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| Image Courtesy: merinews.com |
Life has its own dramatic ironies,
and who could have better exemplified that than Yash Chopra who breathed his
last with the promise of peddling dreams, as he had done all his life, with the
self-assertive Jab Tak Hai Jaan! The
titanic dream merchant almost tiptoed away into the twilight zone, as if he
were on a clandestine date with death. It seems he had struck a deal with life:
he would make films, sell dreams, and celebrate love jab taak hain jaan. And as a true artiste and honest entrepreneur,
he stuck to the deal till the very last day of his life.
What
we identify today as the Yash Raj brand of cinema, which incidentally has
become metonymic of Bollywood romances, was born only two decades ago. In 1989,
after a few box-office debacles (Maashal,
1984; Faasle, 1985; and Vijay, 1988), Yash Chopra returned with
a bang with the immensely stylish Chandni
which rescued Sridevi from getting wasted in raunchy, seedy, over-the-top
Bollywood potboilers and reinstated her as a diva which even the high-nosed elitist
took note of. The lilting melody of Tere
mere hoton pe meethe meethe geet mitwa which reverberated in the delightful
dales of Switzerland brought to Bollywood romance an ethereal beauty which reconfigured
the concept of love forever. That falling in love was not just falling in love
with a person, but is also an iconography of beautiful things and locales was
first established by Chandni. Chopra
celebrated true love, sacrifice and devotion, but also transformed love into a commodity.
Lamhe (1991), Darr (1993), Dil to Pagal Hai
(1997), and Veer-Zaara (2004) have
faithfully rolled on the tradition, when falling-in-love is unwittingly
imagined by many as an assortment of chiffon sarees, designer jewellery, unruly
aanchal waving in the breeze,
expensive cars, sprawling houses, picturesque getaways, perfect bodies and
guaranteed happiness in the end. But, Chopra’s journey had begun much earlier
with Dhool ka Phool in 1959, when he
was a different filmmaker altogether.
Yash Chopra’s films, when seen
chronologically, reveal a linear narrative of history fraught with
complexities. Chopra, in association with Saleem Khan and Javed Akhtar, had
given birth to the quintessential Angry Young Man and made of Amitabh Bachchan
the megastar as he is. A product of the Emergency, the Angry Young Man who
rocked the nation with Deewar (1975) became a personification of the deprivations, the
desires and most importantly the anger which was simmering in the hearts of the
youth. The demolition of the Babri
Masjid, and the bloody communal riots that sent deadly ripples across the
country, especially turning the most cosmopolitan of the Indian cities into a
necropolis, gave birth to another angry young man, who was no longer interested
in social reform, but was a psychopath, inhabiting a state of mind with which
the youth again identified. The invisible singer of Jadoo teri Nazar who remained in the dark and romanced from a
distance, but got brutal when his beloved was taken away from him, became the
new hero of the early nineties. It took an Emergency and a communal riot for
two great stars to be born: Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan. The mastermind
behind their stardom was Yash Chopra, and their stardom, was, therefore, not
accidental.
However, the economic
liberalization changed it all, and the new Yuppie hero was born. It was the
Silver Jubilee Year of Yash Raj Films. Yash Chopra launched son Aditya with the
revolutionary Dilwale Dulhaniya Le
Jaayenge (1995), where the rich Indian diaspora returned home to take back
their matrbhoomi with them! The East/West binary which ruled Bollywood so far,
completely dissolved and the transnation was born as a dimpled NRI Shah Rukh
Khan held out his hand to a disheveled Kajol who ran alongside the departing
train, with the staunch patriarch fading away in the distance but giving up a ‘thumbs-up’
to their union! Chopra had him return with Dil
to Pagal Hai, where he reveled in an iconography of abundance and romanced
a sublimely beautiful Madhuri Dixit who dreamily strolled and danced across undulating
and sprawling meadows looking for her Prince Charming. And it was with Kajol
and later with Madhuri that the Chopra brand of Indian womanhood was born.
Chopra was the originator of not
only this genre of candy-floss romance, but also of the immensely popular ‘lost-and-found’
genre with Waqt (1965). He tried his
hands at serious cinema with Ittefak
(1969), with moderate success though. He ventured into controversial arenas of
Hindu fundamentalism quite early in his career with Dharamputra (1961) which ruffled the feathers of the saffron-clad
crowd. Although he is known for giving love the most stylish makeover, he is
also the one who has questioned monogamy, marriage and
socially-approved sexual relationships. While Daag (1973) delved deep into the problematics of polyamory, Kabhi Kabhie (1976) uncovered
uncomfortable zones of failed marriages and pre-marital sex. Trishul (1978) turned the focus on the
illegitimate son, while Silsila
(1981) made adultery almost desirable.
His demise marks the end of a
history which has made Bollywood what it is today. Thankfully, a Yash Raj brand
of cinema has already arrived, and would stay on! The man who has remarkably
changed with changing times, Yash Chopra might just be waiting out there to
re-enter the limelight, with lights, camera, and action. Yes, Jab Taak Hai Jaan is waiting in the
wings. The dream merchant can never really die.
Image courtesy: merinews.com
