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

by Diptakirti Chaudhuri

  The Chasnala disaster and its even more tragic aftermath received a Salim–Javed makeover that was by and large reflective of the real conditions of miners, with some filmi concessions. While Kaala Patthar was found to be quite realistic, Javed feels that wasn’t completely the case. ‘I learned from Kaala Patthar that instead of sitting in a hotel room writing about a coal mine, if we had treated the script a little more realistically, it would have worked better. Either you don’t use a realistic plot or have a realistic locale in the first place, or if you do, you have to be very convincing.’

  Inputs about the coal-mining fraternity came from an unusual source. When Amitabh Bachchan was working in Calcutta before joining films, he had worked in the Coal Department of Bird & Company, a leading managing agency of the 1960s. Soon after joining the firm, he was sent to the mining areas (in present-day Jharkhand) to familiarize himself with the processes. He was in the mines observing the installation of a new machine when a portion of the mine collapsed and two miners got trapped underneath. Relief came quite quickly and Amitabh Bachchan lent a hand to the efforts. He was about to start pulling out one of the miners when the man said it was pointless because he was mortally wounded and asked him to help the other miner instead. The actor remembered this incident more than a decade later and recounted it to Salim–Javed when they were working on Kaala Patthar. After hearing about his experience, they took several inputs from Amitabh while writing the script.

  This story of camaraderie and support among miners in the face of cavalier treatment by the mine owners is somewhat representative of Kaala Patthar’s plot.

  The movie opens on a brooding miner Vijay (Amitabh Bachchan), who risks his life to save people at every possible opportunity, winning the admiration of his fellow workers. His daredevil acts are actually attempts to redeem himself for his past, when he abandoned his post as captain of a ship and put his own safety above everyone else’s in a crisis. Soon, an idealistic engineer Ravi (Shashi Kapoor) joins the mining company and becomes a hero to the miners because he takes up their cause of fair pay and better working conditions. The mining town goes through more than its fair share of misfortune due to poor safety measures, bad equipment and complete apathy on the part of the owner, Dhanraj Puri (Prem Chopra), who unsuccessfully tries to pit Vijay and Ravi against each other in an effort to weaken the miners’ unity. Meanwhile, a flamboyant fugitive Mangal (Shatrughan Sinha) escapes from prison and becomes a miner in the same town, and a dramatic rivalry begins between him and Vijay. One of Dhanraj Puri’s big projects involves extracting the maximum amount of coal from a mine next to a massive water body. When his unscrupulous practices result in the flooding of the mines, Vijay, Ravi and Mangal enter the mine to save the workers and, after a heroic effort, even manage to rescue a sizeable number.

  Amitabh Bachchan’s backstory in Kaala Patthar was very similar to Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim, where a naval officer is disgraced for abandoning his ship, and then redeems himself with acts of bravery. The climax was somewhat similar in structure to Hollywood disaster movies (the Towering Inferno, for example) where a group of bravehearts unite to save the victims of a terrible tragedy through reckless heroism.21

  These two elements were brought together in the familiar landscape of an Indian industrial backwater. This transportation and linkage to a recognizable tragedy was the Salim–Javed touch in a well-known story.

  The writers’ strong messages of socialism and comments on the role of the state—either positive or negative—seen in all their films, came to the fore in Kaala Patthar, where two of the heroes are champions of socialism, fighting vehemently to secure the rights of the downtrodden. Even Rakhee’s character—Dr Sudha Sen—is shown to be an idealistic doctor who gave up a lucrative practice in the city to help miners in a far-off town.

  Parveen Babi as Anita, Ravi’s love interest, is a journalist reporting on the plight of the miners. Eventually, she writes a story that makes a case for Dhanraj Mines to be nationalized, since public sector mines have much better working conditions.

  All of this is done through some outstanding lines, which dramatically expound the poor working conditions of the miners. And, as was their style, much of it was couched in everyday conversations. For example, Dhanraj Puri’s opening scene has him talk dismissively about the colony in which his miners live (‘Iss area se guzarne se dam ghut-ta hai. Bada ganda atmosphere hai.’xxxiii) and sets the tone for his future apathy that is bordering on cruelty. This exaggerated villainy was written to drive home the point.

