"You won't be hearing this now. I wish I had told you this while you were alive. We admired you a lot, we got our confidence out of your work," the ace actor said in a condolence message to the renowned director.
"I never clearly told you this, It's not because I was conceited or narcissistic; sometimes we were so odd by the superior personality that you were," Haasan said.
Kamal Hassan said he was privileged to have had long conversations with Chopra, saying he did not know whether he clearly emulated his admiration for the filmmaker. "Doesn't matter now, many more generations will admire you.
"Your family will enjoy the benefits of what you have done; the accolades, the income and all. What matters as an artist is the applause. While I offer my condolences to the family who would want to mourn, I would rejoice the life you have lived," Hassan said.
Chopra passed away at a suburban hospital in Mumbai yesterday, where he had been admitted for a week on account of dengue infection. He was 80.