IN LA-LA LAND: Rishi Kapoor and Sridevi with Chopra (centre) while filming Chandni

The guru of gloss who hopped from the Pahalgam vales to the Zurich dales is the unlikely focus of one of a chain of books on "world cinema" commissioned by the normally starchy and, as far as the Indian film legacy is concerned, clueless British Film Institute.

In this scheme of publishing, Rachel Dwyer deserves a burgundy toast at the very least for having zeroed in on Yash Chopra who, at the age of 70, has directed 20 films of variable quality in a career stretch of 43 years. Love him or loathe him, this raconteur's oeuvre ranging from social harangues and vendetta tracts to romantic marshmallows overwhelmingly deserves an inquiring and analytical gaze. Dwyer, a London-based cinephile, teacher and Mumbai studio-trotter, seeks to be earnest, scholastic, lively and informative, and succeeds to a fair extent.

Books

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Like the Chopra slick flicks, the book is a racy read-but ultimately shallow and unenlightening to the informed reader. The uninitiated, on the other hand, are not likely to be attracted to a discourse on the sagas of hapless pregnant women, avengeful dockworkers, loveless marriages and hearts which pound to the be-bop beat of bhangra pop.

Such apprehensions apart, the neatly designed book serves as a head trip with Dwyer: a worthwhile halt is the discussion on Chopra's early efforts at purposeful melodramas, notably Dhool Ka Phool and Dharamputra, both with secular underpinnings. Yet little or no dismay is expressed over his eventual volte face into a la-la land of no return. If moviegoers could no longer eat machine-sliced bread, he stuffed them with Swiss chocolates.

YASH CHOPRA: FIFTY YEARS IN INDIAN CINEMA By Rachel Dwyer Roli Price: Rs 450 Pages: 218

Amusingly enough but unintentionally so, on reaching the director's Toblerone turf, Dwyer gives the impression of breaking into a Yeh kahan aa gaye song-and-jig herself. She loses herself among the tulips, cuckoo clocks and thickets of Kabhi Kabhie, Silsila and Chandni. Occasionally, she does flash a critically testy word but otherwise extols them into near-masterpieces which they were not by any yardstick. The trouble with the text throughout is that Chopra's flaws, or frailties, are swept under a rose-patterned carpet. Similarly, all political predilections of the filmmaker are touched upon with the hurried wings of a butterfly, including a dalliance with right-wing RSS ideology.

The intended synopses of the Yash Chopra films are a hoot, in particular the Kabhi Kabhie plot which is a Cheshire cat's cradle of confusion. In addition, Dwyer's irreconciled feelings on the director's personal traits drench the pages: the excerpts of an interview with the director are transcribed, tongue-in-chic, in a pidgin hee-haw English. No point telling anyone that he drops nuggets like, "A friend of mine is a friend of mine ... if I stop every time a dog barks, I'll never reach the end of the road." Huh, whazzat.

Far too subjectively for this study, Dwyer makes a huge deal about the Chopra films she personally admires, quoting Mumbai reviewers at random to suit her convenience. Using the word "great" with a Dickensian zeal, she even has the gumption to anoint the otherwise middling Mashaal as a "cult" film. Yes? With whom and where?

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By contrast, there could have been more inquiry and comment on why the director has been denied his deserved credit for Deewaar; the encomiums have been more often than not lavished upon scriptwriters Salim-Javed. Without a shred of doubt, the gritty Deewaar remains Chopra's best work to date, never mind his bigger candyfloss hits.

The inspiration for the quickie whodunit Ittefaq is cited as Lamp-post to Murder when it should be Signpost to Murder. Minor matter that it is in consonance with Lata Mangeshkar's foreword which begins on a shrill note and fades away into politesse. On yet another minor key perhaps, Dwyer keeps suggesting that Chopra is a "poet" of cinema and courageously reproduces an Urdu verse by Akhtar-ul-Imaan, which supposedly summarises the director's life. It goes like this:

I get up in the morning when the cock crows/And I go out in search of my daily bread/In the evening when the cattle turn home from the pastures/ I too come home to pass the night.

Now that certainly leaves you wondering whether Dwyer is having the last laugh or the reader.