I watched all four episodes of The Romantics today. I loved the first two that documented the early life of Yash Chopra and the Yash Raj Films. I especially enjoyed the references to the early 90’s movies – especially the music. That was also my biggest gripe with the docuseries – it just didn’t speak enough about Yash Chopra’s taste in music. And his love for lyrics.
I remember listening once to Javed Akhtar on how valuable the lyrics, the words, and the poetry was to Yash Chopra. “If music is the body of a song, lyrics are its soul,” Javed Akhtar had said. Yash Chopra understood that.
So as I got nostalgic while listening to all the songs from the yesteryears – Waqt, Kabhi Kabhi, Silsila, Chandni, Darr – play in the background, I wished the makers of The Romantics had spent a whole episode just on his appreciation and quest for good music. There are so few Indian directors left who still value music as a core identity of movies. Yash Chopra was one of them.