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

by Diptakirti Chaudhuri

  Javed Akhtar explains, ‘You lose that hunger. You start feeling secure within the formula. You think this is what is expected of you, and you think this is what works because it’s always worked.’ Sukanya Verma is an unabashed Salim–Javed fan and she puts this repetition somewhat differently. ‘I don’t know if it’s a weakness but it would have been nice to see them do more outside the blockbuster realm, the Angry Young Man imagery. I think it overpowered their intelligence to create something more subtle or sensitive, like they accomplished in Ramesh Sippy’s Andaz and one saw flashes of in several other movies.’

  Salim–Javed’s sense of humour, different approach to romance, keen social antennae and razor-sharp intelligence indicate that they would have been a success in any genre. A host of very interesting film-makers, especially in the art-house and middle-of-the-road genres, were appearing on the scene in the late 1970s and in hindsight, one feels that many of them could have been collaborators for a different brand of Salim–Javed scripts. Govind Nihalani—whose Ardh Satya has been called ‘arthouse Zanjeer’—and his activist film-making could have been the perfect fit for Salim–Javed’s brand of socialism, seen in so many of their earlier films. In fact, writing for this kind of film they could have brought their muscle to such films’ marketability and may well have given parallel cinema a boost. Salim–Javed has accepted that a certain fatigue had crept into their later films and a new kind of challenge may well have brought intellectual stimulation to their work and thus extended their partnership. This is obviously speculation stemming from the basic question about Salim–Javed not being experimental enough with their scripts.

  Despite these few weaknesses, Salim–Javed remain Hindi cinema’s most impactful screenwriters—a position that is almost reverential to many writers today. And they reached this position on the strength of their skills. To quote Sriram Raghavan yet again, ‘As sheer craftsmen, their strong points were economy, pace, dialogue, visual language of storytelling, sharp characterization and clever transitions.’ In one breathless sentence, he has packed in so many different qualities that would be pretty much impossible to find consistently in any screenwriter—Indian or international!

  The Salim–Javed Ripple Effect

  Trade Guide, a popular industry magazine of the 1970s, used to print a page full of the titles registered by producers for their forthcoming films. Then, it helped the industry keep a track of the titles (and by extension, subjects) coming in, and now, it serves as an interesting barometer of the times as indicated by the type of titles (and by extension, subjects). While researching for this book, one name stood out. On 8 August 1975, someone had registered the title ‘Salim Javed’. This—in one sentence (or thereabouts)—was the impact the writer duo had on the film industry of the 1970s.

  There are many urban legends about their run-ins with producers, asking for money and credits. They were regulars at mahurat functions and filmi parties. Their children were best friends with star kids. Distributors and financiers used to say, ‘Take as much money you want if the script is by Salim–Javed.’ But nothing exemplifies their influence better than someone deciding to name a film after the two writers.

  And it went far beyond the period they worked in.

  In 2005, Indian diplomat Vikas Swarup wrote a novel—Q&A—about a street urchin winning a billion rupees in a Kaun Banega Crorepati-style game show. The bestselling novel featured the hero learning the answers to the show’s questions through his life’s experiences. The novel featured the hero’s best friend in a peripheral role (among other characters). In 2008, the novel was turned into a film—Slumdog Millionaire—by award-winning director Danny Boyle.

  In a major departure, the focus of the film changed completely. The book was about the quiz questions and the hero’s adversarial relationship with the game-show host. The film, on the other hand, revolved entirely around the conflict between a good brother and a bad brother, the difference in their outlooks towards life and their contrasting ends. While writing the film’s screenplay, writer Simon Beaufoy ‘studied Salim–Javed’s kind of cinema minutely’. Separately, director Danny Boyle described Deewaar as being ‘absolutely key to Indian cinema’. In fact, the film’s script resembled Deewaar to a large extent—being about two brothers who take different paths to find success. Both Beaufoy and Boyle spent significant amounts of time in India while researching for the film and it is absolutely conceivable that they watched and were inspired by Deewaar. Salim–Javed were inspired by Gunga Jumna and Mother India when they wrote the script of Deewaar. It is, therefore, only fitting that the film that went on to showcase a distinctive brand of Bollywood to the entire world was based on their film. In a way, their stories defined Indian cinema, and Slumdog Millionaire demonstrates that perfectly.

