Bachchan, 72, delivered his career’s blockbusters with the ace filmmaker right from his first collaboration in ‘Deewar’, ‘Kabhi Kabhie’, ‘Trishul’, ‘Kaala Patthar’. ‘Silsila’, ‘Mohabatein’ to ‘Veera Zaara’ and ‘Bunty Aur Babli’.
The actor said ‘Jab Tak Hai Jaan’ director was like an elder brother to him and he shared a great relationship with the filmmaker.
“With Yashji I had a family relationship and I believe that I still have that. I always felt that he is not only a great filmmaker but also an elder brother to me.
“The other family members of his family too treat me like a family and for that I just can’t only give credit to Yashji, Pamelaji (Chopra’s wife) too was instrumental in this,” Bachchan said after receiving the honour.
The Yash Chopra Memorial Award has been instituted by the TSR Foundation of T Subbarami Reddy in the memory of the late producer-director, who died in 2012.
Bachchan said he was supposed to work in a romantic film with Chopra when Deewar’s script came to him.
“I started my work with Yashji on a small romantic story, which he was producing and someone else was directing. After 10-12 days Salim-Javed (scriptwriters) came to me with the script of ‘Deewar’ and I liked it instantly.
“And Salim-Javed wanted Yashji to direct it. I requested Yashji to listen to the script. And when he heard the story of ‘Deewar’, he immediately said, ‘yes’. So, we immediately started working on ‘Deewar’,” Bachchan said.
The ‘Bhootnath Returns’ star recalled how Chopra started his journey as an independent director and producer in a single room studio.
“Yashji used to work with his elder brother B R Chopra. He started off with a small room at Rajkamal studio and now Yash Raj studio is one of the well known production houses and this job was not an easy thing to do,” he said.
Bachchan said Chopra’s films were relateable.
“If you watch an Yash Chopra film you will realise that every film of him is very relatable with the real life. His films were full of life’s aesthetic values,” he said.
Big B is the sceond recipient of the award, which was first conferred to melody queen Lata Mangeshkar last year.
On the occasion, Maharashtra Governor C Vidyasagar Rao said Bachchan has conquered the hearts of millions of people with culture, character and calibre.
Bachchan reflected the personality, culture and character of India, the Governor said, after presenting the award to the megastar here last night.
The award carries a prize of Rs 10 lakh, a golden bracelet and a memento, a Raj Bhavan release said today.
“People do not admire Bachchan for his acting skills alone. They adore him also for his conduct in public and personal life, his social commitment and for his innate qualities like decency and humility,” he said.
The Governor paid rich tributes to late filmmaker Chopra, saying that he was one of the finest and most successful directors, producer and scriptwriter of the Indian film industry during the last century.
Union Minister for Environment and Forest Prakash Javadekar, former Union Minister SushilkKumar Shinde, Members of Parliament T Subbarami Reddy, Jaya Prada and Venugopal Dhoot, Simi Garewal and a large number of film personalities were present on the occasion.
PTI CORR NDS BK