Majboor is a rather underrated script as none of the dialogues really endured, but all the situations were very real, with everyday conversations building up mood, character and plot. All the devices of the crime thriller—both as book and film—were ticked off. In a skilfully written scene, when police officers come to interrogate Ravi about the murder, the fact that the victim’s body has just been discovered is revealed only at the end of the conversation.
When Ravi meets Michael (Pran), a potential informer who is also a thief, he repeats a dialogue that was also used in Yaadon Ki Baaraat: ‘Suna hai choron ke bhi kuch usool hote hain.’ The informer—a vital cog in the mystery—replies, ‘Tum ne theek hi suna hai. Choron ke hi to usool hote hain.’xx
Pran, as the informer, was the biggest scene-stealer of the film. Salim–Javed always wrote great lines for him because he was a powerful actor. Together, Amitabh Bachchan and Pran made a formidable pair in Zanjeer, Majboor and (the then forthcoming) Don. They always played honourable men who clashed before forming a partnership.
In Majboor, Pran was Michael D’Souza—drunkard and thief but with a heart of gold—who appeared in the last one-third of the film and performed a flamboyant role. He had the film’s most popular track: Daaru ki botal mein kahe paani bharta hai, phir na kehna Michael daaru pee kar danga karta hai, and a cool habit of circling his fingers around his eyes to get a closer look. Pran borrowed this gimmick from director Ravi Tandon who used to frame his shots like that.
In hindsight, Majboor wasn’t that big a hit, nor did it come anywhere to being among the highest grossers of the year. In fact, Premji’s other release of the year, Dost, written by veteran writer Sachin Bhowmick, was a much bigger hit. Despite that, there was something about Salim–Javed’s projections about their contributions and their success which made them appear larger than they actually were. They seemed to show a grand vision through their narration, involvement and film sense. This, coupled with the fact that they were pitching themselves as ‘end-to-end writers’ who provided a complete script, swung the balance in their favour when it came to choosing writers for Premji’s forthcoming film, since Sachin Bhowmick—being a Bengali—did not write dialogues in Hindi.
Majboor released in December 1974 and did reasonably well, recovering costs. Two weeks after the film’s release, Premji was so happy with Salim–Javed’s script that he released a gushing ad in Screen, announcing his next venture—and giving top billing to the two writers. The ad said: ‘After the thundering success of Majboor, Premji announces Suchitra’s Production No. 6 written by Salim–Javed, Music Laxmikant Pyarelal, Lyric Anand Bakshi, Directed by Desh Mukerji’. (This film went on to become Immaan Dharam.)
Premji’s decision to retain Salim–Javed for his next production was more than validated by a film that released a month after Majboor and not only rewrote box-office history, but raised the standards of Hindi film scripting as well. The film was Deewaar.
Deewaar
‘As far as the script is concerned, Deewaar is better than Sholay . . . That was the one script and screenplay where you didn’t have to delete anything after making, it was such a perfect script’—Yash Chopra
If there is one story that exemplifies the sheer talent and the confidence Salim–Javed possessed, it is that of how they narrated the script of Deewaar to the cast and crew. Amitabh Bachchan recalls, ‘I remember while narrating the script, Salim–Javed stopped after five-ten minutes and said Deewar would run for at least ten-fifteen weeks. After half an hour, they stopped again and said it would run for at least twenty-five weeks. And after they completed the narration, they said it would run for at least fifty to seventy-five weeks . . . all in jest of course.’
For once, the duo were wrong. Deewaar went on to run for more than one hundred weeks in many centres, with daily showings even three years after its release.
The screenplay—almost unanimously regarded as their best—was written in a breathless burst of eighteen days, an unheard-of pace at a time when the slow marination of scripts was prevalent in the industry. (The dialogues took another twenty-five days or so, again an incredible feat.)
It is another sign of their confidence that they first took the script to Amitabh Bachchan. The actor says, ‘We had started another film—Gardish—with Neetu Singh and Parveen Babi. Yashji’s editor, Pran Mehra, was directing. We were well into its shooting when Salim–Javed narrated the script of Deewaar to me. Deservedly, Deewaar is rated as the best screenplay of Hindi cinema, with excellent dialogue to boot. It’s flawless.’
