YASH JOHAR
A GAME OF PATIENCE
BATTLE WITH TIME

Every time I meet and talk to Yash Johar (and it seems like I have been meeting and talking to him for several centuries) I am reminded of my mother and one of her many strange beliefs. She firmly believed that only one in several thousands of men grows grey and starts balding when he is hardly in his twenties. She seriously believed that the man should not do anything to dye his hair or try to grow his hair again because he is a blessed one, a chosen one. She firmly believed that the young man who grew bald and grey before his time was a man born with a lot of experience, a great deal of worldly knowledge and the will to work very hard to try and achieve what ordinary men can not easily dream of. She firmly believed that any attempt made by the man to dye or grow his hair would cause him infinite harm. Some believed her, others scoffed at her. I believed because I was too young then. But now every time I meet or talk to Yash Johar I remember her belief and how true it has turned out to be atleast in the case of Yash Johar. She would have been very thrilled to see one of her firm beliefs come true. She would have scoffed at the small world that dared to laugh at her, mock at her belief.

Yash Johar was bald and grey when he was twenty-one and he never tried to do anything about it. He had no time to. He was a busy young man, an experienced young man, a knowledgeable young man, a very hard working young man. He didn’t have the time to realise he was growing old. He didn’t have the time to realise that he had grown old before his time. He was too busy learning how to cope with life, how to tackle the tough world of films, how to make difficult things easy, how to make life easy for those who believed it was difficult.

Yash started his career as a production assistant way back in 1951. He was “fortunate” to work with some of the leading filmmakers for whom filmmaking was “a business with a passion”. He worked with S Mukerji, with Nasir Husain, with IS Johar, with Dev Anand and with Sunil Dutt. “All these men were great men. They were institutions by themselves. They had a passion to make films and they knew how to go about their business. It was this going about making films that Yash picked up. It was a tough man’s job but within no time Yash made a name for himself. He was just another production manager and yet he was not just another production manager. He knew everything about making films. His bosses had to just ask and they would receive. From a pin to a piano and the ways to satisfy the latest whims of the stars and their likes and dislikes, he knew how to look after every need, every little or big requirement during the making of a film. It took him very little time to establish himself as one of the best production managers in the industry, a fact which is accepted even today. He became an example, an ideal, a leader.

It was this drive, dedication, dynamism and determination that got him recognition, fame and money. In 1958 he started working as the production manager of almost all the leading filmmakers from the West who came to shoot in India. If it was India, it had to be Yash Johar for any unit from Holywood. Soon Yash had mastered the art of going about making films, the production of films. He had mastered the best of both the East and the West. There were good things and there were bad things on both sides. Yash mastered only the good things, the things that could help him some day.

Sometime in 1971 he took a break from films and went into exports. He specialised in exporting garments and within years he was one of the leading names in the business. But he never lost touch with films, his first love.

His next big step — launching his own banner, Dharma Productions, producing films, starting out to end up as one of the leading producers in the industry. He started big with Dostana with Raj Khosla, an old friend, as his director and Amitabh Bachchan, Shatrughan Sinha and Zeenat Aman. He then made Agneepath again with Amitabh, followed by a film called Muqaddar Ka Faisla with Prakash Mehra as his director and Gumrah with Sanjay Dutt and Sridevi and Mahesh Bhatt as his director.

The times changed with the making of every film but Yash either moved with the times or raced ahead. He didn’t believe in looking back. He didn’t let success go to his head or failure stop him. He was “a manager more than a producer” because he believed management was the key word. It was a very chaotic, very daunting, very mind-boggling and at times even a mind-shattering job but the challenge was in managing under all kinds of circumstances, managing and succeeding. “It was during the making of these big films that I realised that filmmaking was a game of patience, an industry where time was the greatest enemy you had to fight all the time and where luck played an all-important part in whatever you did.”

It was armed with all these experiences and the will to fight it out in the big world that Yash set out to make another film. He was fascinated by Shah Rukh Khan (who isn’t these days?). He wanted to make a film with him but he didn’t want to make “just another film with him”. He wanted “people to see the kind of Shah Rukh Khan they had never seen before. I had seen him playing different characters in different roles. I decided it would be a great idea to put all that was best about Shah Rukh in my film. I had several meetings with my writers and my director Mahesh Bhatt. We finally decided to cast Shah Rukh in a double role for the first time and this was not going to be a double role people had tried in the past. It was going to be a double role that would make people sit up and wonder and keep wondering.” Shah Rukh was fascinated by the subject and the rest was both easy, and not so easy, things Yash was a master in handling.

