Legend Yash Chopra

Legendary filmmaker Yash Chopra on Sunday evening, a pall of gloom descended upon the entire film industry. He was cremated at the Vile Parle crematorium.

The iconic director, who had just turned 80 on September 27, and was eagerly awaiting the release of his last directorial Jab Tak Hai Jaan, died, literally speaking, with his boots on; something he had always wanted during his lifetime.

At around 9pm on Sunday, the late movie mogul was ferried in an ambulance from Lilavati Hospital to Studio 3 of Yash Raj Studios. Incidentally, this was the same place where he had announced his retirement last month while revisiting his film journeywith Shah Rukh Khan.

Immediate family and friends of the late Yash Chopra, which included Karan Johar, Rani Mukerji SRK, Amitabh bachchan etc stayed by his side throughout the night of Sunday. In fact, Shah Rukh, who had been one of the first ones to reach Lilavati Hospital after hearing news of his passing away, did not leave the late Chopra’s side till around 5’o’clock on Monday morning.

Between 9am and 12pm yesterday, the filmmaker’s friends and almost the whole film fraternity dropped by at the studio to pay their last respects.

Among those who came were Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Rekha, Vidhya Balan Pankaj Kapoor, Deepika Padukun, katrina, Sunil Shetty, Shamita Shetty, Arjun Rampal, Imran khan, Raneveer Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra, Sohil khan, Kajol, David Dhavan, Shahid kapoor, Praksha jha and shubhas gayi

Thereafter, at around 2.10pm, the body was carried from the studio to the Pawan Hans crematorium in Juhu, with Uday Chopra sitting next to the driver. Shah Rukh, Aditya Chopra and karan johar were in the same ambulance along with Uday.

A separate bus was also hired to take the entire YRF staff and others from the studio to the cremation ground. There was tight security to ensure no untoward incident happened. The ambulance reached Pawan Hans with the traffic police and security keeping a strict vigil.

Yash chopra was a trustee of the Mumbai Film Festival, organised by Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (MAMI) and the organisers felt that cancelling screenings would be a discourtesy to him.

“He enjoyed making and screening films and to stop screening films is a discourtesy to him. He was the founder member of Mumbai Film Festival, the person who made MFF. We will pay homage to him by screening all the films without any glitch,” festival director Srinivasan Narayanan said.

Yash Chopra is survived by wife Pamela and two sons – Aditya and Uday. While Aditya is a filmmaker, Uday is an actor.

In his over five-decade-long career, Yash Chopra made all kinds of films, but he is known for giving romance a new meaning with all-time favourites like “Daag”, “Kabhi Kabhie”, “Silsila”, “Chandni”, and “Dil Toh Pagal Hai” and his own favourite “Lamhe”.

Outside the studio and the cremation ground, a huge crowd had gathered for a final glimpse of one of the industry’s most celebrated directors. One who taught the masses how to love and portrayed romance like no other in the film Industry.