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

by Diptakirti Chaudhuri

  What the 1960s brought was a fair degree of predictability to the plot though newer technical vistas opened up for film-makers. Colour, better audio equipment, modern cameras and the world as shooting location turned Hindi cinema into more of a spectacle than a pure story. Charismatic stars were born and they came with their own ideas of how they should be presented on-screen and what constituted entertainment.

  While there were some great writers and director–writers in the 1960s as well, it was also the time when the clichés of Bollywood—the formulaic dialogues, the predictable scenes, the repetitive characters—took firm shape. Each leading and supporting character had a set role, which they strictly adhered to. The 1960s was the golden age of Hindi film music and while films became memorable because of their soundtrack alone, the stories remained steadfastly similar to each other.

  For example, in nearly all of Shammi Kapoor’s hit films of the 1960s—Janwar, Kashmir Ki Kali, Professor, Junglee, Dil Tera Diwana, Rajkumar—one finds parental (or step-parental) opposition to romance, a gag around mistaken identities, an excellent soundtrack and a happy ending where the haughty rich come to a fall before the righteous poor. All the leading heroes of the day were different kinds of romantic—suave (Dev Anand), wild (Shammi Kapoor), passive (Rajendra Kumar) or tragic (Dilip Kumar)—and that brought another level of ‘sameness’ to Hindi cinema. Until, that is, Rajesh Khanna arrived on the scene and started doing pretty much all the aspects of romance.

  Writer–directors like Vijay Anand and Manoj Kumar brought some difference as they were associated with distinct themes—suspense and patriotism respectively.

  The only writer who was a star was Gulzar, but his talent was multifaceted; he was also a lyricist and was becoming very well known for the offbeat films he directed.

  Film critic Bhawana Somaaya writes, ‘The writer was more often than not treated like a munshiji by the production houses. Two versatile writers who could not be patronized and who stood their ground all through their careers were Inder Raj Anand and Pt. Mukhram Sharma. Inder Raj Anand was a very knowledgeable man and Mukhram Sharma was apparently the most dependable and systematic writer of all times.’ Javed Akhtar echoes her assessment of Pt. Sharma. He says, ‘We weren’t the first [writers whose names appeared on posters]. Pandit Mukhram Sharma’s name figured on film posters . . . Dhool Ka Phool was produced by BR Films, a very big banner, and the publicity material read, “Pandit Mukhram Sharma’s Dhool Ka Phool”.’

  Going by the names mentioned thus far, there was certainly no dearth of good writers before Salim–Javed joined the industry. Be it established authors or poets or writers who began their careers with films, there were some excellent screenwriters who operated in the industry right from its inception.

  What was missing then was formal training in writing for films. Kamlesh Pandey says, ‘There were a lot of good writers but after they died or retired, no new talent came in or we did not have facilities or institutes to train writers. Even the successful writers did not have time to teach. Whereas in Hollywood, there are books on screenwriting, every university has a film course and almost every city has a film school.’

  Even during Salim–Javed’s time, and after, there were powerful and successful writers. Sachin Bhowmick continued well into the 2000s, writing for Subhash Ghai (Karz, Karma, Saudagar among others) and Rakesh Roshan (Karan Arjun, Koyla, Koi Mil Gaya, Krrish) among the latter-day makers. Kader Khan, dialogue writer par excellence, started off with Manmohan Desai. Interestingly, Desai wanted someone who would write in colloquial language and not the high-flying Urdu most writers favoured. When Kader Khan first wrote for Desai in Roti, the director was so happy that he asked Khan how much he got for writing a script. When Kader Khan said, ‘Twenty-five thousand rupees,’ Desai told him, ‘From now on, your price is one lakh rupees.’

  Other popular writers of the 1970s included Rahi Masoom Reza (known for dialogues that cover the entire gamut from Mili to Rocky, Gol Maal to Karz), Vijay Tendulkar (the iconic playwright who adapted his plays and wrote original material for the screen) and, of course, Gulzar.

