Yash Chopra

You deserve more, yashji
I have never in all my years been witness to a story as a real life story like this man VNG Krishna’s. I have heard crazy stories of MF Husain seeing a film called Hum Aapke Hain Koun more than a hundred and twenty times. I have heard of Amitabh Bachchan seeing Ganga Jamuna ninety times. I have heard stories of Subhash Ghai, a student at the FTII seeing Devdas (the Dilip Kumar version) any number of times and whenever I got the chance to see it again. I have heard stories of Dharmendra and Manoj Kumar changing their lives after watching Dilip Kumar act. I have heard of a woman placning four TV sets on four different floors of her mansion in UK just to keep watching Shah Rukh Khan in Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. I myself have seen films like Ganga Jamuna, Devdas, Ram Aur Shyam, Mashaal, Pyaasi , Mughal-E-Azam, Hum Aapke Hain Koun, Waqt, Silsila, Lamhe and Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge as many times as I could.

There are scenes of the films that mesmerise you, work on you like magic inspire, a thirst to see it again and again and the more you see them the more you want to see them. And, yes, I must tell you of film crazy men and women who have seen some classics (both in Hindi and English) during all the four shows in a day.

Now this story of VMG Krishna from Hyderabad who is a crazy (the only word that can be used for the describe this human craze.

Krishna sees Mohabbatein in the very first show and goes into some sort of a strange trance. He is possesed by every scene, every frame in the film. He tries to find every possible way to thank Yash Chopra and his son Adi for making a memorable film like Mohabbatein. He feels he has done injustice to the film by buying a ticket for just thirty rupees. He has done wrong, he feels, and finally finds a way out to make up for the grave harm he has done to Yash’s film. He finally believes that he has seen a film which is priceless. He writes out a demand draft in the name of Yash Chopra for ninety rupees and sends it to him. Something like that I have never dreamt of before, not Yash, not anyone I know, not the craziest filmgoer I know. Yash reads the letter again and again and finally declares that this gesture of Krishna is worth and more than all the awards he has received. The lever got the better of him. He didn’t know how to react. I just kept stering at the letter written by Krishna with a picture of the DD for ninety rupees, Yash says.

I wonder what wonders Adi’s film must have worked on Krishna’s mind. I wonder what make him come to a rare conclusion like this conclusion. I wonder how he felt that the magic of the film was worth much more than what the market had priced it at.

Then I wondered how Yashji worked wonders on his audience when it came to love and how now his son, Adi, who is, otherwise, a very serious young man, followed in his father’s footsteps and made a love story of which his father himself and his 88-year-old uncle, Dr BR Chopra were all praise. And I am sure the next time (it has been decided that the next time will be Yashji’s time he will make love a grand feast, a celebration, a mela, a great lover’s tribute to the greatest feeling which keeps life alive - LOVE.


Ali Peter John