Hrishikesh Mukherjee has led a career spanning over 40 years. He started as assistant to Bimal Roy in the early 1950s. Mukherjee went solo with Musafir (1957), an interesting film made up of three separate stories. Despite its impressive cast it failed at the box office. He first tasted commercial success with Anari (1959) and then Anuradha (1960). Popular films in the 1960s followed like the Dharmendra starrer Anupama (1966), and Aashirwad (1969), which fetched the late Ashok Kumar both the Filmfare and National Award. Anand (1971) with Rajesh Khanna as a terminally ill man, cheerful in the face of death, was perhaps his best film. Khubsoorat (1980) was his last major hit.