Seeing Prem Chopra as a villain, her daughter was scared when she was being stared at her after the film

On hearing ‘Prem Chopra Naam Hai Mera’, one remembers Prem Chopra, the most dangerous villain of Bollywood, who had made the hero’s life haraam in many films. It is said that the more powerful the villains are in the film, the more brilliant the heroes seen in that film become. That is, the heroism of the hero largely depends on the character of the villain. One of the few such villains in Bollywood is Prem Chopra, who looked so dreadful on the screen that there would be a strange panic in the audience that he did not know what trouble he would create for the hero now.

Prem Chopra, who has made a special mark in the film world with his negative character, is celebrating his 86th birthday today (23 September 2021). Prem Chopra was born on 23 September 1935 in Lahore and then after partition he moved to Shimla with his family. His childhood was spent in the mountains of these mountains. After his early studies in Shimla school, Prem Chopra graduated from Panjab University. He was fond of drama from college itself and used to participate very actively in the dramas held there. Going against his parents, after finishing his graduation, he reached Mumbai (then called Bombay) with the dream of acting. He started living in Colaba and would go to the studio and show his portfolio. He started work in ‘The Times of India’ to run his life till he came to Mumbai and got work in films.

Prem Chopra looked after the paper circulation work in Bengal, Orissa and Bihar, which required 20 days of outings in a month. To save time, Chopra would have called the agent to the station itself so that he could return immediately. In this way, the tour which usually took 20 days, Chopra used to finish it in 12 days. The remaining time he used to spend wandering from one studio to another.

One day a strange thing happened to them. He was traveling by train and an unknown person while talking to him asked if he wanted to work in films? Chopra accompanied him to Ranjit Studio where the producers were looking for a hero for ‘Chowdhary Karnal Singh’. He got the role of a hero in the Punjabi film ‘Chowdhary Karnel Singh’ with a famous star Jabeen Jalil. He then got a fee of Rs 2500 for his debut film. It took about 3 years to complete this film.

During this, she did some Bollywood films like ‘Woh Kaun Thi?’, ‘Shaheed’, ‘Main Shaadi Karne Chala’, ‘Teesri Manzil’. However, in the 60s, Chopra was not looking at film as his full-time career. Before ‘Woh Kaun Thi’ Chopra did 4 films. The character of Sukhdev in the film ‘Shaheed’ is one of his few positive roles, which was given to him by Manoj Kumar, while in those times his villainous characters flooded the screen. After the film ‘Upkar’ in the year 1967, he left the work of ‘Times of India’ and completely joined films.

The era of his dissolution lasted from 1967 to 1995. Their pair was also seen opposite actress Bindu, in which there were many more films like ‘Lagaan’ (1971), ‘Kati Patang’, ‘Do Raaste’, ‘Daag’, ‘Chupa Rustom’. Prem Chopra’s tremendous dialogues proved him different from the rest of the villains. His dialogues have become more famous than the dialogues in films. For example, “Those whose houses are made of glass, they change their clothes by turning off the lights”, Prem Chopra said in the film ‘Ali Baba Chalis Chor’ that ‘Badshah’s guess is very little wrong.. and when it is wrong, So he is not the king’, Prem Chopra in the film Sautan had a very famous dialogue, ‘I am the one who breaks the stone with the mirror’, the dialogue in the movie Kati Patang was, ‘Kailash does not think for himself, others ‘Forcing me to think’, in the film ‘Waris’, he said, ‘I know very well how to crush a snake before it lifts its hood.’ Apart from this, the dialogue ‘Prem Chopra Naam Hai Mera’ was also very famous, which was suggested to him by Raj Kapoor.

However, Prem Chopra believes that the kind of character you play on screen, people tend to create the same impression for you. People started keeping negative impressions for him, which he considers as a complement to himself. Prem Chopra believes that because of this he got so much work and was able to grow himself. However, Prem Chopra narrated an anecdote in an interview to the Indian Express about her daughter, who was so terrified of her film that she could not even talk to her.

In this interview he told, ‘I took her to the film premiere, because she wanted to see her father’s work. She remained completely silent throughout the movie and was watching every scene very carefully. When the movie was over, we went out and she kept staring at me and she didn’t even talk to me. She was quite shocked. She started wondering what suddenly happened to her father who keeps roaming around the house as clowns. Then I made him sit and explained that his joker is always the joker and what I do in films is only my work. I explained that it is necessary because only then we will be able to educate him in a good school, buy a big car. Although it took him time to understand this but finally he understood the difference.

It was during her debut film that her mother was diagnosed with oral cancer and she passed away. Prem Chopra now had to take care of his 9 year old sister and 4 brothers as well. Prem Chopra started considering his sister as a daughter. After this the relationship came for Prem Chopra’s marriage and this relationship was that of Uma, sister of Raj Kapoor’s wife Krishna Kapoor. This relationship of Uma was brought to Prem Chopra with famous director Lekh Tandon. Prem Chopra was married to Uma and they had three daughters Rakita, Punita and Prema.

While Rakita is married to Rahul Nanda (film publicity designer), Punita is married to Vikas Bhalla and Prema is married to Sharman Joshi.

Prem Chopra has done more than 350 films in the last 50 years, in which he became famous only for his villainous character. He made his film debut in 1960 with the film ‘Mud Mud Ke Na Dekh’. The film did not show anything amazing at the box office, after which Prem Chopra turned to Punjabi films. His main films include ‘Hum Hindustani’, ‘Woh Kaun Thi?’, ‘Shaheed’, ‘Mera Saaya’, ‘Prem Pujari’, ‘Purab Aur Paschim’, ‘Kati Patang’, ‘Do Anjaane’, ‘Kala Sona’. ‘, ‘Dostana’, ‘Kranti’, ‘Janewar’, ‘Phool Bane Angare’, ‘Mehbooba’ among others.