By:
Subhash
K.
Jha,
IndiaFM
Friday,
September
01,
2006
They're
waiting
for
Hrishida's
only
surviving
son
to
arrive
from
the
US
before
he's
sent
away
for
good
to
God.
And
I
think
of
that
moment
in
Hrishida's
Aashirwaad
when
the
old
and
dying
Ashok
Kumar
stumbles
into
his
estranged
daughter's
wedding
to
bless
her
before
kicking
the
bucket.
Anupam
Kher
tells
a
very
interesting
story
about
Hrishikesh
Mukherjee.
"We
were
shooting
for
his
last
film
Jhoot
Bole
Kauva
Kate
.
Hrishida's
legs
had
given
way,
and
he'd
sit
and
direct
us.
I
playfully
asked
him
if
all
his
parts
had
stopped
working.
'No,
Anupam
my
most
vital
parts
still
work
fine.'
Hrishida
answered
with
a
smile."
A
very
sober
and
refined
filmmaker
who
has
been
closely
associated
with
Hrishida
tells
another
story
about
the
prolific
Mukherjee
during
his
final
days.
"I
had
gone
there
expecting
him
to
be
mournful
and
doom-laden.
Instead
Hrishida
cracked
one
dirty
joke
after
another
for
a
full
hour.
Finally
I
got
embarrassed
and
fled."
Hrishida
loved
a
good
laugh.
You
only
have
to
see
Gol
Maal,
Khubsoorat,
Bawarchi
or
even
the
lesser
known
laughathons
Buddha
Mil
Gaya
,
Naram
Garam
and
Jhoothi
to
know
how
much
this
amazing
man
enjoyed
the
lighter
side
of
life.
About
his
penchant
for
laughter
Hrishida
once
told
me,
"To
keep
laughing
is
the
most
important
thing
in
life.
Our
aim
in
life
is
to
be
happy.
But
we
go
wrong
looking
for
happiness
in
transitory
pleasures.
You
fall
in
love
with
a
girl
and
pin
your
happiness
on
her.
She
dumps
you.
You
produce
a
son
and
you
place
all
your
dreams
in
him.
He
leaves
you.
Happiness
shouldn't
control
your
life.
You
should
control
happiness."
And
yet
this
man
who
made
such
super
-comedies
also
directed
some
of
life's
most
lingering
moments
of
tragic
pathos
in
Anuradha
(the
story
of
how
a
male
ego
thwarts
a
woman's
talents,
inspired
by
Kishore
Kumar's
marriage
to
his
first
wife
Ruma)
and
later
its
quasi-remake
Abhimaan,
Anupama
(about
a
man
who
hates
his
daughter
after
his
wife
dies
in
childbirth,
the
story
was
inspired
by
Hrishida's
uncle
who
became
an
alcoholic
after
his
wife
died
during
childbirth)
,
Satyakam
(the
director's
favourite
work
featuring
his
"favourite
actor
and
humanbeing" Dharmendra)
,
Anand
(based
on
Hrishida's
intense
friendship
with
Raj
Kapoor,
featuring
Amitabh
Bachchan
as
Hrishida
and
Rajesh
Khanna
as
Raj
Kapoor).
Before
he
moved
to
the
hospital
two
months
before
his
death,
Hrishida
was
completely
bed-ridden
for
close
to
two
years.
The
intermittent
visitor
apart
,
he
lay
there
inert
staring
at
the
ceiling
probably
reliving
all
the
golden
moments
from
his
cinema.
But
the
spirit
never
flagged.
My
last
conversation
with
Hrishida
had
him
imploring
me
to
visit
him.
"Beta,
come
and
see
me
soon.
I'm
just
counting
my
days
now."
I
never
got
around
to
paying
Hrishida
that
visit.
My
friend
Sanjay
Leela
Bhansali
(a
huge
Hrishida
fan
and
highly
influenced
by
his
simple
yet
sensitive
narrative
patterns)
and
I
kept
planning
a
visit
before
it
was
too
late.
But
now
the
man
who
created
some
of
Hindi
cinema's
most
endearing
and
enduring
mirror
images
of
the
middleclass
is
gone.
When
I
visited
him
some
years
ago
Hrishida
had
moved
into
a
high-rise
in
Bandra
,
just
next
to
where
his
bungalow
used
to
be.
There
he
sat
with
his
arthritis
and
memories,
trying
to
cope
with
both.
His
living
room
had
only
one
picture
prominently
at
its
center
,
that
of
Lata
Mangeshkar.
"People
call
her
a
reincarnation
of
Saraswati
Mata.
I
call
her
Saraswati.
Beta,
do
you
know
this
is
where
Lata
and
I
sat
with
composers
like
Sachin
Dev
Burman
and
Rahul
Dev
Burman
and
Salil
Chowdhary
to
compose
those
gems
in
Abhimaan,
Jurmana
and
Anand
?"
