Yash Chopra has just released 'Veer-Zaara', his first directorial venture in the past seven years. Designed as a love legend, the film purports to achieve the acme of the genre that Chopra has patented — the romantic musical. The ‘eternal romantic of Bollywood' discusses the love formula in an interview :

Q: From Dhool Ka Phool in 1959 to Veer-Zaara in 2004, your cinema epitomises romance in Hindi films.
A: We've tried our best. People talk about the romantic aura in our films. Aura aise hi ban jata hai . It's a process over which I have no control. If people expect Veer-Zaara to be the ultimate romantic fable it could be because I'm directing a film after seven years.

After all these years I get as anxious and insecure about a release as I did when I made my first film. And to compound my anxieties Veer-Zaara is being released along with Mughal-e-Azam , one of the all-time great romantic films which I've watched so many times.

Q: When did your romance with romance begin?
A: If you go back to my first film Dhool Ka Phool , you'll see a lot of love scenes in it. The film was about an illegitimate child. And children, as you well know, aren't born out of thin air. After I wrote my love scenes in Dhool Ka Phool I became hooked to them. I remember in Dhool Ka Phool there was a sequence where a man and woman on different bicycles fell on each other. The censors asked me to delete the scene.

Today men and women are falling over each other for no reason. No one raises an eyebrow. When I think of a love scene I don't calculate how much should be exposed or which angle to capture the lead pair in. It should come from the heart. Otherwise it looks fake. People should connect with the romantic emotion. Not one member of any Indian family would be embarrassed by the love scenes in Veer-Zaara .

Q: During the mid-1970s you made a series of action films like Trishul, Kala Patthar and Deewaar.
A: Shall I tell you one thing? Deewaar which is considered one of the most successful action films had only one fight sequence! It was the mother-son emotions that saw the film to its success. Yes, Trishul and Kala Patthar were action films. Those subjects came to me and I liked them. Thereafter, I had a series of romantic failures like Vijay, Parampara and Faasle . Then, one day, I was driving down to town from my home in the suburbs of Mumbai.

Every hoarding that I saw had men holding guns in their hands. I realised I was losing my way. I believed in romantic films, so why wasn't I making them? That's how I made Chandni . When I was asked about the film's highlights I said the songs are the highlights. When a distributor saw Vinod Khanna in a romantic role he left my film! When it was released people predicted it would flop in a week. But its success reaffirmed my faith in my vision and my audience. That faith has stood by me all these years.

Q: What do you think of the way love and romance are portrayed today?
A: I think we've gone overboard. What we see in today's films isn't romance. Love is a very intimate and personal emotion. Our audiences have been exposed to every possible culture and experience on television. In the last two-three years our films haven't been doing well. In desperation, film-makers have turned murder, sex and nudity into formulas. I firmly believe Indian audiences go for strong story with Indian values. That's the only formula that will last.

By showing skin you can't get your film to make a long-lasting impact. It's a passing phase. When I made Silsila and Lamhe in 1989 and 1991 people said they were premature creations. When I'm pregnant with an idea I have let it be delivered in its natural course. For some reason my two neglected children Silsila and Lamhe remain my favourites.

Q: Do you think Veer-Zaara will revive the era of true romance in Hindi cinema?
A: We've made a film that is strong on story and emotions. There are no gimmicks, body exposure, nothing erotic-sherotic. But when my hero looks into my heroine's eyes, it is the most passionate expression of love possible. According to the media, Veer-Zaara is my swan song. For your information I've already finalised my next script. A romantic never gives up. He just moves on. Nowadays my son Aditya Chopra and I direct films in tandem. After Aditya makes his film I'll direct my next. Yes, it will of course be a romantic film.

Q: Your critics say your cinema is insulated against reality?
A: I don't agree. Whether it's arranged marriages, man's battle with the machine age, corruption in the public sector — they're all there in my films. My 60s hit Waqt is considered an escapist entertainer. But it was actually a film about man's destiny and how it cannot be controlled. In recent times, social content including patriotism has become a formula. I decided to make films on the one theme that can never get outdated, namely human emotions and human relationships. There is a love story unfolding at every given point. I decided to give a new twist to the emotion called love in my films.