Remembering legendary filmmaker BR Chopra

Mumbai: Veteran filmmaker Baldev Raj Chopra popularly known as BR Chopra passed away on Wednesday mornning. He was the man behind path breaking hits such as Naya Daur, Nikaah and the television series Mahabharata.

BR Chopra, 95, died after a prolonged illness. Born in 1914 in Ludhiana, he studied at the Lahore University and moved to Mumbai after the partition of India in 1947.

He started his own production house BR Films in 1955 and went on to produce and direct hits like Naya Daur, Gumraah and Humraaz through the 50s and 60s.

Under the BR Films banner he also produced hit films like Dhool Ka Phool, Waqt and Ittefaq which were directed by his younger brother Yash Chopra. ]

"Whatever I am today is all because of him. He was everything for me - a brother, a father and a guru," says director Yash Chopra.

“It is very difficult to find a person like him. Everybody will miss him,” says film director Ramesh Sippy.

“The kind of contribution he has made to the film industry, he will always be remembered for it,” says director Satish Kaushik.

BR Films foray into television in 1988 resulted in the historic Mahabharat series on Doordarshan which became the first Indian serial to enter the Guinness Book of World Records for having been watched by 96 per cent of Indians.

More recently BR Chopra was credited for writing the successful Amitabh Bachchan - Hema Malini starrer Baghbaan - a story he had penned much earlier with Dilip Kumar in mind.

Chopra received several honours in his lifetime including the prestigious Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1998 but the film industry will always remember him as one of the grand architects of the golden period of the Hindi film industry.