THE FOUNDING OF YASH RAJ FILMS
Rachel Dwyer
When Rachel Dwyer of SOAS started working on Yash Chopra, people asked why. They have their answer now, as the Grand Old Man of Chiffon Saris, Tulip Fields and Airport Endings sits in a football-field-sized office and controls how India woos and weds.
The separation of B.R. and Yash Chopra was the object of much speculation in the film press during the 1970s. From my discussions with the family, it is clear that there is no single version of events. Misunderstandings remain and emotions run high after thirty years, so it might have been prudent to lay this to rest. However, it is important to our study for several reasons, not least because it shows how B.R. and Yash differ in their view of the family, which is the linchpin of the Hindi movie. This then brings us on to Yash’s relationship with his father figure and his relationships with his own children. It shows the family’s desire and respect for privacy, rather than the need to find opportunities to settle old scores.
Yash had lived with B.R. and Prakash as a child and then from his arrival in Mumbai at the age of nineteen until his marriage nearly twenty years later. Given the fact that his father died when he was thirteen, and the eighteen-year age gap between the brothers, B.R. was clearly more of a father figure than a brother to Yash. B.R. was not the oldest in the family as Hansraj was around ten years older than him, but the latter was always regarded as the ‘black sheep’. B.R.’s educational achievements and his subsequent successful career marked him as the leader among the children and gave him an early sense of heightened responsibility. B.R. provided his younger brother, Dharam, with work as a cameraman, gave Yash the best possible start in the film industry, and shaped the career of his own son, Ravi, who was only slightly younger than Yash. As B.R. himself says, ‘My word is law in the family. They do as I say.’
Dharam also lived with B.R. until his marriage, and there was no acrimony in his moving out into his own flat with his wife. Ravi and his wife, Renu, and their children still live with B.R. and Prakash. Many people speculate that B.R. was closer to Yash than he was to Ravi. The rest of the brothers lived separately and B.R. and Yash’s mother, Draupadi, refused to move to Mumbai, continuing to live in Jalandhar, although she would meet the family when they came to north India.
Yet, although B.R. had wanted Yash to marry earlier, a marriage at the age of thirty-seven being late by any standards, this had not happened. B.R. says, ‘I wanted him to marry very early but he had some affairs which did not fructify.’ As a young, successful director, Yash had been linked to many of his stars, in particular Nanda, Sadhana and Mumtaz. Although Yash is too discreet to name names or discuss any of his premarital relationships, which may have been just friendships, Bunny Reuben, B.R.’s publicrelations man, has written about some of them. Yash remained an eligible bachelor into his late thirties, driving around Mumbai in a red sports car, with a circle of male friends, including Shashi Kapoor and Deven Verma, who were reputed to be ladykillers. Yash says:
[B.R.] was always trying to find a girl when I made my first film. He must be trying. At a certain stage of your life, you don’t feel like settling down. He must have arranged a lot of girls to get married. As usual, I was irresponsible. I say, ‘I don’t want them. I don’t want a girlfriend. I don’t want to get married’.
B.R. says that Yash was the only one in the family who did not have an arranged marriage. Yash says he was stubborn, refusing as he felt he had not met the right person, and he also enjoyed being the baby in B.R.’s family. B.R. says, ‘I was in Mumbai when a friend telephoned to say that Yash had met a girl. We wanted to celebrate the engagement so we went to Delhi that day. The marriage was in Delhi, the reception in Mumbai.’
Yash says that he met Pamela Singh for the first time at the music function of his nephew Ravi Chopra’s wedding where she sang some songs. Her singing won him over. The next time, when he was an examiner in the Film Institute in Poona and was visiting Delhi, his distributor Mr B.M. Sharma wanted him to meet a Sikh girl for a possible arranged marriage. It was probably providence that it was the same girl he had heard singing earlier. They met one evening and although they quite liked each other, neither felt any particular wish to meet again. However, for the first time, Yash later missed his flight to Mumbai. He decided to stay with the Sharmas, who called Pamela again. Yash says, ‘There are moments which change life completely’, and they agreed to get married: ‘But even in your heart you say, yaar, now too much, let me settle down. So, that day I got married.’