  The 1980s and 1990s were not the best of times for Hindi cinema. There was a fair bit of rehashing of the action–revenge–melodrama formula and flogging to death of the Angry Young Man character. With very few writers of note, several young film-makers—scions of film families—like Sooraj Barjatya and Mansoor Khan entered the industry towards the end of the 1980s and started writing their own scripts with some help from their companies/families. This became a popular trend in Bollywood of the 2000s as well, where, as Sukanya Verma says, ‘The only screenwriters we truly acknowledge and adore right now happen to be some of the best film-makers in the country.’

  As a screenwriter, probably the biggest success in recent times has been Rajat Aroraa, who has done both understated, urban humour in Bluffmaster! as well as bombastic 70s-style dialoguebaazi in Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai and The Dirty Picture.

  Although not as a writer of film scripts, but as a source material for successful films, Chetan Bhagat deserves a mention because three of his books have been turned into extremely successful films (3 Idiots, Kai Po Che and 2 States) while two more are in the pipeline.41 Bhagat went through an acrimonious war of words with Vinod Chopra Films over the credit accorded to him in 3 Idiots (where he was relegated to the rolling credits at the end of the film). While the producers were contractually bound to give only a ‘rolling credit’, the consensus among writers was that the author on whose book the film was based deserved a more prominent mention.

  With the entry of international production houses, certain professional standards in screenwriting have been adopted. Scriptwriting software, for starters, has made the writing process much more standardized and locking scripts before shooting the film has also become the norm.

  Kamlesh Pandey, in his capacity as the secretary of the FWA, sounds a message of hope. ‘Now there is a lot of interest in screenwriting. I get about 200 new members for FWA every month. This has increased in the last few years and screenwriting has become fashionable. People come from small towns and distant places to write scripts. When I take my workshops, most of the students are from engineering or IT who have left well-paying jobs because there is a fascination for storytelling. This is a big leap because people are consciously training to become writers instead of becoming one by accident.’

  Coupled with this training is a stronger assertion of writers’ rights, led by FWA and members of the film industry. Implementing a ‘model contract’ for film and television writers is something that is likely to go a long way in securing the rights and remuneration for a writer. The Copyright Amendment Act of 2012 mandates the writers’ rights to royalty, a share of the earnings from language rights and other media, though the quantum of the royalty is obviously subject to negotiation.

  What is still missing is the spontaneous appreciation and awareness of the writer. When researching for this book, I realized that Ghayal (dialogue), Damini, Mohra (dialogue), Andaz Apna Apna (dialogue), Dabangg, Dabangg 2 and Jai Ho have all been written by the same person—Dilip Shukla. For more than two decades, he has produced some of Hindi cinema’s most memorable dialogues and successful films, though very few people even know his name. While music composers and lyricists are fairly well known, writers of even extremely popular films don’t get due recognition. Film critic Sukanya Verma says, ‘Honestly, it’s not the viewer but the industry that doesn’t respect the film writer. If only producers started valuing writers, promoting them in trailers/posters and paid them on time and handsomely, their lot would prosper and it would begin to rain terrific films every Friday.’

  It would be appropriate to end this chapter with the final scene of Happy Ending, a film about a novelist who becomes a screenwriter. In the scene, the novelist-turned-screenwriter’s script is being filmed. The hero of the script belts out a few lines of ‘kick-ass’ dialogues, which is followed by a behind-the-scenes conversation.

  – Writer: ‘Excu
se me, sir . . . maine toh nahin likkha hai yeh dialogue. What is he saying? ’ xcv

  – Director: ‘First time, huh? ’

  The story of Salim–Javed is yet to reach its happy ending.

  Larger than Life

  In 1975, a massive flood affected large numbers of people in Bihar, Assam, Orissa and Gujarat. The film industry took out a massive procession (on 26 September) as a drive to collect funds for the victims. Pretty much every major star joined in this procession, urging the common man to donate small sums of money. Before this mass mobilization, all the stars had also contributed substantial sums of money to the relief fund and a list of the donors was published in the next issue of Trade Guide. The list had names like Rajesh Khanna and the Kapoor family at the top (contributing Rs 2,00,001 and Rs 2,00,000 respectively)42 followed by Dilip Kumar (Rs 1,00,000). Several top stars and producers made the list as well—G.P. Sippy, Shakti Samanta, Gulshan Rai, Hema Malini, Amitabh Bachchan and Parveen Babi had all contributed Rs 51,000 each. There was one more name in this group (of people who had donated Rs 51,000)—Salim–Javed.

  In September 1975, Salim–Javed were at their peak, having just delivered Deewaar (in January) and Sholay (in August) but their earnings (then) were much lower compared to top producers and even top technicians (like composers R.D. Burman and Laxmikant–Pyarelal, who had contributed lesser amounts). Nevertheless, they made a strong statement with this huge donation, which literally catapulted them into the industry’s A-list; this gimmick was something of a typical move on their part, showcasing their ability to attract attention.

  In a telling piece of statistic, the FWA collectively donated Rs 1000 to the fund.

  Salim–Javed were the only writers who were advertised in trade magazines. Producers of huge films like Zanjeer, Deewaar, Sholay and Don took out ads that highlighted only them. Even for a film like Sholay—which had nearly all the major stars of the time—Salim–Javed’s story got a separate ad.

  Also, they were the only writers who advertised in trade magazines. The ad they placed for Sholay is—of course—legendary for they went against industry pundits and took out an ad in Trade Guide, predicting record-breaking business for the film, which was then reeling under the weight of expectations and had made a slow start. Again for Immaan Dharam—their next release after Sholay—they took out an ad challenging their critics and positioning the film as their ‘answer to all criticism’. With a first-time director like Desh Mukerji and comparatively smaller producer like Premji at the helm, the film was considered Salim–Javed’s baby as they were the biggest names associated with it. From the back room, where writers were usually relegated, Salim–Javed had elbowed their way right up front. And they were not hesitant in taking either credit or blame for the success and failures of their films.

  Salim–Javed always saw their equals in A-list stars like Amitabh Bachchan (even benchmarking their fees to his for a major part of their careers) and hobnobbed with top producers, directors and stars with confidence. In fact, they gave interviews in which they proclaimed how stars depended on them to deliver hits. Regarding their less-than-cordial relationship with Rajesh Khanna, they said, ‘Rajesh Khanna is a shrewd professional. He realized that not only was he not getting good scripts, but that good scripts were going to his rivals. So he made the first move [to make up with us].’

  They did not mince words about the quality of directors either. ‘Here the films are either writers’ films or actors’ films. Even films made by the so-called giants like B.R. Chopra were basically writers’ films. As a director, Chopra’s contributions weren’t much . . . Directors have never had confidence in themselves. It used to be a hit-and-miss affair with them. Now that they have realized a good script makes a good film, they are all looking for good scripts.’

  As a duo, they broke away from the coterie of behind-the-scene technicians and participated actively in the film-making process. They were regulars at film premieres, sharing print space with directors, producers and leading actors. Front-page pictures in trade magazines—a space always reserved for high-profile mahurats and premieres—routinely featured Salim–Javed.

  Salim Khan’s residence for many years—Galaxy Apartments—was the scene of many high-powered meetings between actors, directors, producers and financiers who were brought together by Salim–Javed. Casting flip-flops, financing crises, fee negotiations, post-mortems of stories and a mind-bogglingly large number of incidents of assorted wheeling-and-dealing seemed to take place in their presence.

  In his autobiography, Naseeruddin Shah narrates an incident where he was summoned to the ‘plush seaside residence . . . it didn’t take me long to figure that I was dealing with very big brass here’. He was called to replace a very big star with a ‘prima-donna attitude’ and he was asked to make himself available from the very next week. When he replied that he was in the midst of shooting a film, it was met with an incredulous guffaw. ‘What film, yaar? Who is going to see it?’

  He looks back at this incident with a fair bit of anger at the team’s audacity in asking him to abandon a film midway but the fact remains that the writer duo had enough clout to push through unusual casting decisions for their films. And of course, they were arrogant enough to believe that nothing was as important as the films they wrote themselves.

  An integral component of Salim–Javed’s success was their ability to market themselves. They often talked themselves into high-profile assignments. This is best demonstrated in the way they got their first job with Sippy Films. They weren’t a team then and had just written one film (Adhikar) together, more for the quick money it offered than with any plans to become a team. When they met G.P. Sippy and his son Ramesh for the first time, they projected themselves as two people who would change the way films are written in the industry. ‘Yeh to kuch nahin hai . . . the kind of screenplays we write, nobody can do it in the industry,’ they bragged. Ramesh Sippy agreed to hear their ideas more out of amusement than anything else because he had not seen such confident writers, ever.

  This continued well into their careers, and success certainly did not bring humility. In the February 1975 issue of Trade Guide (just after the release of Deewaar), the writer of a column called ‘Movieman’s Diary’ wrote: ‘The highest marks for the success of the movie should go to its writers Salim Javed. Recently at some functions and also in interviews published in film periodicals, they have been trying to outbeat Shatrughan Sinha. But after seeing their work in this film, I must admit that they have done a fine work and I want to forgive them for their bad dialogues outside and instead compliment them for a good screenplay and very good dialogue in Deewaar. Very good job indeed.’

  This had been the case with Ramesh Sippy also. He agreed to meet them without really believing that they could be as good as they claimed but they turned out to be exactly that—and more. Everybody knows good marketing works only when it has a great product and Salim–Javed mastered the art of backing a good product with good marketing. Right from their days as the newbie writers of Zanjeer (when they released ads in trade magazines to announce their past hits) to their stardom in Don (when they used their own box-office clout to increase the selling price of the film), marketing was something they did almost as well as they wrote.

  And they did so by demonstrating an almost fanatical pride in their work and protecting the script—resisting changes—fiercely. Salim Khan says, ‘Earlier when writers put together a script, it had contributions from the novelist from whom the story was taken, the director who would make the film, the actor who would act in it. When we started working together, we said we will give you the complete script. You will neither interfere in the writing, nor change the finished script.’ By doing so, they created for themselves some amount of notoriety because the industry was geared toward extreme flexibility (to put it kindly) and unplanned chaos (to put it not so kindly). They had a reputation of not agreeing to ad-hoc changes and insisted on rewriting scenes themselves, if there was a genuine reason. Directo
r of Don, Chandra Barot, remembers asking them to make certain changes—necessitated by Zeenat Aman not being available for a schedule—to which they agreed. But at the same time, they opposed writing in a scene that allowed Amitabh Bachchan to change costumes in the second half of the film. Even getting them to agree to insert songs in Deewaar took a lot of convincing by director Yash Chopra and producer Gulshan Rai.

  Salim Khan says, ‘If we don’t protect our work, who will? We were the first writers who started putting forward our views and defending things we believed in. Initially people resisted but we kept at it. After our films started becoming successful and our scripts got appreciation, people started accepting that we have put considerable thought into the writing process.’

  They also did something quite unprecedented to protect their scripts: if it was changed without their consent, they told producers not to credit them. This happened with at least three big films—Sauda (starring Vinod Khanna), Bhola Bhala and Humshakal (both starring Rajesh Khanna). They said, ‘Big stars here are used to being pampered by writers. We are different. Rajesh Khanna tried tampering in Humshakal and we withdrew from the film. Rajesh has done it again in Bhola Bhala and we have written to the producers not to credit the script to us.’