Mukherjee's death is an irreplaceable loss to industry: Bollywood

Mumbai, Aug 27 (UNI) The death of legendary Dadasaheb Phalke Award winner Hrishikesh Mukherjee has come as a shock to Bollywood which feels his death is an irreplaceable loss to the film industry.

Speaking to UNI, Rakesh Mehra, maker of 'Aks' and 'Rang de Basanti' said, ''It is difficult to react when you tell me that he has passed away. I do not think souls like him pass away. These are the people who gave meaning to the word immortality.'' Bappi Lahiri, on the other hand said, ''Today is the day of mourning, as an institution passed away. Hrishikesh Mukherjee is no more and so are R D Burman and Salil Choudhary. It feels like a father figure is no more. Hrishikesh Mukherjee made clean films like 'Chupkhe Chupke', 'Anand', 'Jhooti', 'Golmaal' and 'Khoobsoorat'.

A filmmaker should learn from these films and not make films that have sex, violence and copy Hollywood movies. He was as assistant to the legendary Bimal Rjoy and that he has worked with great actors like Rajesh Khanna, Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan.'' Bappi worked with Hrishida on two films. The film 'Jhooti' had stars like Rekha, Raj Babbar, Amol Palekar and Supriya Pathak while in 'Kisi Se Na Kehna', he worked with Farooq Sheikh, 'Deepti Naval' and 'Utpal Dutt'.

Among other people, Ravi Chopra, son of legendary B R Chopra told UNI Hrishida's death is a great loss to industry. He said, ''He was a lovely man and a lovely director. He has done films like 'Anand'.

I used to drop in on his sets as he was a fine editor and a fine technician. At one point when I was doing a film called 'The burning train', I just asked him to come and see whether I had edited it rightly. He came, saw my film and said do not touch anything.

Everything is fine. He treated me like his son.'' Producer-director Romesh Sharma said, ''It is a very sad day.

Hrishida used to make finest films which were simple yet astounding.

He was a father figure to all of us. I worked with him as chief assistant director and found him to be very down to earth. His films are a delight and each of his films is a school of film making in itself.'' Yesteryear actress Kamini Kaushal said Hrishikesh Mukherjee's films gave film-making a new genre. She said, ''He was a dear darling and such a good friend. He was a wonderful human being. In his films, there was no wickedness, no badness. There were only human emotions and he saw the good side of human behaviour and he highlighted it so well. As he was immobile during his last days, I did not see much of him. But he was always in my thoughts.'' UNI LS WD PA RK2135