Many of Bollywood's biggest stars who began their careers working with veteran filmmaker Hrishikesh Mukherjee bid an emotional farewell to the departed director.

Actresses Jaya Bachchan, Juhi Chawla, lyricist Gulzar and several film directors including Subhash Ghai, Vidhu Vinod Chopra paid their last respects to Mukherjee before his body was taken to the Shivaji Park crematorium in Mumbai.

"I will miss him. His kind of cinema was unique. I shared a close relationship with him and he was a father figure to me," said an emotional Bachchan, who was present since morning at Mukherjee's residence.

Another of Mukherjee's favourite heroines, Dipti Naval, blamed the media for not giving the filmmaker his due share of credit before his death.

"Why do we have to wait till someone goes away? Did any journalist bother to go up Hrishida when he was alive and asked him about his style of filmmaking?," she asked.

Filmmakers Nagesh Kukunoor, Rajkumar Hirani, Anant Mahadevan and actor Om Puri were paid their respects to Hrishida.