at the National Film Awards for the best pop­u­lar film pro­vid­ing whole­some enter­tain­ment whilst his son grabbed the Filmfare Award for best dialogue.

Chopra’s last direc­to­r­ial, Jab Tak Hai Jaan (2012), star­ring Shah Rukh Khan, Katrina Kaif and Anushka Sharma, releases world­wide on 13^th of November 2012, which hap­pens to fall on Diwali. Produced and directed by the man him­self, the film, yet again, revolves between three indi­vid­u­als, but it is not sim­i­lar to Daag, which have been rumoured to be. King Khan had denied all rumours, claim­ing that the sto­ry­line is beau­ti­ful, yet, “not at all sim­i­lar” to Daag. Well, after­all, Chopra’s tal­ent pro­duces fresh pieces all the time, never is any­thing sim­i­lar to another, and not for­get­ting the effort put in by his son, who had writ­ten the script.

A por­tion of a song was said to be incom­plete, how­ever, the crew have no inten­tion of resum­ing its shoot, as they did not want to “tam­per the sig­na­ture style of the late film­maker”. The film, as per Chopra’s last wish, started pro­mo­tions from his home­town, Jalandhar, Punjab. Indeed, the respect and dig­nity the Indian Cinema has for this leg­end will never be lost , even by the slightest.

“I believe in my old style of mak­ing films. I think I have it in me to make a dif­fer­ent film in my own area of romance. Films on human rela­tion­ships never go out of fash­ion. Everyone says ‘I love you’ these days. But it’s about how you say it.”
– Chopra

It comes to no other con­clu­sion than to applaud Chopra’s mind­blow­ing film­work, of which he never is regret­ful of, but takes pride and faith in. 

Along with him are the numer­ous tal­ents he has worked with, in the past and present, as a direc­tor and a pro­ducer, each indi­vid­ual who had the chance to col­lab­o­rate with Chopra on his film adven­tures have had mem­o­rable expe­ri­ences, some of which would be hard to illustrate.

Let us give this man a toast to his incred­i­ble jour­ney this far and rejoice the suc­cesses he has accomplished.

“What mat­ters as an artist, is the applause. While I offer my con­do­lences to the fam­ily who would want to mourn, I would rejoice the life you have lived.”
- Kamal Hassan

“He was a true vet­eran and an era is over with his pass­ing. He will be missed.” 
– Kajol

“He was my anchor, men­tor and idol.” 
– Mukesh Bhatt

“RIP Yash Chopra, Jab Tak Hai Jaan all are trend­ing, that shows how great Yashji is.”
– Shah Rukh Khan

“Yash ji was my anchor, my quiet strength and my father fig­ure in Mumbai.” 
– Anupam Kher

“As I sit beside his still and flower decked body in his stu­dio within the por­tals of the large com­mon patio, there does not pass a moment when all that we shared flashes by. This colos­sal stu­dio that he built after years of hard work and labor, shall for the next day house his last phys­i­cal remain. I doubt if he had ever dreamt that this unique and most dis­tin­guished facil­ity would find space to acco­mo­date him in the state that we see him today.” 
– Amitabh Bachchan

“He was an entire insti­tu­tion in film­mak­ing. He made every frame look so beau­ti­ful. There’s so much mis­ery, squalor and poverty in real life. The man on the street went to see a Yash Chopra film to live a dream where every­thing was picture-perfect, where women were lovely visions in chif­fon saris shot against pic­turesque back­drops in Switzerland and Amsterdam (Netherlands). I am proud and priv­i­leged to have given voice to Yashji’s lovely hero­ines.”
– Lata Mangeshkar

- IMDb | FirstPost | iDiva | red­iff | Bolly Spice