Kamal Haasan remembers ‘ever enthusiastic’ Yash Chopra

SUBHASH K JHA

IANS

YASH Chopra’s sudden demise has left veteran actor Kamal Haasan, who met the filmmaker weeks before he passed away, shocked.

“And then I hear he’s gone!” said the actor, shocked beyond words.

“This is no way to go. We met frequently. I met him for the last time three weeks ago.

He was as enthusiastic as ever, though self admittedly he was feeling weak. I asked him why. His eyes twinkled like a child and he said, ‘When you reach 32 you can’t have the same energy level as when you are 19’. We laughed heartily at that one,” Haasan added.

Kamal Haasan was in awe of Yash Chopra’s ever enthusiastic nature and simplicity.

“Yashji’s 80 years sat really comfortably on his shoulders. He never felt the weight of being ‘the’ Yash Chopra. He was in love with cinema, not with its trappings. In that sense we were similar. When we met we were both like kids in a toy store staring at all the goodies around us. There was so much to imbibe, so much to do,” he said.

“The sense of wonderment never left Yashji. No matter how much old he got, he still had the same enthusiasm level every time we met,” he added.

Haasan revealed that Yash Chopra had plans to visit Chennai to meet music maestro AR Rahman to discuss about a song for his new film Jab Tak Hai Jaan.

“When we met last he told me about how he would meet in Chennai next for a song that AR Rahman was supposed to give him for his new film. That was never meant to be,” said the 57- year-old.

Many times Yash Chopra and Kamal Haasan came close to cracking an idea they could work on, but couldn’t implement it.

“Don’t ask me why we never worked together until now. We were too busy discussing ideas to actually get down to doing anything concrete. I’ve no regrets about not working with him,” he said.

“Just spending time discussing ideas with him was an experience worth treasuring. Even at 80 when I met him for the last time he was wonderstruck by the marvel of the motion-picture technique, of what magic it could do.

“Every time he liked something I said he would lean over like a school boy with that look which said, ‘Really? We can actually do that?’ I’ll miss that unconditional sense of pleasure in the existence of cinema during my visits to Mumbai.” Yash Chopra passed away on October 21 due to multiple organ failure. He was suffering from dengue.