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 older 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 A.R. 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 A.R. 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. (IANS)