The special effects in the film is what will make the film stand out, Yash says. That’s why he took all the precautions to get the best, nothing but the best. He tried out all the best men in Mumbai, was not satisfied and finally settled for Venky, a special effects wizard from the South. “I didn’t sign him blindly, only going by his reputation. I gave him a trial, a test and said yes to him only after he passed my test brilliantly. Now, I can say with all the conviction that the special effects in my film are extraordinary, the kind never seen before in an Indian film with a double role and that’s my challenge.” The film, according to Yash, undoubtedly has Shah Rukh at his very best, “nothing to touch anything he has done in his career till now.” The girls, Juhi Chawla and Sonali Bendre, have also done very well but frankly, it is an all Shah Rukh film. Shah Rukh in one role is all Shah Rukh Khan in all his films. What will Shah Rukh do in a double role? That’s the big question. The film aptly called Duplicate has some very good music and some outstanding locations like Prague, Karlovy Vary, Switzerland and Mauritius, locations where no Indian filmmaker has shot till now. That’s Yash, the man on the move’s guarantee.

Yes, the film got delayed because of various reasons, valid reasons. First, the special effects which took time to shoot in the quest for perfection. At times entire sequences involving special effects had to be re-shot which meant some more delay. And one upset schedule or delayed shoot led to another upset, another delay but in the end it was the effect, the results that mattered. Then there were the special effects worked by the greatest special effects wizard — God — Juhi’s mother’s unexpected death during the shooting in Prague, Shah Rukh’s fractured leg and Sonali’s “problem” (broken heart?). “All this took time but my experience had taught me to expect all this as a part of the game and so I am not dazed or traumatized. I know all this comes as a part of the package deal when you are planning a film,” Yash says. He is happy the way the film has shaped. He is sure his film will leave no one unhappy. His experience tells him that.

And this time Yash was not alone. He had his son, Karan with him. He was “a strong moral support during every stage of the making of Duplicate which in many ways is what it is because of my son Karan and his active involvement throughout.”

But little did Yash know during the making of Duplicate that Karan was also interested in making it as a director. Yash was all set to put him in the exports business but Karan had other ideas. He had worked as Aditya Chopra’s assistant in Dilwale Dulhania... and had graduated during the making of Duplicate. He told his father he was ready to take off as a director. The father didn’t take him seriously. Till he approached Shah Rukh to do another film for him. Shah Rukh said he was willing — only if Karan Johar was given a break to direct the film. Then experienced makers and friends like Yash Chopra, Mahesh Bhatt and Aditya encouraged the father and the father finally agreed. The result — Karan is now directing Kuch Kuch Hota Hai with Shah Rukh, Kajol and Anupam Kher. It was the most expensive film producer Yash Chopra is making. He has given his son all the freedom to make the film just the way he wants. That’s what he is doing now.

Two things before Yash flies off to Mauritius to have a look at the way things are going with Karan’s film. He says “the stars are human beings. They have their own problems. You should know how to behave with them. You have to respect them. They’ll respect you. You treat them well, they will treat you doubly well. The real stars who bring in the money deserve the prices they are paid but then you have to know who the real stars are. The stars know how to behave with which producers, with which directors, with which unit. You get what you give the stars”. He has worked with the best of them at all times. He has worked with stars in Hollywood too and he says stars everywhere are the same. “Give them a little love. Treat them like human beings, stand by them through their good times and their bad times, make them understand, pamper them a little without stooping and they are all yours. Anything else you do will hurt you, will hurt them, will hurt your film.” I am dying to know how Yash’s fellow producers react to his opinion about the stars.

And one last thing. Yash says he is “ever so grateful” to HMV for promoting the music of his film. “They have really gone out of their way to put up posters, hoardings and banners promoting my music. I am sure the way they have treated my music will get many other producers interested in their company. This company will certainly come up,” Yash says.

It was only two days later that I realised that HMV had done nothing like what he said it had. That Yash talking aboout HMV was a duplicate of the real Yash Johar.