Legendary film maker B R Chopra passed away at 95

He's the man who gave us Naya Daur in the 1950s that dealt with the conflict between man and machine as well as the kitschy


Mahabharat in the 1980s that brought the epic alive on the small screen. Baldev Raj Chopra, the iconoclast filmmaker, managed to successfully strike a balance between socially relevant and commercial cinema.


Chopra, who crossed over from Lahore to New Delhi during partition, viewed filmmaking as a mission to highlight social issues and not as a money-making enterprise. The 18 movies that he directed and 28 that he produced from 1951 to 1992 bear testimony to that.

Lets express our heartfelt condolence to the bereaved Chopra family

Born in Punjab's Ludhiana town in 1914, Chopra initially worked as a film journalist.


After obtaining his Masters degree in English Literature from the Lahore University, he began working as a film reviewer with a monthly called Cine Herald, published from Lahore. He soon earned the status of a fearless writer and his reviews were found to be strident, but Chopra never changed his style.


Chopra's journalism career, however, was short-lived. The pre-partition communal violence, which saw his house in Lahore being burnt down, forced the family to join the exodus of millions of Hindus towards the Indian side after division. They settled in New Delhi.


While still in Lahore, Chopra had tried his hand at filmmaking and started making a movie called "Chandni Chowk", which was financed by his father's friend. However, he could not complete it due to the partition.


Naya Daur" (1957), "Sadhana" (1958), "Dhool ka Phool" (1959), "Kanoon" (1960), "Gumrah" (1963), "Waqt" (1965) and Humraaz (1967) were some of the other films that the legendary filmmaker made.


The last film that Chopra directed was "Kal Ki Awaaz" in 1992, after which he passed on the baton to his son Ravi Chopra, who has since made hit films like "Baghban" and "Baabul".