  Salim–Javed’s films, their characters, their situations, their lines have permeated our lives, our conversations, our reflexes.

  When WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook for an unprecedented $19 billion, the founder of the messaging app—Jan Koum—walked a couple of blocks to a welfare kitchen to sign the documents that made him a billionaire. This was the place where he had collected free food vouchers as a kid. Abhishek Asthana (who is extremely popular on Twitter as @gabbbarsingh) tweeted, ‘Jan Koum is 1970s Amitabh Bachchan’, alluding to the ‘proportional justice’ Salim–Javed were famous for.

  In 2014, graphic novel author Saurav Mohapatra wrote Mumbai Confidential—a series of noir crime stories set in the Mumbai underworld. He says, ‘If you read Mumbai Confidential, you’d realize it’s basically Salim–Javed meets James Ellroy,’ referring to the author of LA Confidential (who was known for his staccato dialogues and pithy one-liners).

  Salim–Javed’s influences have been found in the most diverse of situations, primarily because they have been absolutely spot-on in understanding audience psychology. Many youngsters (born mid-1980s onwards) I spoke to while writing this book came up with ‘Mere paas maa hai’ when asked for an iconic Hindi film line even though most of them hadn’t heard of Salim–Javed or watched Deewaar in its entirety.

  The duo’s lines and characters have been the subjects of endless spoofs, parodies, advertising spots, tributes and homages. Sujoy Ghosh’s debut feature, Jhankaar Beats, was essentially a film-length homage to Sholay and R.D. Burman. Two modern-day yuppies traded dialogues with and quizzed each other on Sholay when they were not singing RD’s songs. Sholay is a different ball game altogether, given the number of inspirations it has evoked. To some extent, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge has also seen similar styles of tributes though the numbers are not yet comparable. What sets Salim–Javed apart is the number of their films that have become sources for future derivatives.

  Film critic Sukanya Verma says, ‘Salim–Javed are Salim–Javed. They represent an era, a style of film-making that’s evolved as they too did from what prevailed before them. Has their relevance faded with time? No, rather it’s become a point of reference and something Anurag Kashyap notably celebrated in Gangs of Wasseypur and Atul Sabharwal to a lesser-acknowledged extent in Aurangzeb.’

  Apart from the official/unofficial remakes, Salim–Javed’s set pieces have permanently influenced the way some things always happen in Hindi cinema. There had been films with lost-and-found stories before but with Yaadon Ki Baaraat, Haath Ki Safai and Chacha Bhatija, they laid down the norm for how long-lost family members meet each other unknowingly before finally coming together in the climax. The combating brothers, the hired guns who take on a larger-than-life adversary or the son rebelling against the father are all elements Bollywood has recycled endlessly from Salim–Javed’s stock tropes. One of Salim–Javed’s weaknesses was that they repeated their formula far too often but those repeated plots also became guard rails for future writers and directors.

  Unlike some who are very possessive of their work, Salim–Javed are quite open to remakes of their scripts. Salim says, ‘A lot of people oppose remakes but I don’t. I feel it shows that our thirty-year-old work is still rel
evant and that is a compliment. [When I heard about the remake of Sholay] I told Ramesh Sippy that it is a win-win situation for you. If he makes a very good and successful film, people will compliment you for the source material. If he makes a bad film, people will say nobody could make it like Ramesh Sippy. Whatever happens to the remake, you win!’

  Three of Salim–Javed’s scripts have been officially remade though two of them have had a rough ride.

  Farhan Akhtar’s Don brought an intelligent twist in the tale that managed to interest the modern film audience and successfully bring a fresh bunch of people to join the cult of Don. Film writer Jai Arjun Singh says, ‘Akhtar inverted the mood and tone of the original film, which progressed from darkness to light, evil to good. (Remember that the real Don, the one genuine bad guy Amitabh played during his superstar phase, is killed off just forty minutes into the film.) The new Don heads in precisely the opposite direction and it’s one of the most cheerfully, unapologetically cynical films I’ve seen from mainstream Hindi cinema. Nearly everyone, it turns out, is corrupt, there’s no one to root for (except for Arjun Rampal’s character and his son), there’s a lot of messing about with people’s sentiments (including those of a child) and this is basically a story about Evil vs Evil. The winner isn’t the guy who’s nicer, it’s the guy who has more style, more sangfroid. And that’s perfectly all right, because that’s really what this film is about: being stylish.’