In early 1974, Amitabh Bachchan had done only Zanjeer and was shooting for Majboor. His saleability as a lead actor had still not been established firmly. And yet, Salim–Javed went to him instead of any director or producer. While they had not written the script with Amitabh in mind, they felt he would be the right person for it when it was completed. It says a lot about their conviction about what would work best to make their script a success as well as their understanding of how to get a project on the road.
After the actor got excited about the role, the three of them decided to take it to Yash Chopra who seemed best suited to direct it. Yash Chopra had just completed the Dev Anand-starrer Joshila, which had not done well. Chopra had not been very happy with the script but he did the film out of an obligation to Gulshan Rai (who had financed his debut production, Daag). Now, he was on the lookout for a strong story and a complete script for his next film.
After they gave the director the outline, Salim–Javed gave a full narration to a small group comprising producer Gulshan Rai, Yash Chopra, his long-time editor Pran Mehra and assistant director Ramesh Talwar. This was when the duo predicted the seventy-five-week run for the film.
Once the script was accepted, the first casting discussed between Yash Chopra and Rai had Rajesh Khanna playing Vijay’s role. Rai nominated Khanna for the role because he had already paid the actor a signing amount and wanted him to be in his next film. Salim–Javed suggested that Amitabh would be perfect as Vijay, and convinced Rai that Rajesh Khanna would not be suitable for any role in this film. With their customary confidence, they even offered to write another script more suited to Rajesh Khanna, if Gulshan sahib so desired. They endorsed Amitabh Bachchan so strongly over the reigning superstar that Yash Chopra jokingly asked, ‘Does Amitabh pay you commission to recommend him so much?’
After it was agreed that Bachchan would be Vijay, Salim–Javed took the script to Shashi Kapoor and convinced him to play the younger brother. They sold him the role by highlighting the lines that would become famous, and predicted that ‘even though the length is short, you are going to get a Filmfare Award, for sure . . .’ Shashi Kapoor—being a seasoned star—figured out that although he would not be the prime mover in the film, his role was a strong one and his character had several performance-heavy scenes which would get him noticed. He not only agreed but even cut his hair short to suit the character of a police officer and allotted forty days at a stretch to shoot the film. He performed brilliantly and, sure enough, won the Filmfare Award for best supporting actor that year.
Post the debate over the casting, the only concession Gulshan Rai asked for was the insertion of three songs—not really relevant to the script—ostensibly to please distributors. Javed Akhtar says, ‘There was hardly any scope for music in the film. It was meant to be a film about a person who rebels against the establishment.’ But the songs were included and they did serve to heighten the suspense at key points in the plot. Film critic Khalid Mohammad differs though. ‘Deewar had bothered me even when I’d seen it as a college student. The Shashi Kapoor–Neetu Singh song straight after the interval. What was that?’ he asks angrily.
As is known by almost anyone with even a passing knowledge of Hindi cinema, Deewaar is the story of two brothers, Vijay (Amitabh Bachchan) and Ravi (Shashi Kapoor). As children, they start their lives in a mining town where their father, Anand babu (Satyen Kappu), is a respected union leader. The mine owners kidnap Anand babu’s family and coe
rce him to sign an unfair agreement on behalf of the miners, thus angering them. In a fit of fury, the miners tattoo the words ‘Mera baap chor hai’xxi on a young Vijay’s arm. Anand babu abandons his family and the two boys are taken away by their mother (Nirupa Roy) to Bombay. Vijay grows up to become a dock worker, while the more educated Ravi looks for jobs. Vijay, the rebellious one, picks a fight with a gang of extortionists at the docks and demolishes them. Impressed with the young man, a smuggler Davar (Iftekhar) recruits Vijay into his gang. Armed with his intelligence, appetite for risk-taking and luck, Vijay soon rises to the top of the underworld. Meanwhile, Ravi becomes a police officer and is charged with investigating Vijay’s gang, and that’s when he learns about his brother’s illegal activities. When Vijay refuses Ravi’s request to surrender, the latter leaves his house along with their mother. Eventually, Vijay decides to give himself up when his girlfriend Sunita (Parveen Babi) announces she is pregnant. Before he can, however, his enemies kill her and in a fit of rage, Vijay kills them all. When he tries to escape the police dragnet to go and meet his mother, Vijay is shot dead by Ravi.
What is obviously missing in this plot description is the power of the film’s best scenes that distinguished it from the sources from where the basic plot ideas were taken. This is key to Salim–Javed’s style. Taking the germ of a story (much borrowed from earlier classics), they studded the bare narrative with an absolutely stunning sequence of words and emotions that went way beyond the original.
The raison d’être of Vijay’s anger was that tattoo on his arm—Mera baap chor hai. It became the symbol of the fatherless, support-less angry young man. This act of tattooing was something completely unimaginable, even in the hyperbolic world of Hindi cinema. I would say that this is the most ‘violent’ part of Deewaar. The film actually had very little physical violence, relying instead on psychological trauma to create impact.
When they narrated this scene for the first time to the film-making team, Ramesh Talwar—Yash Chopra’s assistant director—started clapping. He says of the narration, ‘I was thrilled as a cine-goer. I was the youngest in the group and closest to the emotions portrayed in the script. When they described the scene, I started clapping . . .’ This spontaneous reaction from someone who was closest in age to the intended audience boosted the team’s morale. This was critical because Yash Chopra himself was low on confidence after the Joshila debacle. He wanted to gauge the others’ reactions before forming his own views. And this iconic scene was probably the best antidote to his lack of conviction.
Several of Deewaar’s scenes have passed into filmi folklore. Even the minor scenes—where labour leader Anand babu addresses workers at a factory gate or Inspector Ravi Verma accepts a prize—are just terrific.
When Vijay meets Sunita for the first time in the bar, the audience knows he is about to put himself in mortal danger but the suspense built up during their conversation and the long walk to the car is done extremely well. It is the format in which you know the hero is going to survive but you are never sure how that is going to happen—whether he has a plan or just wants to test fate.
Director Sriram Raghavan says, ‘The scene where Shashi Kapoor goes to meet A.K. Hangal is one of my favourite scenes. He is obviously guilty of injuring Hangal’s son and goes to apologize but the message he gets out of the meeting is completely unexpected. In one way, it is very obvious that you get the moral message but the scene is so true and moving that is stands apart.’
One can enumerate many other such powerful scenes from the film . . . Young Vijay refusing to pick up a coin thrown at him and that same sequence being repeated when he is an adult. His challenge to the dockyard goons. His first heist where he accosts, hoodwinks and makes an enemy out of Samant (Madan Puri). His angry entreaty to God. His first confrontation with his mother and brother.
And of course, the iconic scene where Vijay and Ravi clash over their ideals under a bridge is a sure-shot entry in the list of Hindi cinema’s best scenes. ‘Mera paas maa hai’xxii is a line which has gone from spoofs to sentimental outpourings, from Amitabh Bachchan’s many stage shows to the biggest platform for film awards. When A.R. Rehman won an Oscar (incidentally, for a film based on two estranged brothers), he celebrated his victory with this line written by Salim–Javed.
But Deewaar—to its eternal credit—goes way beyond just explosive lines. Once you look past the dialogues, which have survived generations, you realize the whole movie was filmed exactly as it was written, and Salim–Javed’s stamp is as evident as the director’s—probably more so. Yash Chopra had said that Deewaar was the first script he read that had every scene and every shot clearly marked out.
Deewaar’s screenplay is a series of dialogue-linked cuts. The opening scene—where Ravi wins a police award—ends with applause and that cheering cleverly transitions to the applause that Anand babu got for his speeches many years back. When he wonders if his voice is reaching the mine owners—‘Agar is waqt meri awaaz un malikon tak pahunch rahi hai . . .’)—the scene cuts to the owners’ drawing room where they are listening to his words on a tape recorder. The factory owner talks about finding a possible weakness of the leader (‘Anand babu ki aisi kaun si kamzori hai?’xxiii) and the scene cuts to his wife Sumitra. The most telling cut is probably when a smuggler, impressed with young Vijay’s potential, says, ‘Ek din yeh ladka kuch banega,’ and the scene changes to a school teacher praising Ravi with the same words, thus delineating the career arcs of the two brothers with finesse and without fuss.
