Director, producer Yash Chopra, who died after suffering a bout of dengue fever in Mumbai on Oct 21, was the face of the Indian film industry for five decades. The King of Romance was born on Sept 27, 1932 in Lahore, Punjab. His elder brother BR Chopra was a renowned film journalist who later successfully tried his hand at direction, and became one of the biggest names in Bollywood. Yash followed in his brother’s footsteps and after assisting him and I.S. Johar, made his directorial debut in 1959 with the social drama, Dhool Kay Phool. His final film, Jab Tak Hain Jaan, is under production and will be released later this year.

Yash Chopra was Bollywood personified if one takes a close look at his career. For more than 53 years, he dominated the scene as a film maker who dared to make films on bold issues, a producer who never shied away from giving the audiences something extraordinary.

Yashji, as he was affectionately known in film circles, was the original star maker as he directed the career path of future mega stars Amitabh Bachchan as well as Shah Rukh Khan. He was the person responsible for moulding Amitabh into the angry young man Vijay of films such as Deewar, Trishul and Kala Pathar and the romantic Amit of Kabhi Kabhi and Silsila; or Shah Rukh Khan as the obsessive Rahul in Darr, the non-believer Rahul of Dil to Pagal Hai. He believed in these actors when the world didn’t and they repaid the director by giving the best performance of their careers under his expert guidance.

He was the director who gave birth to the concept of multi-starrers as well as breathed life in the lost-and-found saga that was Waqt. In an era when movies without songs were considered a disaster waiting to happen, he experimented with Ittefaq and succeeded. After a string of unsuccessful movies in the 1980s, he came back strongly with one of his most successful flicks, Lamhe, in which Anil Kapoor played a young-to-old character.

During the last 15 years of his glorious career, Yash Chopra stayed away from direction, calling the shots in just three movies — Dil to Pagal Hai (1997), Veer Zara (2004) and Jab Tak Hai Jaan (2012).

Music remained a highlight of his films and no one can forget the songs of Waqt, Daag, Dewaar, Kabhi Kabhi, Silsila, Chandni, Lamhe, Darr and Dil to Pagal Hai. Yash Chopra was lucky to have worked alongside great musicians, lyricists and playback singers. He had an ear for both good lyrics and compositions, and that’s what made him stand out amongst his contemporaries. Most of the songs from his movies are still as popular as they were at the time of their release.

During his lifetime, Yash Chopra won as many as four Filmfare Awards as director for Waqt, Ittefaq, Daag and Deewar, besides six National Film Awards, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award and the Padma Bhushan for his contributions towards Indian cinema.

King of Romance

It wasn’t as though Yash Raj Chopra was the first film maker to highlight the most basic human instinct — desirability and sexuality. Long before him K. Asif made Dilip Kumar caress his lady love Madhubala with a feather in Mughal-i-Azam, Raj Kapoor and a wet Nargis serenaded each other under an umbrella on a rainy night in Shree 420 or even when Kamal Amrohi bestirred Meena Kumari as a train passed by whistling in Pakeezah, audience of both gender drooled. These scenes evoked unbridled passion and ardour in the movie viewing audience. But such uninhibited romantic scenes were restricted to a film or two.

That is what set Chopra apart from others. Film after film, he projected the female protagonist as what every man dreams of — soft yet strong, loving with just the right kind of oomph. When girls from Rekha, Sharmila Tagore, Sridevi, Juhi Chawla, Madhuri Dixit to Preity Zinta danced with body-hugging white, blue, yellow chiffon saris in several of his hit films, you fell in love. His heroines were the epitome of sensuality. Interestingly, five decades of film making and the audience still wanted more of it; never tiring of his style of romance.

Chopra made us romanticise nature. He took us outdoors and set up his easel making us yearn for the snow-capped mountains, the yellow flowered mustard fields, the running streams and the chasing clouds. How he managed to make the Swiss Alps look so stunning is a real mystery. It is almost impossible to visualise Switzerland on your own. Unintentionally, you end up seeing it as it was in Chopra’s movies. His scenes have formed a template.

His love for snow-covered peaks was there from the beginning of his film career. But once Kashmir got seeped in violence, he moved his camera from the Himalayas to the Alps. It will not be wrong to say that he made Switzerland realise that the Alps were breathtakingly beautiful.

Why only the Alps, even large beds of tulips never looked as enticing as they did when Amitabh Bachchan and Rekha romanced in between long rows of flowers in Silsila. Or the magic of autumn’s maple spread when Bachchan sat with the girls be it Raakhee in Kabhi Kabhi, Rekha in Silsila, Rishi Kapoor with Sridevi in Chandni and others. Chopra made his sweeping cameras capture the right kind of light, colour in such a breathtakingly beautiful manner that he set in motion a mood. Dekha ek khwab to yeh silsilay huay...

And Chopra knew when to use a song or a dialogue to heighten the mood. In the last scene of the film Veer Zaara when Shah Rukh is freed by the court, it would have been very easy to put in a melancholy song. But Chopra added his own touch and made Khan speak through a poem: “Main qaidi number 786, jail ki salakhoon se bahar dekhta hoon…” or even when he made Bachchan say few lines: “Mein aur meri tanhai aksar yeh baatein kartein hain…’’ with the unparalleled magical voice of Lata Mangeshkar singing Yeh kahan aa gaye hum. No doubt the two actors were superb in essaying those scenes. But the idea of Chopra is etched forever in the minds of cinegoers.

There are murmurs that the silky smooth chiffon sari-clad love with the background of white powdery snow may have ended with the demise of the King of Romance. But I don’t think so. We will keep on humming “Haan hum ko mohabbat hai, mohabbat hai, mohabbat hai; Ab dil mein yehi baat idhar bhi hai, udhar bhi.” — Surekha Kadapa-Bose