He
then
revealed
an
unknown
facet
of
Lataji's
personality.
" Beta,
do
you
know
she
doesn't
charge
a
single
paisa
for
any
of
the
songs
that
she
sings
for
me?
She
once
made
a
mistake
while
singing
one
of
my
songs
Ek
baat
kahoon
for
R.D.
Burman
in
Gol
Maal.
I
had
my
answer
ready
for
people
who
asked
why
I
allowed
Lata
to
sing
wrongly.
'A
wrong
Lata
is
worth
more
than
all
the
right
singers
in
the
industry.'
And
then
Hrishidaa
laughed
loudly.
He
loved
his
fun
and
games.
Simi
Garewal
recalls
how
he
spent
hours
playing
chess
with
her
during
Namak
Haraam.
"What
an
erudite
and
entertaining
filmmaker.
I
learnt
so
much
from
him".
Hrishida
loved
all
his
actors.
From
Ashok
Kumar
who
was
a
permanent
fixture
in
a
majority
of
his
films,
to
Rajesh
Khanna
whom
Hrishida
affectionately
called
Pintu
Baba,
to
Rekha(for
whom
he
had
a
special
Tamilian
term
of
affection
)
,
Jaya.
and
Sharmila
Tagore.
Hrishida's
well-wishers
wanted
him
to
sign
Nutan
for
Anupama.
"How
can
Sharmila
play
the
demure
repressed
character
when
she's
busy
running
around
in
a
bikini
in
An
Evening
In
Paris?
But
I
knew
she
had
the
expressive
eyes
for
it," Hrishida
told
me.
Jaya
and
Amitabh
Bachchan
were
Hirishida's
favourite.
AB
went
to
Hrishida
to
say
he
was
marrying
Jaya.
"I
told
Jaya
I'll
be
attending
her
marriage
from
my
son
Amitabh's
side."
The
filmmaker
was
very
unhappy
with
the
kind
of
work
AB
did
the
the
1980s.
"Many
directors
reduced
him
to
a
stunt
man.
Some
people
thought
I
had
blundered
badly
by
making
Amit
sing
classical
songs
in
Alaap
when
he
was
holding
guns
and
booze
bottles."
Alaap
was
made
during
the
Emergency.
"It
was
a
depressing
film
because
I
was
very
depressed.
I
thought
it
was
the
end
of
my
life.
I
couldn't
believe
Mrs.
Gandhi
had
become
such
a
dictator."
To
snap
out
of
the
doomed
mood
Hrishida
made
the
comedy
Khubsoorat.
Explaining
the
hop
and
the
skip
from
the
grim
directorial
debut
of
Musafir
to
the
grin
mood
in
Biwi
Aur
Makaan,
from
the
dark
Majhli
Didi
and
Satyakam
to
the
frothy
Guddi
and
Chupke
Chupke
,
from
the
nifty
Naram
Garam
to
the
elegiac
Jurmana
and
Bemisal...Hrishida
said,
"I'm
an
agnostic.
I
believe
my
conscience
is
my
God.
But
having
said
that
we're
all
creatures
of
moods.
At
times
you
want
to
cry
,
at
others
times
you
want
to
laugh
your
head
off.
Critics
ask
me
why
I
always
have
a
death
scene.
I'll
tell
you
why.
Death
is
the
ultimate
truth.
Deven
Varma
once
observed
Sabse
Bada
Sukh
(India's
first
sex
comedy!)
was
my
only
film
where
no
one
died.
I
told
Deven
he
was
wrong.
It
flopped
so
miserably
that
it
killed
the
distributors."
Sobering
down
Hrishida
lamented
on
the
quality
of
present
day
cinema.
"Everyone
is
stealing
stories
from
laser
discs.
I
confess
I'm
guilty
of
making
potboilers
like
Do
Dil
and
Asli
Naqli.
That's
because
I
had
a
unit
and
their
family
to
maintain.
I
am
aware
my
talent
is
severely
restricted.
I
can
never
make
a
film
like
Satyajit
Ray
.
I
console
myself
with
the
thought
that
I've
made
decent
films
on
family
values
which
have
touched
people's
hearts.
I've
made
films
which
have
recovered
their
investments
and
fed
my
unit."
After
his
last
film
Jhooth
Bole
Kauva
Kaate,
Hrishida
was
planning
to
adapt
a
short
story
called
The
Dressing
Table
written
by
music
composer
Salil
Chowdhary.
What
Hrishida
loved
about
the
story
was
its
quaint
old-world
values.
"It
talks
about
the
value
of
a
letter
at
a
time
when
people
are
sending
e-mails
to
one
another."
Hey
Hrishida,
isn't
that
exactly
the
sentiment
of
all
your
films?
Are
you
listening?
Or
are
you
busy
telling
a
dirty
joke
to
someone
up
there?