These cuts appear throughout the film and continuously highlight the completeness of the script, which resulted in its being shot almost as is, and explain why Salim–Javed resented any suggestions to change anything in the film.
After the film was ready, a trial showing was organized for Mangesh Desai. Easily the industry’s busiest sound technician, Desai saw every major film for re-recording purposes and was considered to be an expert on what works in movies. He felt Deewaar was too ‘dry’ despite being very good.14 Predicting a long run, he said, ‘A couple of songs would add many weeks to this film’s run . . .’ Gulshan Rai (who had already inserted three songs in an originally songless script) took Desai’s feedback quite seriously and briefly considered adding more songs but Salim–Javed put their feet down, and they were supported by the younger members of the crew. Yash Chopra also agreed that too much music would spoil the sombre mood of the film. ‘We don’t want the film to fall between two stools . . .’ Ramesh Talwar cautioned and eventually Rai came around.
Deewaar’s influences are as rich as they are varied. Director Sriram Raghavan writes, ‘If Salim–Javed took one idea and made two movies, they were to also do a total opposite. They took classics of Hindi Cinema—Gunga Jumna and Mother India—and wonder of wonders, through their amalgamation, created a third classic, Deewaar!’ Javed Akhtar explains it further, ‘Both Salim sahib and I really loved Mother India and Gunga Jumna . . . but as we developed Deewaar’s script, it ceased to be either of these films. While it resembled them in plot, Deewaar’s sensibility was totally different. We introduced a certain modernity in the setting of the film, its accent, tempo and language. Its cinematic language also changed from the language in Gunga Jumna. It was much more urban, much more contemporary, and the kind of moral dilemmas that it posed were very much of its own era.’
With this combination of two classic films came the story of Bombay underworld don Haji Mastan’s early life. The similarities were slim even though rumours expanded them manifold.15 What was common was Mastan’s initial days as a coolie in the Mazgaon docks of Bombay where he rebelled against an extorting Pathan gang and beat them up, thus gaining tremendous clout among the coolie community. However—unlike Vijay Verma—Mastan did not do it all alone. He got together a gang of toughs armed with rods to do it. In fact, Salim Khan turns the rumours around when he says, ‘It probably suited Mastan to build his own aura by claiming the film was based on his life.’
Coming back to the filmi
influences, the battle between right and wrong—with two brothers on opposite sides of the law and a mother weighing in on the side of good—was not new, but the setting was and so was the power. Salim–Javed updated the dacoits-in-villages setting to a modern, urban backdrop and made it absolutely real. The frustrations of the job-seeking youth, the unfairness of extortion gangs, and the glamour and contrasting ruthlessness of smugglers were brought out with amazing realism.
Javed Akhtar calls Deewaar their ‘most moral film’. In the end, all the efforts of the ‘bad brother’ are proven wrong and emphatically so. In the climax, Inspector Ravi Verma need not kill his brother. He can simply shoot him in the legs to disable him (just the way he does to a thief he is chasing in an earlier scene). But he does kill his brother, with the blessing of their mother who says, ‘Bhagwaan kare goli chalate waqt tere haath na kaanpe.’xxiv If there was a message about the nation being above all else, it was never more strongly delivered.
When Deewaar opened in January of 1975, the initial reviews were far from gushing.
Screen headlined their review as a ‘Meaningful drama of conflict between brothers’ but felt ‘its main handicap is that it has not chosen to do it with an entirely fresh conception of story and character relationships, which could have put it on a different level’, while reserving a few words for ‘skilful scripting, which creates many unusual situations of conflicts invested with some hard-hitting dialogue, off-beat and consistent characterisations’.
In Hindustan Times, film critic K.M. Amladi spent most of his review dwelling upon the Haji Mastan influence, and dismissed Salim–Javed’s contribution to the second half by saying, ‘Since they have to justify their existence, one finds the post-interval happenings more as a figment of their imagination than as an imitation of Mastan’s life pattern.’
In Filmfare, a critic gave the film one star in a review that I could not make any sense of!
Written by Salim-Javed: The Story of Hindi Cinema’s Greatest Screenwriters Page 7