  The ideal foil for this character was Vijay, the hero, fighting what he was convinced was a losing battle. Several of his almost wistful comments about the miners’ hapless conditions were in the context of bangle-seller Channo’s (Neetu Singh) sales pitches spoken within his earshot. To explain the futility of dressing up in such depressing conditions, he says, ‘In koyle ke khaano mein aaye din marne waalon ki auratein chudiyaan pehanne ke liye nahin, todne ke liye kharidti hain.’xxxiv With this one line, Salim–Javed summarized the cycle of desperate life and easy death in the mining community. And towards the end, Vijay describes the mine as a python which sucks away the life blood of the miners in a chilling scene: ‘Yeh koyle ke khaan ek ajgar hai, Seth Sahib, jo roz anginat mazdooron ko nigalta hai aur unhe chabaake peeske kuchalke, unke jism se zindagi ka ek ek katra chooskar ek laash ki soorat mein wapas ugal deta hai.’xxxv Kaala Patthar was also a study in the utilization of the strengths of stars in a multi-starrer—the case in point being Amitabh Bachchan and Shatrughan Sinha’s casting at a time when their professional rivalry was at its peak.

  The two stars had started off as very good friends when they acted in Bombay to Goa, because Shatrughan knew Jaya Bhaduri very well from his Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) days. Both actors had become top heroes by the end of 1970s and their rivalry had intensified by the time they locked horns in Kaala Patthar. According to Shatrughan himself, ‘All the spontaneity was gone. We were concerned about how many punches each one of us had to throw.’ He went on to say, ‘I think Kaala Patthar was the last nail in the coffin of our friendship. He was very against my doing the film. I was in it much against his wishes.’ Now imagine this context for the writers. Amitabh Bachchan was clearly their ‘protégé’ and there would have been unofficial pressure to give him the stronger role since he was also the bigger star. However, the roles they wrote for Amitabh and Shatrughan were perfectly suited to the two actors. Both played to their strengths and became the two opposing sides of an explosive conflict.

  Yash Chopra’s long-standing assistant, Ramesh Talwar says, ‘Salim–Javed had conceived the differing styles of the three leading men and discussed the same with Yashji, so that the three actors would be available and agreeable to do the film. Once an initial agreement was reached, they started writing the detailed script. All the stars were given the script narration separately. Amitji was part of the first sitting itself while Shatrughan Sinha and Shashi Kapoor heard the script later. All of them were told of their “scoring points” and each of them liked their individual roles. All these narrations were done by Salim–Javed together, along with Yash Chopra.’

  Amitabh’s diction and voice modulation were used in the many monologues he delivered while Shatrughan’s flamboyance made way for the perfect one-liners. On one hand, there is Vijay’s fatalistic streak (‘Pain is my destiny and I can’t avoid it’) and on the other, there is Mangal’s cocky confidence (‘Duniya mein aisi koi jagah nahin bani jahan se Mangal na nikal sake’xxxvi). Vijay’s best moment is a near-silent one where he wrenches a knife from a goon with his bare hands while Mangal’s audience-pleasing scene is a teen-patti session where he loses the hand but wins with his chutzpah (‘Mere taash ke tirpanwe patte, teesre badshah hum hain’xxxvii).

  These two contrasting characters—as Hindi film scripts ordain—were destined to clash, and clash they did. The battle between Vijay and Mangal (that takes place just before the stroke of the interval) is probably the best-execute
d on-screen rivalry in Hindi cinema. Over a screen time of nearly thirty minutes, the two adversaries circle each other like prizefighters and clash in a fight sequence so explosive that only the third hero can separate them. The whole execution of the fight was the scriptwriters’ triumph as they got two of the industry’s biggest stars to play to their strengths, create a reservoir of tension and then dissipate it with breathtaking action.

  Writer–director Sriram Raghavan feels that this contrast in the characters may have been one of the problems of Kaala Patthar. ‘One of the reasons Kaala Patthar didn’t work that well is probably because Amitabh’s is very subdued character. The audience expected him and Shatrughan to trade punches and dialogues, which did not happen. This was right for the movie but the friction between two actors is somewhat expected by audience.’

