Chopra

Chopra is a surname. Some families of Chopra are Khatri Sikh, but most are Punjabi Hindus from the Punjab region and Jains from Rajasthan and Gujarat. Notable people with the surname include:

Zeenat Aman

Zeenat Aman (born 1951 in Bombay) is an Indian actress, model and beauty queen best known for her work in Hindi films during the 1970s and 80's. She won the Miss Asia Pacific 1970 title. She is the first South Asian woman to win the title. Upon making her debut in Bollywood, Zeenat Aman, along with Parveen Babi, was credited with making a lasting impact on the image of its leading actresses by introducing the modern look to Hindi cinema. Throughout her career she has been considered a sex symbol.

Early life

Zeenat Aman was born in Mumbai (then called Bombay) in 1951 to Amanullah Khan and Scinda. Her father, Amanullah Khan, was related to the Bhopal State ruling family. He was a script writer who made the script for such movies as Mughal-e-Azam and Pakeezah. Amanullah Khan often wrote under the nom de plume 'Aman' which she later adopted as her second name on screen. He died when Aman was 13. Her mother remarried a German man called Heinz (and was constantly referred to as Mrs. Heinz in all subsequent articles published in film magazines). Aman's mother obtained a German citizenship and took her to Germany where Zeenat Aman stayed temporarily. She returned to India when she turned 18. She is the cousin of actor Raza Murad and niece of actor Murad.

Ajay Devgan

Vishal Veeru Devgan (born 2 April 1969), known as Ajay Devgan and sometimes spelt Ajay Devgn, is an Indian Bollywood actor, film director and producer. He is widely considered as one of the finest and most popular actors of Hindi cinema. He has won numerous awards, including two National Film Awards as Best Actor. He has been honoured by the Government of India with the Padma Shri in 2016. He is the son of director and action director Veeru Devgan.

Devgan began his professional career with Phool Aur Kaante in 1991 and received a Filmfare Award for Best Male Debut for his performance. He then starred in successful films such as Jigar (1992), Dilwale (1994), Suhaag (1994), Naajayaz (1995), Diljale (1996) and Ishq (1997). In 1998, he appeared in a critically acclaimed performance in Mahesh Bhatt's drama Zakhm and he received his first National Film Award for Best Actor for his role in the movie. In 1999, his most-talked-about film was Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam in which he played Vanraj, a man who tries to unite his wife with her lover.

Amitabh Bachchan

Amitabh Harivansh Bachchan (IPA: [əmɪˈtaːbʱ ˈbəttʃən]; born 11 October 1942) is an Indian film actor. He first gained popularity in the early 1970s for movies like Zanjeer and Deewar, and was dubbed India's first "angry young man" for his on-screen roles in Bollywood. Often referred to in the media as the "Shahenshah of Bollywood", "Star of the Millennium" or "Big B", he has since appeared in over 180 Indian films in a career spanning more than four decades. Bachchan is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential actors in the history of Indian cinema. So total was his dominance of the movie scene in the 1970s and 1980s that the French director François Truffaut called him a "one-man industry."

Bachchan has won numerous accolades in his career, including three National Film Awards as Best Actor and many awards at international film festivals and award ceremonies. He has won 15 Filmfare Awards and is the most-nominated performer in any major acting category at Filmfare, with 40 nominations overall. In addition to acting, Bachchan has worked as a playback singer, film producer and television presenter. He also had a stint in politics in the 1980s.

History of Hindustani

Hindustani is one of the predominant languages of South Asia, with federal status in India and Pakistan, in its standardized forms Hindi and Urdu. It is also widely spoken and understood in Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Persian Gulf. It principally developed in North India during the Mughal Empire, when the Persian language exerted a strong influence on the Western Hindi of central India, leading to the creation of Rekhta, or "mixed" speech; which became to be known as Hindustani, Hindi, Hindavi, and Urdu, was elevated to a literary language, and after Partition and independence became the basis for modern standard Hindi and Urdu. Although these official languages are distinct registers with regards to their formal aspects, such as modern technical vocabulary, they continue to be all but indistinguishable in their vernacular forms.

Formation

Most of the grammar and basic vocabulary of Hindustani descends directly from the medieval language of central India, known as Sauraseni. After the tenth century, several Sauraseni dialects were elevated to literary languages, or khari boli ("standing dialects"), including Braj Bhasha, Awadhi and the language of Delhi; the latter still goes by the name Khari Boli in the rural areas outside the city of Delhi itself. During the reigns of the Turko-Afghan Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal Empire, where Persian was adopted as the official language and Delhi was established as the capital, the imperial court and concomitant immigration infused the Delhi dialect with large numbers of Persian, Arabic, and Chagatai words from the court; the introduced words were primarily nouns and were employed for cultural, legal and political concepts. The new court language developed simultaneously in Delhi and Lucknow, the latter of which is in an Awadhi-speaking area; and thus, modern Hindustani has a noticeable Awadhi influence even though it is primarily based on Khari Boli.