Why is Adi Chopra, the apparition?

A friend of mine for whom Yash Raj Films was a client went over to meet producer Aditya Chopra at his office circa 2005 The big poster on the wall friend said was City of God 2002 the seminal Brazilian grimecrime film thatrsquos inspired Indian content right up until Sacred Games 2018Only something I couldnrsquot associate with Aditya director of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge DDLJ 1995 Mohabbatein 2000 etcDuring the meeting Aditya kept getting calls from a particular number that he kept disconnecting still He finally answered the phone barking at a major movie star at the other end ldquoWho died If Irsquom not picking up canrsquot you tell Irsquom busyrdquoThis was the first sighting by someone I knew hence a primary source to report that Adi Chopra indeed exists And it goes well with how movie star Abhishek Bachchan describes Aditya as a child in the Netflix documentary series The Romanticsmdashan adorable corporate film on Bollywoodrsquos most loved studioWith a studio what we mean here is not just shooting floors production house or moneybag with power to greenlight scripts Wersquore staring at a company with Irsquom guessing 200plus film professionals on monthly salaries from spotboy to directorscreenwriter working allyear on multiple moviesrsquo prepost and production itselfAlso Read Holy cow Who shall I hug nextThe product that emerges has its front plus backend integrated down to music talent management digital rights even theatrical distribution worldwideFinance is inhouse So are rewards ploughed back into the upcoming films As Yash Rajrsquos top screenwriting employee Jaideep Sahni Bunty Aur Babli Chak De India told me once ldquoThis is the sole movie company that will live and die on the Avid edit machinemdashas in with hitsflopsrdquoThis conversation is from a time corporate studios that had entered Bollywood were primarily playing the shares and evaluation game like the 2023 startups really For many bigtime individual producers still cinema is also a hobby or side hustle tea or real estate could be their main businessYash Raj is uniquely how Bombayrsquos film companies used to bemdashImperial Bombay Talkies Wadia Ranjeet etcmdashbefore the studio system collapsed shortly after independenceAs with familyowned firms Aditya inherited Yash Raj from his dad the great director Yash Chopra who began as a producer with a small office in Rajkamal Studio having branched out from his elder brother Baldev back in the early rsquo70sExcept that Aditya is chiefly the architect of Yash Raj as the selfsufficient film empire we know it And thatrsquos because he made it clear to his father that he would debut as director only with a film that was internally funded His father Aditya reveals was more a director than a producermdashsatisfied so long as money made it to the table hence the next movieThe dad given his humbler background ldquoplayed saferdquo The son was the ldquorich kidrdquo who could aim higher Adityarsquos directorial debut at age 24 was DDLJmdasha film that technically never left the cinema ldquoImagine if we had to share 50 per cent profitrdquo Aditya shares in The Romantics where staractor Abhishek lets in on how he knew this filmmakerfriend growing upHe was named lsquoCheenirsquo Donrsquot know if this is with reference to the Chinese who beat Indians in the 1962 war The kids would presumably run after hearing that nickname for the bully Aditya was in the house By now Irsquove met hajaar people whorsquove interacted closely with Adimdashthatrsquos what everyone regardless of hierarchy calls himHersquos supposedly straightforward deeply sincere with ideas intent and paycheck Besides obviously a rare kingmakerringleader whorsquos launched more film talents than anyone in India including starsmdashamong othersmdashRanveer Singh Anushka Sharma Arjun KapoorAll three of whom Irsquom told were separately given the same advice by Adi before their big breakmdashsomething along the lines of ldquoYoursquore ugly Work harderrdquoAdi Irsquom told is a workaholic himselfmdashalso an apparition of course Hersquos made no public appearance since he picked up the Filmfare Award for DDLJ in 1996Maybe wersquove bumped into him howrsquod we know Wersquove known about how he catches firstday shows of all new films with a notebook at the cinema to gauge audience response I suppose hersquos left aloneWith this enforced anonymity Adi may have left behind a great showbiz insight that 24x7 privacy for starters is not that hard to pull off or is it Also fame itself is infinitely overrated unless yoursquore a performer and then itrsquos obviously unavoidable We figured this decades later with the inescapable spectre of identity collective opinions AI and social mediaAdi sticks to filmsmdashevidently inspired by Kurosawa who would regularly disappear from the world only to return to it with a new releaseWhich explains the furious excitement right inside Yash Taj Studio where I watched parts of the sweetly hagiographical The Romantics directed by Smriti Mundhra Indian Matchmaking that kicks off in the second episode with Adirsquos rarest public appearanceHe works from the office right above this preview theatre His onscreen interview the point of the series is still an aweinspiring lsquoaharsquo moment as if from a creature picI feel doubly glad now that desi popculturersquos oldest rumour has outed himself Pushing in a request for a more journalistic chatinterviewmdashnaah offtherecord wonrsquot doMayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture He tweets mayankw14Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper