Written by Salim-Javed: The Story of Hindi Cinema’s Greatest Screenwriters

by Diptakirti Chaudhuri

  ‘So, young man. So now you have also starred frequenting these places?’

  ‘Yes. I often come by to pay Flush,’ Imran said respectfully.

  ‘Flush! Oh, so now you play Flush . . .’

  ‘Yes, yes. I feel like it when I am a bit drunk . . .’

  ‘Oh! So you have also started drinking?’

  ‘What can I say? I swear I’ve never drunk alone. Frequently I find hookers who do not agree to anything without a drink . . .’

  This scene would find a real-life parallel as well as a fictional one in Javed’s life later.

  Javed’s memory, like Salim Khan’s, is incredible, for he remembers snatches of songs from Aarzoo, a film he was taken to see when he was about five years old. ‘Aye dil mujhe aisi jagah le chal jahan koi na ho . . .’ is the Talat Mahmood hit he remembers, though he has no recollection of who he went with.

  His first fully formed memory of a film was Mehmoob Khan’s Aan, which he saw the day he was enrolled is Class I of St Mary’s School in Lucknow. He had heard of someone called Dilip Kumar and saw him for the first time in Lucknow’s Basant Talkies, thoroughly enjoying the star’s acting and the film’s action. After that, he saw and liked a slew of films, some of which are still acknowledged as all-time classics. Films like Shree 420, Munimji, Do Bigha Zameen. He appreciated Jagriti for the large cast of children and Mother India for the rebel character of Birju—who, he believes, was an early version of the Angry Young Man. His fascination with the negative character, the anti-hero, started with Dev Anand in Jaal, a film he watched while in college. One particular film had a deep impact on him, because its maker and actor, Guru Dutt, seemed to exude a rare mix of creative flair and artistic melancholy—Pyaasa.

  After his mother’s death, Javed lived with his maternal grandparents in Lucknow for some time before moving to Aligarh with an aunt while his younger brother Salman remained in Lucknow because ‘one family could not be burdened with two orphans’.

  It was at his aunt’s place in Aligarh that he started watching movies and reading books incessantly. He did his matriculation from there before his father brought him back to Bhopal, where he spent four years, living off friends and in hostels. His charm and obvious erudition made him hugely popular among his friends and helped him earn a living. As a student, he often did not know where his next meal would come from but he managed. He was a proficient debater who often represented his university in college festivals. He also put his phenomenal memory to good use by reading and remembering thousands of Urdu poems (which he still hasn’t forgotten).

  His deep interest in literature and fascination with cinema had existed long enough for him to analyse what film direction and writing was all about. His interest in writing peaked with films like Waqt and Kanoon, which had excellent dialogues (by Akhtar-ul-Imaan). He even conjured up a grand plan to use Akhtar-ul-Imaan as his writer if he ever made a film. Obviously, he hadn’t decided to become a writer then; but he wanted to learn film-making by becoming an assistant in Bombay. And he wanted to do it with Guru Dutt.

  Thus, with a dream of meeting—and maybe working with—Guru Dutt, Javed reached Bombay on 4 October 1964. Tragically, Guru Dutt committed suicide less than a week later (on 10 October) and Javed could never fulfil his dream of working with the maestro.

  To start earning money, he started doing odd jobs in the film industry—as an assistant to directors or as a clapper boy. During this time, he also wrote dialogues for scenes in films that were eventually credited to well-known screenwriters.

  He was employed by Kamal Amrohi as a clapper boy for Rs 50 per month. This was a period of intense struggle for young Javed, who had to really rough it out—literally in the elements. In various interviews, Javed remembers the first five years of his stay in Bombay as riddled with problems. He had no fixed address, and often had no idea in the afternoon where he would sleep that night. He had exactly three sets of clothes, which he rotated between wearing and laundering. In fact, he changed clothes at the laundry itself. He had no place to stay and frequently spent the nights on the studio premises. A few times, he was allowed to stay in a storeroom at Kamalistan, Amrohi’s studio, and one night, found three of Meena Kumari’s Filmfare Award trophies in a shoe cupboard. He recalls holding the trophy reverentially every night and pretending that he was receiving the award himself, rehearsing speeches even. This was good practise, which came in handy umpteen times later in his career. One thing that he did not give up even during this tough period was reading. By befriending a second-hand bookseller near Andheri station, he read late into the night in the dim light of the studio compound where he stayed. Just as another man was reading up everything he could lay his hands on in a Mahim lending library.

  After Kamalistan Studio was disbanded, Javed even spent a few days in a cave with some friends. The cave was infested with mosquitoes and Javed says they were so big that he could feel them ‘mounting him’ even before they bit! This did not continue for long as he moved into a flat that was rented at a princely sum of Rs 120 per month with a friend. When his friend moved out, Javed had a tough time finding a flatmate capable of bringing in Rs 60 every month. One of his drinking buddies offered to share the flat with him, but Javed turned him down because he wasn’t sure he would be able to earn enough to pay the monthly rent. This friend’s name was Shatrughan Sinha.

  Despite the fact that Jan Nisar Akhtar was in Bombay and had made a name as a lyricist and poet in the film fraternity, Javed faced these hard times by himself. His father had remarried and Javed found the situation extremely uncomfortable. He had initially moved in with his father but left the house after just a few days because he could not get along with his stepmother. He also never sought work using his father’s name or connections.

  He had, however, become very friendly with one of his father’s friends, Sahir Ludhianvi. The senior poet became very fond of the impetuous but prodigiously talented Javed. Sahir often acted as a buffer between father and son as he knew both their natures very well. He even supported Javed financially during this period but never made it look like a favour.2

  As the struggles became grimmer, Javed got an offer—of Rs 600 per month—from a famous and successful writer to ghostwrite for him, a job that could last a lifetime. After three days of thought, Javed rejected the offer, deciding that credit was as important to him as the money.

  After working with Amrohi and on odd jobs for about a year, he got a job at Rs 100 per month with director S.M. Sagar who was about to start his career with a stunt film called Sarhadi Lootera. He was taken on as an assistant director and clapper boy for the film. His primary role was to read out the day’s dialogues to the stars and help them rehearse. The dialogue writer hired for the film had left abruptly and a desperate Sagar entrusted Javed with the job temporarily. He did a good enough job for the first couple of scenes to be formally made the dialogue writer. The film’s second hero, interested in screenplays and dialogues himself, liked what Javed wrote. His name was Salim Khan.

  The Start of a Dream Team

  ‘As a writer, he had the courage and I had the intricacy’ —Javed Akhtar

  Although Sarhadi Lootera collapsed at the box office, it is remembered for creating a collaboration like no other. The film introduced the two men, but their formal partnership was still some time away. In fact, the thought of a partnership had not struck either of them at this point.

  Salim and Javed found common interests to bond over and kept in touch even after the film was completed. Javed used to stay in Andheri (which was pretty much a wilderness in the late 1960s) but moved to Bandra in 1968, where Salim stayed. They often got together in the evenings, watched movies, talked about their favourites and discussed story ideas.

  Javed wrote3 the dialogues for a film that boasted of pretty major stars—Dharmendra and Sharmila Tagore. Yakeen was a spy thriller where Dharmendra is a scientist in a top-secret government research project that is being targeted by foreign powers. They replace him with a lookalike
who fools everybody, except the real Dharmendra’s dog. Like Sarhadi Lootera, this film did not do too well either. Interestingly, it has a small scene in which Dharmendra—who has no best friend in the movie—has to approach his girlfriend’s mother himself to ask for her hand in marriage. In the scene, he speaks highly of his government job, salary, perquisites and his good habits (including teetotalism). In hindsight, it is fascinating to see how, a few years later, a tongue-in-cheek reversal of this scene plays out in what is Hindi cinema’s most memorable film when Dharmendra’s best friend goes to cook his goose in front of the girl’s mausi!

