Manoj Desai remembers how the film’s producer Yash Chopra would visit Maratha Mandir and adds, “Unfortunately no one else from Yash Raj is taking interest and we are playing DDLJ without any support from the family. We would not go and ask.”
Film critic and expert Dilip Thakur offers his appraisal on why DDLJ has stayed relevant for so many years. He says, “In the 70s Amitabh Bachchan was considered as the symbol of anger and angst of the youth thanks to films like Zanjeer and Deewar. Hum Aapke Hain Koun (1994) and DDLJ (1995) had the mood set in by the globalization that came in 1992 when former PM Rajiv Gandhi brought in telecommunication and then PM, PV Narsimha Rao with Manmohan Singh as the Finance Minister brought in open economy.”
Thakur further explains, “The kids who were born during the emergency had turned youth during the mid 90s. HAHK and DDLJ were the kind of cinema that the youth wanted to watch at that time. DDLJ was more will-packing than HAHK because it had an NRI hero and a patriotic father. That was the period when an increasing number of Indians wanted to travel to foreign countries. It was a coming of age for a whole new generation. It all matched with DDLJ. That’s why cinema was tweaked. And once cinema is tweaked here in India nobody and nothing can stop it. Now they’re stretching it a bit. But at that time, these were the reasons why DDLJ became such a huge hit. The music was good, there was a huge craze of Shah Rukh Khan. The industry needed a new star. There was a need for a new music director as well. Everything just came together at the right timing for DDLJ.”