The marriage, which took place on 20 August 1970, was announced by the press:
[The wedding is announced of the] brilliant young director, with Pamela, daughter of retired navy captain, Mahinder Singh; August 20 with B.R. hosting a function in Mumbai 22 Aug. Yash, youngest of the three film-making Chopra brothers (the other two who are in films are the famed ‘B.R.’ and Dharama, the noted cameraman), directed B.R. Films’ Admi aur Insaan, a bold exposé on corruption. Recently it set a record in first-week collections in a non-Hindi city like Madras.
Further attention was given to coverage of the event:
B.R. gave a reception at Taj, August 22 in the Crystal Ballroom. Guests included Chandulal Shah, A.R. Kardar, Dilip Kumar, Rajendra Kumar, Sunil Dutt, Raj Kapoor, Shammi Kapoor, Rajesh Khanna, Feroz Khan, Randhir Raj Kapoor, Balraj Sahni, Nargis, Meena Kumari, Saira Banu, Sadhana, Vimi, Simi, Kamini Kaushal … Tarachand Barjatya … with his sons Kamal Kumar and Raj Kumar.
As he had done for other members of the family, B.R. paid for a world tour for a honeymoon, with the couple staying away until November 1970.
On his honeymoon, Yash began to think about separating from B.R. Films, but it took him some time to get around to announcing this to B.R. The problem seemed more that he wanted to set up his own company, than his desire to live separately, as B.R. must have helped him financially in the building of his house (see below), although B.R. told me that they prepared a living area within the main house for Yash and Pam. The chronology seems somewhat muddled. B.R. says: ‘When he left us in 1971, after over twenty years, there was a void in the house. Now he is too busy to see too much. I don’t want to interfere. If he wants me I’m there, if he doesn’t, I don’t. Yash and I are brothers.’
Yash says that even today, he gets very emotional at a movie in which two brothers quarrel. Yash visits B.R. on his own, while the other members of Yash’s family are not close to him, although B.R.’s grandson, Junnu, trained as Aditya’s assistant on Mohabbatein (2000). Yash says, ‘I respect B.R. very much. I feel my existence is because of him. He brought me up. I behaved badly.’
People have read all sorts of meanings into the separation of the two movie banners. The two brothers have never spoken against each other; B.R. and Prakash attended the premiere of Yash’s first production in 1973 and they come together at family weddings and Yash has interviewed B.R. for the ‘special feature’ section for B.R.’s films on DVD. Their silence has only encouraged further gossip. These speculations are so universal as to be banal; impossible to prove or disprove. Yet it seems that the separation was much more Yash’s decision; that at thirty-eight, he wanted to be his own person, run his own concerns, change his place in society. Yash was still on a salary when he left, never becoming a partner. (Yash’s own children have equal rights in Yash Raj Films.) All this speculation is inconclusive, as times and people have changed. I turn instead to the creation of the identity of a separate banner, that of Yash Raj Films, founded on Yash’s thirty-ninth birthday, 27 September 1971, in his office in Shantaram’s studio, Raj Kamal in Parel (where he stayed until opening his own office around the time of Silsila, 1981), and the release of its first film on 27 April 1973.
The upheavals in his life over these three years must have been enormous for Yash. He concurs: ‘These were very emotional years. My state of mind was that I was trying to prove myself to the world.’ After the break, Yash and Pam moved out of B.R.’s flat on Napean Sea Road and Pam returned to her parents in Delhi for the birth of Aditya (21 May 1971; Uday was born 9 February 1973). Meanwhile, Mr Randhawa, a friend, and brother of Dara Singh (‘India’s Tarzan’, now a star of the television series Hadh Kar Di Apne/You’ve Gone Too Far), and husband of Mumtaz’s sister, lent them a flat on Pali Hill. They lived there until Yash earned enough money from directing the film Joshila/The Passionate One (1973) for Gulshan Rai to buy Mohammed Rafi’s flat on the fifth floor of the same apartment block, which he still owns.
