The iconic film maker of India known as the “King of Romance” is no more. Bollywood is poorer with the passing away of Yash Chopra at 80. He also owned Yash Raj Films, one of the industry’s biggest production houses and studios. Chopra’s career spanned five decades and his last film as director, “Jab Tak Hai Jaan,” opens in cinemas on November 13, on Diwali. On his birthday in September, he had announced he wouldn’t direct any more films. Yash had won the IIFA award in Sheffield, Northern England, on June 9, 2007.
Movie lovers, Bollywood stars and well-wishers paid their last respects to film-maker on Monday, a day after he died of multiple organ failure.
Born in 1932 in Lahore, now in Pakistan, Chopra was favoured by leading Indian actors, with his movies seen as a sure-fire way to become a hit with audiences. Tributes poured in from fans and the film industry as people thronged to pay their respects at the offices of Yash Raj Films. “My mind is filled with hundreds of private and personal moments that we all spent together during this large association with him,” actor Amitabh Bachchan, who worked on several films with Chopra, wrote in a blog post. “They shall ever remain stored within us and like all other memories shall give value and belief to what we shared together,” Bachchan added
Earlier in the day (Tuesday), several Bollywood personalities paid their last respects. Actors such as Amitabh Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Preity Zinta and Shah Rukh Khan, who have all worked with Chopra, were at the Yash Raj Studios where his body was kept. In the afternoon, the body was taken in an ambulance to the crematorium. The film-maker’s elder son Aditya lit the funeral pyre at the crematorium in suburban Mumbai.
Indian film world will not come to a halt with the demise of Yash Chopra, the icon known to all. It will go on. What we need to recognize as true Indians is the vast and rich contribution of Yash Chopra to the history of dramatic art and culture. He has a significant role in raising the status and standard of films as vibrant specimens of creativity. He will be long remembered for that.
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