Son Aditya Chopra’s business models may well be in place — what’s missing perhaps is the heart that father Yash Chopra brought to the madness of film-making. And film making, at the end of the day, is an art; it has to appeal to the heart. Then the purse opens automatically. That’s what Yash Raj films used to be — from Daag (1973) to perhaps Veer Zaara (2004), which the elder Chopra directed last for his banner.

What’s happening at Yash Raj Films is a familiar Bollywood story — professionalism versus formula, which was archaic but tested and unique. The Yash Raj creative crisis is a statement on the larger experimental fancy that has gripped the industry of late, riding roughshod over tested Bollywood traditions for anything that is new, radical, different and essentially or helmed by the young.

The eagerness to revamp, retune, and retake misses out the power of a banner’s appeal, misses out the signature style of the film maker. What Yash Raj is today isn’t something achieved overnight. Yash Chopra too had his failures. Most notable, being the experimentative and different Lamhe (1991)! However, a less acknowledged fact also is that though the film bombed at the box office, it was the most rented film in the video circuit that year. So the viewers were there, they just didn’t come to the theatres to see it.

So why begrudge Aditya Chopra’s experimentations? Because, unlike Lamhe, they are all body and no soul — Tara Rum Pum (2007), Jhoom Barabar Jhoom (2007), even Madhuri Dixit’s comeback Aaja Nachle (2007). Lamhe had its soul in place, also the signature Yash Chopra ingredients — compelling story, great music, memorable dialogues.

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