In April 1971 work began on a separate house for Yash, on a plot of land next to Dharmendra’s bungalow, B.R. having recently moved in to B.R. House in Juhu. The bhumipuja (ceremony before laying the foundations) took place on 14 April, conducted by B.R. and Dharam Chopra, in the presence of other members of the family and Dharmendra, Mukesh, Mahendra Kapoor, Sahir Ludhianvi, Akhtar Mirza, Manmohan Krishna, Ravi, Gulshan Nanda and Akhtar-ul-Iman.
Daag (The Stain or The Stigma, 1973)
Yash’s immediate problem was to raise money to make his own film. This is where Gulshan Rai stepped in. Gulshan Rai, who had been a speculator in Lahore, had known B.R. for many years. Gulshan Rai’s cousins ran Verma Films and, after arriving in Mumbai in July 1947, he began to work as a distributor, based like so many others, at the Naaz cinema, where he has his office to this day. The first film of B.R.’s he distributed was Naya Daur. It was only in the 1970s that Gulshan Rai began production, under his Trimurti banner, taking on few films but with huge success, with nine out of the ten films he produced having silver jubilees. He said he would finance Yash’s first film, Daag, as producer, offering to raise big money. He also wanted Yash to direct his own production, Joshila, which Yash agreed to do once he had completed Daag.
The story is from Maili Chandni/The Stained Moon by Gulshan Nanda, who had already had one of his novels adapted into the hit film Kati Patang/Torn Kite (Shakti Samanta, 1971). Yash was to direct this for B.R. and had been working on it with Akhtarul-ul-lman and others in the story department, and the script was almost complete. When Yash was in London on his honeymoon, he saw Sunflower, starring Sophia Loren, which had a war background, where a married soldier meets another girl when posted overseas and marries her during the war. Yash started rewriting the story on his return.
Many people who had worked with Yash at B.R. Films stayed with him after he set up independently. Yash’s brother, Dharam, B.R.’s cameraman, did not, but his assistant, Kay Gee, worked with Yash until his death during the making of Mashaal/The Torch (1984). Another key figure was the editor Pran Mehra, who had been with B.R. since Afsana and worked with both brothers until he died after Kabhi Kabhie. Yash says, ‘He had his first heart attack during Waqt. He was the best editor, a well-dressed, handsome man, with a great sense of editing.’ The most important figure who collaborated with B.R. and Yash until his death in 1981 was the lyricist, Sahir Ludhianvi, who was also a great personal friend. He had no hesitation in working for Yash’s own company, even waiting for his fee until after the film was released so as not to pressure Yash. These three people were particularly important to Yash (and are discussed below): ‘I miss these people. I have not found a substitute for Sahir and Pran Mehra even to this day. Everything is a compromise.’
Yash felt that the film had little need of outdoor shooting and the only outdoor schedule was Shimla in the snow. This was the first time that Pam helped to organize the outdoor shooting, a role which she has performed ever since. Yash says, ‘She helps to organize everything, especially outdoor shootings. She knows and remembers everyone’s requirements, likes and dislikes. She is the last to sleep and the first to get up.’
Yash says of Kay Gee’s work on the film:
They hired a train for the children’s song, of which one antara [verse] was in the train. They had only two sun guns, and no generator. The sun guns looked like cigarette butts. They were using a zoom, which needs more light than a trolley, we had twenty to thirty kids, a heroine and a star. Kay Gee shot the whole sequence with one light. He took a lot of back projection plates in case anything went wrong, but everything was wonderful.
