They Said It… – A book on the making of Veer Zaara

The film remained untitled till the very end. This became a cause for speculation by all. Various titles were thought of. Including “Yeh Kahaan Aa Gaye Hum”. We even did a song adapted to this, “Yeh Hum Aa Gaye Hain Kahaan”, Read More">based on Madanji’s tune [this song was finally dropped from the film as itRead More

The film remained untitled till the very end. This became a cause for speculation by all. Various titles were thought of. Including “Yeh Kahaan Aa Gaye Hum”. We even did a song adapted to this, “Yeh Hum Aa Gaye Hain Kahaan”, based on Madanji’s tune [this song was finally dropped from the film as it was retarding the pace of the court room scenes. A very difficult decision as it was one of our favourite tunes!!]

We decided that we title the film when we saw it in its entirety. And when we did, we all felt that we had created a new love legend, and thus in the tradition of “Heer Ranjha”, “Laila Majnu”, “Sohni Mahiwal”, there could be no better title than “Veer – Zaara”. The two legendary lovers.

The story and screenplay had a wide span of 22 years and creation of distinct ambiences. One – the Punjab in Indian, and the other – the Punjab now in Pakistan. It was a very intense and emotional romance, but beyond borders and boundaries… rooted in traditions. For me, it was a tribute to Punjab, Read More">Read More

The story and screenplay had a wide span of 22 years and creation of distinct ambiences. One – the Punjab in Indian, and the other – the Punjab now in Pakistan. It was a very intense and emotional romance, but beyond borders and boundaries… rooted in traditions.

For me, it was a tribute to Punjab, my homeland. The cross border romance, while set in the two different countries had to have cinematic contrasts but at the same time, the underlying sentiment was that we are the same. We speak the same language; we imbibed the same culture, values and emotions. A fact exemplified in the song “Aisa des hai mera”.

There was never any alternative for either Shahrukh or Rani. The casting of “Zaara” needed some thinking… I needed an actress who had an image completely different from Zaara’s character. She had to surprise the audiences. Instinctively, I wanted to try the unexpected. Preity had earlier played modern, largely western looking characters, Read More">and had aRead More

There was never any alternative for either Shahrukh or Rani.

The casting of “Zaara” needed some thinking… I needed an actress who had an image completely different from Zaara’s character. She had to surprise the audiences. Instinctively, I wanted to try the unexpected.

Preity had earlier played modern, largely western looking characters, and had a youthful image. I decided to mould her into the character. We worked on tests with makeup costumes, jewellery… the Zaara look that I had in mind. And after 3 tests, I knew I had my “Zaara”.

Yash Chopra has been playing on-screen cupid for many. An eternal lover, Read More">he is rightly called as the ‘King of Romance’. And his feather-light romantic Veer-Zaara stands as a testimony for the same! One can relieve the making of this classic in the form of an exclusive collector’s edition called ‘They said it…’ based onRead More

Yash Chopra has been playing on-screen cupid for many. An eternal lover, he is rightly called as the 'King of Romance'. And his feather-light romantic Veer-Zaara stands as a testimony for the same!

One can relieve the making of this classic in the form of an exclusive collector's edition called ‘They said it…’ based on the making of the film Veer-Zaara. The book contains testimonials from almost every member of the film’s cast and crew.

IndiaFM brings to you an exclusive slideshow of this classic….for your eyes only!!! Come...let's rediscover the magical thing called love.

Following are excerpts of some of his experiences from the making of Veer-Zaara that Yash Chopra shares in the book ‘They said it…’

One day, Adi narrated 3 scenes to me. Entirely new and different. These had me gripped at once and I had immediately decided that this was my next film… And Adi started work on this new story… The scenes were the opening scenes of Veer – Zaara.

One of the biggest challenges in making Veer – Zaara was the creation of its music. I heard a lot of leading composers of today, and, though, all are so talented, I found something missing, something did not click. I needed music with old world charm, tunes that traversed a 22 year time span, Read More">acrossRead More

One of the biggest challenges in making Veer – Zaara was the creation of its music.

I heard a lot of leading composers of today, and, though, all are so talented, I found something missing, something did not click. I needed music with old world charm, tunes that traversed a 22 year time span, across two distinct ambiences of India and Pakistan, but most of all a very soulful and yet Indian feel to it.

One day, Sanjeev Kohli, the CEO of Yash Raj Films, was traveling with me in my car and I was expressing to him my dilemma of not getting the right composer for my film. He then mentioned to me that he had various tapes of unutilized tunes left behind by his father, the late composer, Madan Mohan. Sanjeev had worked with me for many years but he had never mentioned this to me before. He worked for a month or two and played us 30 tunes. We immediately reacted to 8 of these tunes and Adi and I knew we were on the right track.