  The other two remakes—Zanjeer and Ram Gopal Verma Ki Aag—were so bad that they routinely feature in discussions on the Worst Hindi Films of All Times. How could a winning script go so wrong when remade? What needs to be understood here is that a story works only in a context. When Zanjeer was originally written, the police officer taking up arms against a smuggling ring and winning was a satisfying mixture of the real and the unreal. Everyone knew smuggling and black-market dealings were common but no lasting action was seen to be taken. Inspector Vijay Khanna brought that action and, however unreal he was, his heroism was what the country was waiting for. When the new Zanjeer was released in 2013, the audience had become far too cynical and far less tolerant of vigilantes in khaki. In fact, one of the most popular films of 2012 was Dabangg 2, which had a police officer who was corrupt but used his ill-gotten gains for noble causes. An honest, snarling officer was something Bollywood had left behind in the 1990s.

  It only goes to show what Salim–Javed have always said—you need a fair bit of intelligence to copy well!

  As far as Indian cinema is concerned, Salim–Javed’s films have influenced nearly two decades of themes and character archetypes.

  In the 1950s, Hindi cinema was largely about social causes and subdued romance that often ended in tragedy. This gave way to more flamboyance in the 1960s as songs, costumes and locales aiding the romance became flashier. Sriram Raghavan says, ‘The late 60s and early 70s saw the bulk of Hindi cinema dominated by the romantic social drama. The style of working then was to broadly select a story, think of song situations, a basic scenario to embellish the song situations, add some comedy moments and to ensure that there was an action climax. Oh yes. Whatever the genre of the film, the climax had to have action.’ Barring the occasional dacoit film, action as a genre was largely restricted to the B-grade ‘talwaarbaazi’ films (made famous by Dara Singh). It was only in 1973 that Salim–Javed brought in the ‘action hero’ to mainstream Hindi cinema (with Zanjeer, though you could see shades of that character in Yaadon Ki Baaraat’s Dharmendra).

  Even after they split in 1982, the character did not stop. Sunny Deol in Ghayal, Damini and countless other films was an extension of Salim–Javed’s action hero. Mithun Chakraborty, Anil Kapoor, Sanjay Dutt, Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgn, Sunil Shetty and several other less successful actors kept on playing various versions of the Angry Young Man throughout the 1980s and 1990s. They were almost always an avenging angel, exacting revenge for their father’s death or mother’s dishonour or both.

  There was the occasional twist in the tale. Aatish was the story of two brothers, where the older one (Sanjay Dutt) joins a crime syndicate to pay for his younger brother’s education that ends with him becoming a police officer (Atul Agnihotri). The story was straight out of Deewaar but the twist was that the mother (Tanuja) supports the criminal brother. Many other twists or changes necessitated by technology could be found but the basic character remained unchanged.

  It is important to note the strength of their template because the 1990s’ romantic hero (think Shah Rukh Khan or Aamir Khan) was radically different from the 1960s’ one (Rajesh Khanna) but the 1990s’ action hero was largely in the same mould as the 1970s’ one.

  This influence was not only confined to Hindi cinema. Salim–Javed became the first writers whose scripts were regularly remade in the south. Salim Khan says, ‘South Indian rights were usually sold after a film was declared a hit, a few months after the Hindi release. The producer sold it off, without any share to the writers. We argued that when a film’s rights are sold, it is the script that gets sold. You don’t sell actors, the shooting style or the production values. If you are remaking Zanjeer, you are actually remaking the same story. With this logic, we convinced them to give us money from the rights.’ They first made money from southern remake rights by selling Zanjeer for Rs 1.5 lakh, which was nearly three times of what they made from selling the Hindi script.