Although the film does not have a ‘rain song’, thunder and rain mark erotic sequences, including a bedroom sequence between Sunil and Sonia, which escaped much censoring. Yash, later famous for his rain songs, defends their inescapably unambiguous eroticism:
I think rain is a very sensuous thing. A woman in a sari or churidars, who has a good body, looks very sensuous in the rain. There is a thin line between vulgarity and sensuousness in films. It’s a question of intentions. If one wants to excite people, you make it obscene. There’s no harm in doing it but it’s bad if you make it obscene and you can’t see it with your friends or family. I’m not doing a satyanarayana katha [telling a religious story]. Raj Kapoor was never vulgar, he was only sensuous. It is how you project your image. You can tantalize, excite in showing a beautiful girl.
The newly married Sunil (Rajesh Khanna) and Sonia (Sharmila Tagore) move to the hills when Sunil takes up his first job. Sunil is imprisoned for killing a man who tries to rape Sonia but manages to escape. Chandni (Raakhee), who has helped find Sonia work as a teacher, introduces her to her husband, Sudhir, who turns out to be Sunil. Sunil explains to Sonia that he had to take on a new identity and married Chandni to save her honour as she had become pregnant after being raped. Sudhir is hoping to enter politics but his true identity is revealed. He explains the situation to Chandni who testifies on his behalf, as her rapist was the man who tried to rape Sonia. The murder trial is reopened and Sunil’s name is cleared. Sunil lives happily ever after with two wives.
Yash was very anxious about the release of his first independent film, as he felt that if it flopped people would say that he had only ridden on B.R.’s success. Rajesh Khanna’s career seemed to be on the ebb as about eight of his recent films had flopped, and this film had a controversial storyline. The film was censored on the day of Rajesh Khanna’s surprise wedding to Dimple Kapadia, Raj Kapoor’s discovery for Bobby (1973), 27 March, while Raakhee married Gulzar at the beginning of April. Gulshan Rai and the distributors praised the film, but thought it very risky. Their last sentence worried Yash: ‘Although the film is very beautiful, it may not do well.’
Yash launched a publicity campaign of trailers and advertisements. One of the display advertisements has a picture of Rajesh and Sharmila with Raakhee in the background:
Releasing all over India on 27th April.
Three wonderful people and three wonderful words … ‘I love you.’
Yash Raj Films’ Daag, a poem of love.
In Eastman Colour.
World rights controlled by Trimurti Films (P) Ltd.
Another proclaims
Love is not a moment … Love is a lifetime.
Daag—a poem of love.
The hype paid off. When advance booking opened on the Monday before the release, it soon became clear that the twelve prints made for Mumbai were insufficient. Every day there was an increase and six more prints were made before release until seventy-five were released nationally on the Friday. The film had a great opening on 27 April 1973, and was an instant hit. The premiere held the night before at the Minerva cinema was very grand, with many stars attending, including Dilip Kumar and Saira Banu (who had worked with Yash at B.R. Films), Raj and Krishna Kapoor, Raakhee and Gulzar, Rajesh and Dimple Khanna, as well as B.R. and Dharam Chopra. Yash has a full photograph album of the event, which was also filmed for Bombay Superstar, a BBC documentary in the Man Alive series, made by Jack Pizzey.
The film was appreciated by the critics, Screen proclaiming: ‘Daag is a drama of good emotional conflicts, done in slick, gripping way’. It was also the first to be praised in terms which have become standard in discussions of Yash Chopra’s films today: its gloss, its drama and its depiction of complicated emotional relationships, without excessive melodrama or gratuitous deployment of villains and comedians. The fights were criticized, as were some of the songs, especially the Punjabi-style dance. The excessive glamour of the sets was noted, although the film was called ‘tasteful’ and it was said that Yash ‘had an eye for the aesthetic’.
Extracted from Yash Chopra: Fifty Years in Indian Cinema.