New Delhi: Versatile filmmaker Saawan Kumar Tak, who made family-friendly box-office winners such as ‘Saajan Bina Suhagan’, ‘Souten’ and ‘Sanam Bewafa’, and penned the breezy chart-topper ‘Shayad meri shaadi ka khayal dil mein aaya hai’, passed away at a Mumbai hospital on Thursday. He was 86. The Jaipur-born producer-director was suffering from heart and lung-related ailments.

His nephew Navin Kumar Tak told ETimes. “He was a colorful person, a fine writer-director and a hit songwriter. I had sent him a message wishing him a speedy recovery. Alas, that was not to be,” noted industry person and lyricist Amit Khanna told TOI. Tak’s career spanned nearly four decades. He produced ‘Naunihal’ (1967), among the early films of Sanjeev Kumar.

He directed ‘Gomti Ke Kinare’ (1972), Meena Kumari’s last film. He gave Rajesh Khanna a box-office hit in ‘Souten’ (1983) when the star badly needed one. And he directed Salman Khan in three movies, including the megahit ‘Sanam Bewafa’ (1991). The actor tweeted, “May u rest in peace my dear Sawaanji. Have always loved n respected u.”

Tak made the adult-themed ‘Hawas’, the murder-mystery ‘Ab Kya Hoga’ and the psychological revenge drama ‘O Bewafa’ (repurposed from Sidney Sheldon’s The Other Side of Midnight). He made love stories where young couples were trapped between warring families (‘Laila’ and ‘Sanam Bewafa’). But he was on surest ground in family dramas with a twist. In ‘Saajan Bina Suhagan’, a widow is forced to keep the façade of her husband alive and is blackmailed by a ward boy (a brilliant T P Jain) who threatens to spill the secret. ‘Souten’ was a love triangle shot in Mauritius where one of the leading ladies (Padmini Kolhapure) was a Harijan.

An uplifting element in Tak’s movies is the music of Usha Khanna, to whom he was married. The two formed a first-rate creative couple. The collaboration started with ‘Sabak’ (1973) and ‘Hawas’ (1974), which contained the evergreen track, ‘Tere galiyon mein na rakhenge kadam’ (singer: Mohd Rafi, film: ‘Hawas’). The association reached its zenith with Souten’s ‘Zindagi pyaar ka geet hai’ and ‘Shayad meri shaadi ka khayal…’, which became Binaca Geetmala’s top song of 1983.

“Saawan ji was the writer, producer, and director of his movies. So it was easy working with him. You were working for only one person. He used to just give me the mukhda and I used to easily compose the tune at one go ,” his ex-wife Usha Khanna told this reporter in 2016.

As a child, Tak was impressed by Prithviraj Kapoor in ‘Sikander’ (1941) and wanted to be an actor. In a 2019 interaction available on YouTube, he confessed to stealing Rs 45 and fleeing home. Like every struggler, he went through hard times, which included selling away his watch, before he saw a film shooting in Bombay. He saw the great Bimal Roy at work with Dilip Kumar and Meena Kumari and decided to become a film director, he said during the interaction. Tak not only ended up directing Meena Kumari but also became a friend and learnt to write poetry from her.