  Seeta Aur Geeta, Zanjeer, Haath Ki Safai, Deewaar, Don and Trishul are some of the films that were remade in different south Indian languages and went on to become massive hits there also. In fact, Rajinikanth starred in several remakes of Salim–Javed scripts and these films—full of Salim–Javed’s distinctive brand of heroism—were important stepping stones towards Rajinikanth’s superstardom and, ultimately, divinity. Rajinikanth had opted out of films for a brief while but was coaxed into a comeback by his well-wishers; he returned with Billa (1980), a superhit remake of Don. After that, came Thee (1981) based on Deewaar and Mr Bharath (1986) based on Trishul—all huge hits that were scene-by-scene remakes of the Hindi films.

  In 2014, Bollywood’s top-grossing films like Kick, Singham Returns, Holiday and Jai Ho were remakes of south Indian films47; the tide has well and truly turned.

  Gulzar says, ‘We must be grateful to writers like Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar who fought hard to get a fair price for screenwriters. They did a great deal to improve things.’ Khalid Mohammad puts it all together when he says, ‘I would salute Salim–Javed for giving writers the credit they deserve. Their names were mentioned on posters and hoardings, and they asked for and received the kind of fees no other writer could have imagined before them.’ And that was a great thing, for the writers to come into the foreground for a change. Salim Khan says, ‘When we asked for big money, other writers also increased their fees. From a time when producers used to decide their fees and give them no credit, other writers could also demand more.’

  Some of the changes were seen through articles in trade magazines of the times. The Screen issue of 28 November 1975 carried a report of a meeting between film writers and information and broadcasting minister, V.C. Shukla. The report went on to say, ‘It cannot be denied that film writers in this country have not been accorded the status they deserve. Monetarily also, many of them are in bad shape . . . The fact that the Minister met a cross-section of the writers’ fraternity and sought its help in nation building activities is proof that there is a new awareness on the role of writers.’ It could be a coincidence that this meeting came within three months of Sholay hitting screens and Deewaar completing its silver jubilee. Or maybe it wasn’t.48

  What can indeed be noticed is some writers also getting prominence in Salim–Javed-style celebratory ads. Writer K.A. Narayanan, for example, got top billing with Do Jasoos (1975) and it was called ‘Super Script by the Emperor of Stories’ in an advertisement in Trade Guide. He also took out a full-page ad that called him ‘Emperor of Stories’ and listed all his hit films (and that was quite impressive). Clearly, here was another writer wh
o was trying to get noticed.

  But while the lot of writers improved directionally, it still never reached a point where writers were considered a natural part of the group of people who make a film. What Salim–Javed achieved through their grit and talent was surprisingly short-lived and to a great extent, restricted to them only.

  It would be interesting to note this transition of the writer through the films of one maker.

  The story of Salim–Javed’s obsession to get credit for Prakash Mehra’s Zanjeer is legendary and has already been talked about. In both Zanjeer (1973) and Haath Ki Safai (1974), Salim–Javed were named in the opening credits of the film, though the posters and publicity material did not have their names. When Prakash Mehra launched Hera Pheri (1976), the first advertisement had no mention of the writers though the film’s credits featured them. For his biggest hit—Muqaddar Ka Sikandar, a film known for its memorable dialogue—Prakash Mehra had no space for writers in the opening credits. (They appeared for about five seconds in the closing frame.) And Namak Halaal too had no mention of any writer either in the film’s credits or the posters. Many film fans still remember Amitabh Bachchan’s famous ‘Engliss is a phunny language’ monologue from the movie but there is no official record of the writers.

  It is shocking but true that films have released in India with no credit to the writers. It happened to Salim–Javed at the beginning of their careers, and it haunted other writers long after their reign ended. Sukanya Verma says, ‘For better or worse, Hindi film industry is completely star-driven. And it’s an effective visual medium. We tend to remember Amitabh Bachchan saying, “Tumhara naam kya hai, Basanti?” in Sholay. We never think of Salim or Javed sitting on their desk and scribbling some iconic line. Having said that, when the writing is exceptional, the writer does make the audience want to look up the credits to check who wrote that line. Every now and then the dialogues are so full of “entertainment, entertainment, entertainment”, a Rajat Aroraa is bound to get his due.’