But Chopra's oeuvre was not limited to just romance and relationships. In his five decade-long career, he experimented with all genres.
His first film "Dhool Ka Phool" in 1959 was the story of an illegitimate Hindu child being brought up by a Muslim.
His next project, "Dharamputra" (1961) was another hard-hitting film on communal conflict, and was one of the first films to depict the Partition and Hindu fundamentalism. The film marked the debut of Shashi Kapoor in a full-fledged role and won the National Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi.
A precedent-setter, Chopra's 1965 critically successful drama "Waqt" pioneered the concept of multi-starters in Bollywood, while "Ittefaq" (1969) was a taut thriller, being the first Hindi films which did not have any songs or an interval.