  But apart from the flops, they had their fair share of heartbreaks at the pitching stage itself—even some funny ones. Javed Akhtar recounted the story of his first ever script narration. He had gone to a producer—Baboobhai Bhanji4—after pulling a lot of strings and the man had listened to the script without interruption. After finishing, a nervous Javed Akhtar respectfully enquired what the producer thought of the scene. To young Javed, the producer explained the perils of being original in Bollywood: ‘Darling, your story is good but there is a big risk involved . . . this hasn’t been used in any film yet.’ Javed half-jokingly adds a moral to the story, ‘I never wrote a story that has not come before.’ Indeed, Salim–Javed’s forte became giving an unprecedented spin to stories that ‘had come before’.

  They were still jobless when S.M. Sagar came to their rescue—or something like it—and asked them to develop a short story into a screenplay. They had no plans to become a team but agreed to do it for the money. They took about twelve days to write the screenplay and the film became Adhikar—starring Ashok Kumar, Deb Mukherji and Nanda. The story was credited to R.S. Verma, who seemed to have written for a creative writing competition called the Madhuri Film Story Contest and the ‘shooting scripts, dialogues & lyrics’ were credited to Ramesh Pant. There was no mention of Salim–Javed anywhere in the credits, though they were paid Rs 5000 for developing the screenplay.

  The story was a complicated love triangle. Boy meets Girl 1, falls in love and impregnates her. Boy marries Girl 2, following a misunderstanding. Girl 2 finds out about Girl 1 and brings the child from that relationship home, claiming it is hers.

  The story was completely different from the standard-issue Bollywood unwed-mother love triangle and the screenplay was good enough to impress Sagar’s assistant director, Sudhir Wahi. He suggested that the two youngsters try their luck at Sippy Films.

  Sippy Films was the banner of G.P. Sippy, who had strayed into film-making from a variety of jobs including import-export and construction. He had started off with B-grade thrillers but eventually made it big with two successive hits featuring two of the industry’s stars—the Shammi Kapoor starrer Brahmchari in 1968 and Bandhan featuring the hit pairing of Rajesh Khanna and Mumtaz in 1969.

  With two massive hits, G.P. Sippy had gained confidence and was joined in the film business by his son, Ramesh, who had dropped out from the London School of Economics and had spent the last seven years doing lowly jobs in different units. Ramesh had new-fangled notions and often talked about changing how the movie business worked. In an industry working on the same stories since time immemorial and shooting scenes written on the sets, he wanted to create a strong story department. Though that wasn’t new to the film industry, the way Ramesh Sippy envisaged the department certainly was.

  Salim and Javed—still not a team formally—landed up at the Sippy Films office at Khar. They offered to narrate a script with a dialogue straight out of a film: ‘You may not necessarily do it but we assure you that you will want to hear it to the end.’

  Ramesh Sippy was completely taken aback by their cockiness. He recounts: ‘I was tired and was lying down as they began to narrate. And midway I found myself sitting up and towards the end I was leaning forward, listening intently to everything they said . . . That was the first time I could see the whole film, smoothly flowing scene to scene in my head.’

  After this session, Ramesh Sippy called his production controller, Narinder Bedi, and directed him to hire the two youngsters. Salim and Javed asked for a monthly salary of Rs 1000 each but were offered Rs 750 instead, with a promise of an increment if their work was satisfactory. ‘The salary never increased. It remained Rs 750 for many years . . .’ Javed laughs but admits they looked at the money as a memento of sorts and did not want it to be stopped.

  Thus, Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar joined the story department of Sippy Films.

  They started work on a very unusual story about a widow and widower, which was being sniggered at in filmi circles as box-office suicide because heart-throb Rajesh Khanna would die within a few reels of the film. The film was Andaz.

