Yash Chopra: a career in clips

Reading this on mobile? Click here to view The film that will be forever branded into the memories of British Indians of my generation is Kabhi Kabhie (Sometimes …). Released in 1976, it made a massive splash in India and then drenched every VCR-owning Indian household on the planet. And it's probably the best example of Chopra's genius taste in music: the theme song would be hummed by millions for decades to come. It is the tale of two beautiful young people – Amit, played by Amitabh Bachchan, and Pooja, played by Rakhee Gulzar – whose love is thwarted by her arranged marriage to another man, played by Sashi Kapoor. Amit and Pooja nonetheless forge a deep and sexless friendship that fulfils them without threatening any social mores: the classic Bollywood ending. Reading this on mobile? Click here to view Kapoor and Bachchan teamed up here for Chopra's Deewar (The Wall). The angry young man of 1950s Bollywood finally broke into the Indian mainstream as Bachchan played Vijay, the criminal half of a pair of brothers – the other being a policeman. Chopra brought a raciness to the screen with his portrayal of Vijay's girlfriend, Anita (played by Parveen Babi), who smokes, drinks and gets pregnant out of marriage. The film heralded a saltiness in Hindi cinema that would become a hallmark of the characters Bachchan would go on to play. Reading this on mobile? Click here to view Bachchan starred again in 1981's Silsila (Chain), playing a writer who marries his brother's pregnant widow, played by the stunning Rekha. His gesture of loyalty, in forsaking his own true love for her, goes awry when she miscarries after an accident. The film again explores the tension between personal passions and familial obligations in a story that struck a chord with the longings of an urban class, mired within an obdurate and deeply conservative society. Reading this on mobile? Click here to view Perhaps the most convoluted of Chopra's films was 1973's Daag (Stain), in which Rajesh Khanna plays Sunil who discovers his boss's son, Dhiraj, trying to rape his wife. Dhiraj dies during the ensuing fight and Sunil is arrested for murder, but is the sole survivor when the police van crashes en route to jail; he forges a new identity and marries Chandni. Years later, his first wife discovers he is alive and now a bigamist as well as a wanted murderer. This emotional melodrama captivated millions, and its soundtrack was to become another Chopra-inspired hit. Reading this on mobile? Click here to view Family melodrama was brought a boiling point in Trishul (Trident), in which Bachchan plays the unacknowledged illegitimate son of a smug and ludicrously bow-tied tycoon (Sanjeev Kumar). This 1978 movie sides with the morally ambiguous bad guy when the son wreaks a Dallas-style vengeance on his father and half-siblings. Reading this on mobile? Click here to view In more recent times, Chopra was able to capture the imaginations of India's aspirant globalised generation just as effectively as he had their parents. His 2004 movie Veer-Zaara tells of the love between Veer Singh (Shahrukh Khan) and Zaara Khan (Preity Zinta), a Pakistani girl who falls for him on a trip to India to scatter the ashes of her Sikh governess. Family as well as geopolitics interfere again when she is thwarted by her politician father, who wants her to marry someone else. Veer comes to Pakistan to reunite with her and is locked up for being a spy, while Zaara flees to India. Twenty-two years later, he becomes a cause celebre when his case is taken up by campaigning lawyers who offer the possibility for the couple's reunion. Reading this on mobile? Click here to view My personal favourite is 1989's Chandni (Moonlight). One of Chopra's biggest hits, it is a lusciously camp musical in which the rich Rohit (Rishi Kapoor) falls madly in love with the lower-class Chandni (Sridevi), to the chagrin of his snobbish parents. When he's paralysed after falling out of a helicopter from which he's been showering her with rose petals, she runs away to Mumbai, unable to bear the blame being hurled at her by him and his parents. There, she falls in love with Lalit (Vinod Khanna), the boss of a travel agency, who goes to Switzerland and unkowingly befriends a recovering Rohit. Cue a song-and-dance love triangle set amid the Alps as well as in India, which has great routines and pays only the scantest regard to plausibility. Reading this on mobile? Click here to view Lamhe (Moments), from 1991, was a hit with Indian immigrants to the west and was especially popular in Britain, where it was partially set. Viren (Anil Kapoor) falls for an older woman, Pallavi (Sridevi), in the Rajasthani desert. She leaves him to marry her true love, and he leaves for London. Pallavi and her husband die in a car accident, and their daughter, Pooja, grows up to be her spitting image. Pooja meets Viren and falls in love with him, but Viren remains faithful to the memory of her mother. In the end, though, he gets over the creepiness of it all and learns to love Pooja with the same intensity he felt for her mother. What the popularity of this movie says about Indians, particularly those in Britain, god only knows. Reading this on mobile? Click here to view Darr (Fear) was another favourite of the overseas Indians. Released in 1993, it stars Sharukh Khan as Rahul, a man so obsessed with Kiran (Juhi Chawla) that he carves her name on his chest. Stalking her and trying to undo her love with Sunil (Sunny Deol) he follows them all the way to Switzerland – that staple of Bollywood locations – where the climax takes place. Shot by Sunil, Rahul comes to his senses and begs forgiveness just as his spirit departs. Reading this on mobile? Click here to view Sharukh was also the star of Chopra's 1997 dance extravaganza Dil To Pagal Hai (The Heart Is Crazy), playing yet another Rahul – this time a twinkle-toed cynic who doesn't believe in love and wants to direct a show about the sexiest woman who's ever lived. He hires Nisha (Karisma Kapoor) to play her. Nisha is secretly in love with Rahul, while he goes on to fall for Pooja (Madhuri Dixit). A whirlwind dance of repressed desire and broken hearts then breaks out, as all three wiggle and jig their way through the minefield of modern Indian romance.