B.R. Chopra

B.R. Chopra

One of India's most respected film personalities, Baldev Raj Chopra (better known as B.R. Chopra) has been an architect of what is now known as the golden era of the Bollywood industry. Having converted offbeat stories into immortal classics like Waqt (1965) and Naya Daur (1957), he commands high regard in the world film fraternity. The BR Chopra Mahabharata(1988) was nominated for Uptron awards under for several categories. Pankaj Dheer won the Uptron Award for Best Actor defeating Arun Govil and others in that category. Mukesh Khanna won the Best Supporting Actor for people's choice. Nitish Bharadwaj won the Best Supporting Actor defeating Sunil Lahri and others B.R. Chopra was born in Lahore, 1914, to an accountant in the PWD administration of the British Punjab administration. After graduating, he did his M.A. degree in English Literature from Lahore University. . Having a deep-rooted fascination for films, he switched over from a higher education to film journalism, surprising his family. He began his celluloid career writing and editing film reviews for the Cine Herald journal. When the partition of India occurred in 1947, B.R. became a victim of communal riots. His house having been burnt down, he migrated to Bombay to live up to his dreams. In 1949, he produced his first film Karwat (1949). Unfortunately, it turned out to be a flop. In 1951, he tried again as the producer and director of the film Afsana (1951) and hit gold. His movie, a tale of mistaken identity with Ashok Kumar in a double role, was a runaway hit and went on to celebrate its silver jubilee. Encouraged by this success, B.R. formed his production company, B.R. Films, in 1955, and started off on a roll with the release of Ek-Hi-Rasta (1956), a drama about widow remarriage. He churned out a string of successful films, the most notable being Naya Daur (1957), Sadhna (1958), Kanoon (1960), Gumrah (1963) and Hamraaz (1967). He also gave his younger brother, Yash Chopra, his first directorial opportunity with the box-office hit Dhool Ka Phool (1959) and in the subsequent years Yash made four more films for B.R., including Waqt (1965) and Ittefaq (1969). B.R. has always endeavored to make socially relevant films, which at the same time try to cater to popular sentiment. For instance, Naya Daur (1957) told the story of a traditional rural community threatened with modernism and mechanism; B.R. perceives mechanism as evil and has the protagonist, a horse carriage rider, defeat an automobile in a race! B.R. has also made films that were regarded as ahead of their time - Kanoon (1960) was a courtroom drama without any songs at all (music being essential of all Hindi films, this was a novel technique); _Gumrah (1963)_qv told the tale of a woman resuming her affair after marriage; and Ittefaq (1969) showed the heroine as a murderess of her own husband! B.R. continued to make films into the 1970s and 1980s, and met success with Insaf Ka Tarazu (1980), focusing on the issue of rape, and Nikaah (1982), a Muslim love triangle. His son Ravi did try to keep the banner going but none of the films did well except for Aaj Ki Awaz (1984), another courtroom tale, and the family epic Baghban (2003). However, B.R. Films turned to television in 1985 and made several successful television programs, the most successful of the being the serial Mahabharat (1988), based on the Hindu epic. Perhaps the most popular serial in the history of Indian cinema, it entered the Guinness Book of World Records by registering 96% world viewer ship. In 1999, B.R. was awarded the Dadasaheb Phalke Award for his contribution to Indian Cinema. It was another triumph for the movie mogul...
B.R. Ishara

B.R. Ishara

B.R.Isharas's real name is Roshanlal Sharma and he is from Himachal Pradesh. He ran away from home and came to Bombay and began working as a tea boy on the sets of Hindi films. As is normal, a small boy in India is addressed as Babu. So he became Babu and very soon graduated to becoming a spot boy on the sets. The producer he was working for had a guru by the name of Roshanlal and he did not like to call this new spot boy by his guru's name. Babu it remained. But young Babu soon discovered a felicity with words and began to assist various dialogue writers. To add dignity he added Ram to his name and called himself Babu Ram. One dialogue gave him the pen name of "Ishara" as an "indicator" of things to come. Thus was born Babu Ram (B.R.) Ishara. He wrote dialog for many small films and came in touch with producer-editor I.M.Kunnu. Ishara had several hard-hitting stories which revolved around sexual hypocrisy in the middle class. He questioned the middle class morals of Indian families and Kunnu was willing to taker a risk and produce the films. The first film they ventured into was Zaroorat but it had so many sex scenes that it just kept doing the rounds of the censors. In the meantime they had made Chetna with Rehana Sultan and Anil Dhawan (both graduates of the FTII, Pune). The film did not have too many daring scenes though it had a daring story and real hard hitting dialog. Chetna created a sensation. By then a much watered down version of Zaroorat had made it through the censors and that was soon released. These small films with hard hitting stories and even harder hitting dialog created a wave and many other imitators like Ram Dayal etc came to the fore.In the late eighties he directed Superstar Rajesh Khanna in Woh Phir Ayegi, a horror film, which was a silver jubilee hit at the box office.In 90's his film Sautela Bhai was critically acclaimed. Ishara today lives in a Mumbai suburb, married to his first heroine Rehana Sultan who made a name for herself and had Gold Medal at the FTII, Pune (graduated in 1966) and her terrific start in Dastak (National Award as Best Actress 1970).

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