  Nevertheless, Kaala Patthar finds resonance in varied places and connects with diverse milieus. Post Punk Cinema Club, a popular blog about movies from across the world, writes, ‘What’s so enjoyable about Kaala Patthar, and what makes it resemble M*A*S*H,22 is the wide variety of well-developed characters who mingle around in this precarious and dangerous environment. The interactions between these characters are believable and, with the exception of the Big Bad Boss, everyone has more than a touch of humanity.’

  By the time Kaala Patthar was released, Salim–Javed’s stardom was almost equal to that of the top stars in the industry. In trade circles, their names drew as much commercial confidence as Amitabh Bachchan’s. Kaala Patthar’s pre- and post-release ads had their names right on top, just after the director’s, which had become the norm by then.

  Kaala Patthar was—given the weight of expectations from it—a moderate success. It was the seventh-highest grosser of the year. Despite a strong script and taut direction, it did not do too well; Amitabh’s Suhaag and Mr Natwarlal turned out to be bigger crowd-pullers. This also became the last time Yash Chopra worked with Salim–Javed as a team.

  The subdued success of Kaala Patthar was in no way a dampener on Salim–Javed’s box-office clout. They were massive stars in their own right. Since their fees for Kaala Patthar had been negotiated earlier, it is estimated that they received around Rs 7.5 lakh—an astronomical sum in the late 1970s—for the script, but by this time, their asking price for other films had shot up to Rs 21 lakh. In fact, they pegged their fees with Amitabh Bachchan’s (who was charging around Rs 25 lakh per film at the time) and always asked for a comparable amount.

  While this confidence great, it also heralded the beginning of the end. Firstly, the two started growing apart as now each had his own coterie, which told him that he was the real reason for the duo’s success. Secondly, their price and their scale led to greater scrutiny on how their films were mounted and who they starred instead of focusing on telling the best possible story.

  Salim–Javed would remain together for a few more years, during which they would write big successes. But in comparison to their initial assembly line of hits, these were mostly disappointments. The lavish sets, the massive congregation of stars, the booming music and breathless anticipation took audience frenzy to such a height that the films’ actual performances at the box office never quite matched the monumental expectations from them.

  They had reached the zenith of their stardom. And it could only go downhill from here. However, with Salim–Javed, you could be certain of one thing: even their ordinary scripts had more twists and more audience-pleasing moments than any other.

  Nothing showed this better than their next release, which came a year later: Dostana.

  Dostana

  While Salim–Javed were at the height of their powers by 1980, the quality of their scripts had begun to deteriorate. Javed dates the start of this decline even earlier and says, ‘After 1975–76, our scripts lost that intensity. I don’t think our work was good after the mid-1970s. I could see it. The fire wasn’t raging any more . . . you become complacent . . . and that spirit of adventure, that daring quality, that devil-may-care attitude disappears.’

  Given the long gestation period of Hindi films at the time, this is entirely possible since scripts written in 1977–78 were actually releasing in 1980—which was when the decline became apparent. Also, it could be a sense of discomfort only a craftsman feels about his craft.

  Their first release in 1980, Dostana, was also Yash Johar’s first film as producer, though the mounting of the film was so lavish that a debutant producer’s fears and insecurities were not visible at all. Yash Johar’s career as a production controller on large-scale films like Guide, Jewel Thief and Prem Pujari proved to be a good training ground for him as Dostana had two major actors, a top-notch music composer and some breathtaking action sequences filmed outside India. It helped that Johar was great friends with Amitabh and Jaya and Javed Akhtar and Honey Irani, often partying with them through the night. It was, therefore, easy for him to bring them on board.

  Dostana—written at the peak of Salim–Javed’s stardom—was a very important milestone. The fact that they had agreed to write the script for the first-time producer’s film was supposed to be a big draw for the distributors. Salim–Javed told Yash Johar that they should be paid more than the lead star—Amitabh Bachchan. They had earned more than Amitabh in some of their earlier films as well but Dostana was being discussed at a time when the actor too was reaching the peak of his stardom. Negotiations ensued and Salim–Javed were signed for a princely sum of Rs 12.5 lakh, marginally more than the Rs 12 lakh Amitabh was getting. With the success of this negotiation Salim fulfilled a long-standing promise he had made to himself. He remembered the conversation he had had with Abrar Alvi nearly two decades ago, and called the senior writer to ask if he recalled Salim’s prediction—that writers would one day be paid more than the top stars of the time. When Abrar Alvi said that he did indeed remember, Salim Khan told him, ‘Abrar sahib, aaj humne woh kaam kar liya hai . . .’ The genial Abrar Alvi was extremely happy to hear the news and blessed Salim for the achievement.

  Dostana was directed by Raj Khosla, known for huge successes like CID, Woh Kaun Thi, Do Raaste and Mera Gaon Mera Desh. Khosla was very impressed with Salim–Javed right from the time when they handed over the script to him. The veteran director had said, ‘I have been in the industry for so many years but this is the first time I have seen a script which has “The End” written on it.’

  Salim–Javed’s promise to deliver a complete script was something that did not change even at the height of their fame. They had probably started taking fewer risks with the plot but did not compromise on what they set out to do.

  Police officer Vijay (Amitabh Bachchan) and criminal lawyer Ravi (Shatrughan Sinha) are childhood buddies who don’t let their professional differences affect their friendship. Though Ravi uses his legalese to free his clients, most of who are smugglers whom Vijay has arrested, they do not let their professional differences affect their friendship. However, their bond is tested when both men fall in love with the same girl, Sheetal (Zeenat Aman). A notorious smuggler Daaga (Prem Chopra) uses this to create a misunderstanding between the two, which causes them to break off their friendship. When the villains manage to frame Vijay for murder, Sheetal approaches Ravi for help. Ravi agrees but only on the condition that Sheetal will sleep with him after he gets Vijay acquitted. However, before Sheetal is compelled to fulfil her promise, Ravi becomes aware of the causes of misunderstanding between the two and tries to reach out to Vijay. But Daaga and his gang kidnap him and Sheetal, whom Vijay rescues in the climax.

  This was the writers’ second film with Amitabh Bachchan and Shatrughan Sinha as joint leads, but unlike Kaala Patthar—where both the actors’ strengths were utilized very well—Dostana was largely an Amitabh Bachchan film. He had the better lines, got to sing the songs, offered to sacrifice his love for friendship and even got to hang from a helicopter in the climax. In fact, it is a wonder that Shatrughan Sinha at all agreed to do a film in which he was clearly playing second fiddle.

  Shatru
ghan Sinha claims that Amitabh did not want to work with him at the time because he was getting overshadowed and used the excuse of Shatrughan’s tardiness on sets to refuse future films with him. This is not discernible in the script of Dostana, though the tension between the two leading men was palpable throughout the shoot.

  Dostana—despite having two action heroes—was the first time several romantic scenes were written and brought in focus. Even when Salim–Javed wrote for a romantic hero like Rajesh Khanna, their scenes had an undercurrent of humour and were never mushy.

  In Dostana, they created two types of lovers. Ravi is the more sentimental one, who gets tongue-tied in the presence of women (despite being an articulate lawyer by profession). Vijay is the more suave one, with the gift of the gab and a way with women. He even offers to speak to the object of Ravi’s affection on his behalf. This is often a very common basis for a bond between friends in real life too, where the more eloquent one helps out his bashful friend(s) with girls.

  Salim–Javed wrote a few extended romantic scenes where Vijay woos Sheetal in Amitabh’s fabled baritone. The scenes were a deft mix of casual conversation, bragging (‘Mere chehre mein ajeeb si kashish hai, khaas taur se meri aankhen.’xxxviii) and humour—while apologizing to Sheetal with red roses, Vijay writes in the accompanying note, ‘Yun toh yeh phool hain halke gulabi rang ke, lekin is waqt woh gusse mein hain. Isi liye laal dikhai de rahe hain.’xxxix The romantic scenes were important because they established the strength of Vijay’s relationship with Sheetal and the importance of his sacrifice.