There was more to Yash Chopra than saris fluttering in the breeze, Swiss mountains, tulip fields and pretty frames
“King of Romance (1932-2012)” says the Amul ad, quick to mark a milestone in Indian history yet again. The iconic Amul girl sits on the floor of a snow-laden forest, a guitar slung across her chest, her bright eyes resting on an elderly gentleman seated before her, while the copy reads: “Main har ek pal ka shayar hoon, har ek pal meri kahani hai”, a take on a song from Kabhi Kabhie, the memorable 1976 film about ill-fated lovers, directed by Yash Chopra.
No doubt there is great poignance in that visual, paying tribute as it does to one of Indian cinema’s greatest and most successful producer-directors on his demise. In a sense, it’s apt too: After all, Chopra was a master of weaving perfect frames, pretty visuals and lyrical songs into languid romances. But, in another sense, the picture is incomplete. For as much as he has been lauded in obituary after obituary as Hindi filmdom’s King of Romance, the title fails to do justice to his vastly varied filmography that frequently showcases a forward-thinking mind, whether his audiences were ready for it or not. Romance is not an easy genre, but if we insist on pinning a single label on this man, then in all fairness let it be King of Versatility.
To fully grasp this idea, rewind to 1959, the year Chopra made his directorial debut. Dhool Ka Phool—produced by his elder brother BR Chopra—revolves around a young Hindu couple. While the boy is coaxed into marriage with someone else by his father, the girl discovers that she is pregnant and gives birth to a baby who she abandons. The child is brought up by a kindly Muslim man whose good intentions can do little to protect the foundling, or himself, from social opprobrium. In an India too hypocritical even today to admit that pre-marital sexual intimacy is a reality, it takes little imagination to appreciate that Dhool Ka Phool made 53 years ago was a revolutionary film.
In the years since, Hindi cinema has very occasionally revisited the theme. Each foray has emphasised exactly how progressive a thinker Chopra was all those years ago. More than four decades after Chopra’s film, Kundan Shah released the qualitatively average-in-comparison Kya Kehna, starring Preity Zinta as a college girl who gets pregnant after an affair. In 2000, the story was still uncommon enough for the subject to be described as “an uncomfortable issue” by reviewers.
Sadly, like so many of Chopra’s hard-hitting films of the pre-1975 era, Dhool Ka Phool and Dharmputra are often lost in the flutter of chiffon saris that came to characterise his later works. That the gloss of those post-1975 films curtained off the vision of so many film commentators is partly the fault of a widespread tendency to judge books by their pretty covers, to assume that what is pretty is not gritty.
In the 1960s, Chopra had earned success with the thriller Ittefaq. He returned to the genre in 1993 with the psychological drama Darr, turning Hindi film convention on its head when he made SRK’s anti-hero in effect the hero of the film. In the 19 years that followed, Chopra directed just three films: Dil To Pagal Hai (1997) starred reigning superstars SRK, Madhuri Dixit and Karisma Kapoor. 2004’s Veer-Zaara once again starred actors ruling Hindi filmdom at the time: SRK, Rani Mukerji and Preity Zinta. And Chopra’s swan song Jab Tak Hai Jaan (to be released on November 13) stars SRK, Katrina Kaif and Anushka Sharma.
(This story appears in the 23 November, 2012 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)