  Part II:

  THE PARTNERSHIP

  Andaz

  ‘Rajesh Khanna witnessed unbelievable popularity, such that no one had ever seen or imagined. In fact from 1969 to 1973, it was a one-horse race. It would be said of those days, that before any Indian child could say mama and papa, he would say Rajesh Khanna’ —Javed Akhtar, speaking after Rajesh Khanna’s death

  After making two successful films with Shammi Kapoor and Rajesh Khanna individually, G.P. Sippy pulled off a coup by signing them both for Andaz. Given the unusual story of the film, it is a wonder both stars agreed to be a part of it—thanks in no small measure to Sippy Films’ growing clout in the industry.

  Rajesh Khanna was becoming bigger with every release and was probably a bigger star than even Shammi Kapoor in 1971, when Andaz was being made. This would have been fertile ground for ego tussles, with both stars needing substantial handling and assurances on their respective roles. It is therefore remarkable that these issues didn’t crop up, or at least did not become a hindrance, considering this was the director’s first film.

  The writing credits for Andaz were shared between five different people. The story and screenplay were credited to Sachin Bhowmick, veteran screenwriter who had written some of Rajesh Khanna and Shammi Kapoor’s biggest hits, such as Aradhana, Aan Milo Sajna, An Evening In Paris, Brahmchari and Janwar. The dialogues were credited to Gulzar, who was fast gaining acceptance in the industry as a lyricist and writer. He too had written dialogues for major hits like Khamoshi, Ashirwad and Shagird. Additional script work was credited to Satish Bhatnagar, Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar of the Sippy Films Story Department.

  Sachin Bhowmick had suggested remaking a French film—Un Homme et une Femme (A Man and a Woman)—which had won the top prize at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival. Ramesh Sippy liked the story. ‘People had made films about widows earlier but I wanted to tell this story in a commercial format. It was never my desire to make very arty films or things that defined a different space. I wanted to make good commercial cinema, with an edge. I saw Andaz as an entertaining film, but with characters carrying some baggage. And I felt Shammi Kapoor had reached a point in career where he needed to do more mature roles,’ he says.

  He approached the ‘dancing star’ and told him, ‘I’ve decided I’m going to make a film with you. And I’m not going to make the kind of film you’ve been doing all the time.’ This attitude of his was important, because this cockiness and chutzpah were things he had in common with Salim–Javed.

  Salim remembers that the story and cast had been decided—they had even recorded and picturized a song, and had signed on Gulzar to write the dialogues, but the screenplay was not ready. Salim–Javed came in and wrote the complete screenplay of Andaz.

  With two veteran writers (Bhowmick and Gulzar had been around for nearly a decade by then) involved, it is easy to dismiss the story department’s contribution as patchwork, which was mainly doing on-set additions and changes to suit the exact requirements of the day’s shooting. But it is interesting to note that Rajesh Khanna interacted with Salim–Javed enough (and was impressed enough) to request them to write his next film (Haathi Mere Saathi). Even Hema Malini remembers that towards the end of Andaz’s shooting, Ramesh Sippy was almost always huddled with the young writers (whose name
s she did not know then). Clearly, their contribution and promise were much more than the subsidiary credit they got.

  Andaz is the story of a widower Ravi (Shammi Kapoor) living in a sprawling estate with his daughter, Munni, and mother. He is a dutiful family man who is very concerned about his younger brother Badal (Roopesh Kumar), a bit of a wastrel, studying in the city. Ravi is actually an orphan adopted by the family.

  A single mother, Sheetal (Hema Malini), comes to the town with a son, Deepu, and starts teaching at the local convent. Ravi and Sheetal bond over their single-parent status and start developing feelings for each other.

  A flashback reveals Sheetal’s relationship with Raj (Rajesh Khanna), who impregnated her and died in an accident, and whose father refused to acknowledge Sheetal. A second flashback reveals that Ravi was married to Mona (Simi Garewal) who died because she concealed a fatal risk during her pregnancy to fulfil Ravi’s dream of having a child.

  When Ravi and Sheetal are about to take their relationship further, Badal returns home and tries to break them up by revealing Sheetal’s past as an unwed mother. But this ploy fails when it is revealed that Ravi wasn’t picked off the streets but is actually his mother’s biological son born out of wedlock.