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

by Diptakirti Chaudhuri

  The mythic quality of Mogambo’s villainy can be summed up in three words. When Shekhar Kapur asked Javed Akhtar to explain the character of Mogambo to him, Akhtar replied with ‘Mogambo khush hua’ xlvi. The explanation being that it was the signature line of a megalomaniac who used verbal approval to reward his gang. To convince a very incredulous Shekhar, Javed Akhtar told him, ‘Shekhar sahib, when Kapil Dev hits a sixer over the ground, people will shout “Mogambo khush hua”. When people play teen patti and they get three aces, they will say “Mogambo khush hua”. Trust me on that.’ Shekhar Kapur was initially convinced but at the time of editing, he felt the line was being repeated too many times in the film and wanted to cut it out from a few scenes. Javed convinced him not to. ‘This is going to become a kind of buzz line,’ he predicted.

  These words have the same swagger that Salim–Javed displayed during their heyday, while narrating their big films. They had started off with Gabbar, Teja and Shaakaal, creating some of Hindi cinema’s biggest, baddest villains (though the mega-villain had become something like a caricature by the time they wrote yet another Shaakaal in Shaan). But for Mr India, Shekhar Kapur says, ‘Javed sahab completely understood the “comic-book” pitch of the film, knowing that in this tongue-in-cheek film, the villain can be bloodthirsty only in intention, but never in action.’

  Of course, Amrish Puri brought a new dimension to those three words by speaking them with great relish. When Puri asked Shekhar Kapur how he was supposed to interpret the part, the director said, ‘Imagine you are playing Shakespeare to nine-year-old kids and they have no idea who he was. Imagine you have to make it feel mythic and entertaining.’ With this brief, Amrish Puri completely ‘got’ the part and managed to make the three words sound new every single time he uttered them. This whole ‘comic-book’ treatment was also given to the other characters, the most memorable among them being Miss Hawa Hawaii—a short segment in which Sridevi enters the villains’ den as a dancer. Javed explains the origins, ‘In Urdu, we have an expression—“Bhai, kahan hawa hawaii ghoom rahe ho?”xlvii It’s a UP expression. The sound of Hawa Hawaii was rather interesting. So Sridevi became “Miss Hawa Hawaii from Havana”.’ Whether as Hawa Hawaii, or the batty child-hating reporter, or the sensuous girlfriend, or the whip-wielding dominatrix—the actress was an absolute scream, pulling out all the rabbits from her bag of performances.

  The cast of children—many of whom grew up to become stars themselves—had wonderful roles, with each of them performing differently instead of the cutesy cookie-cutter style in which Hindi films portray child actors. The editor of Sridevi’s newspaper (Annu Kapoor), the minor villains Daga, Teja, Walcott (Sharat Saxena, Ajit Vachani, Bob Cristo) and even the house butler Calendar (Satish Kaushik) had well-etched roles, quirks, dialogue tics and all the things that were the hallmark of Salim–Javed films.

  Mr India opened with massive buzz and a lot of interest. The uninformed masses were curious to see if the film was around bodybuilding while the industry marvelled at its lavish scale. The gossip column of Hindustan Times reported, ‘The talk of the town in Bombay is Boney Kapoor’s Mr India. The man to make it a hot topic is none other than Amitabh Bachchan, because when Amitabh talks about a film, everyone does so, too. Amitabh saw the film last week, and after trial surprised the unit members present, when, as is usual with him, instead of leaving the venue immediately, he stayed on for half an hour, discussing the film in detail and outlining its merits.’

  Mr India was a huge hit, Anil Kapoor’s biggest till then and along with subsequent hits like Tezaab (1988) and Ram Lakhan (1989), it set him up for stardom. It is important to say ‘set him up for stardom’ because in this film, he was completely overshadowed by Sridevi and Amrish Puri in roles that have become part of Bollywood history. In a way, Amitabh Bachchan was right: the hero was indeed invisible.

  We can only wonder what changes might have been made to the script to accommodate Amitabh Bachchan. Given that the charm of the film lay in the fact that the hero was a commoner, one can’t help but wonder if the superstar would have played the common man the way Anil Kapoor did. Fortunately, Salim–Javed always put the script before the star. And Mr India—released five years after their split—carried on this legacy.

  Salim Khan: After the Split

  As mentioned earlier, when Salim Khan returned to Bombay after his long sabbatical in London, things were bleak for him.

  Many of his past directors were already working with Javed Akhtar and Salim was left out in the cold for a long time. He did work on Zamana, assisting Ramesh Talwar in completing the long-delayed film, but that was more out of obligation for having initiated the film for a friend and it was not a new project. After that, he worked—unofficially—on a couple of films being directed by friends where he gave suggestions to improve scripts. Raj Khosla’s Maati Maange Khoon and Yash Chopra’s Vijay were two such films. His true ‘break’ came at last when he partnered with a maverick young director.

  Mahesh Bhatt had been around for a considerable period of time, having directed six films in the 1970s. None of them had made a major impact at the box office, though at least one of them (Manzilein Aur Bhi Hain) had raised eyebrows—and conservative society’s hackles—with its bold themes of prostitution and promiscuity. He hit the big time with a succession of three films, each based on a different aspect of his controversial life—Arth, Saaransh and Janam (the last one was made for TV). All three films received critical acclaim, and the first two were among the top grossers of 1982 and 1984 respectively. With his less-than-pristine reputation, Mahesh Bhatt partnered with Salim Khan to make Naam, which was—in a way—a morality tale about a new-age Angry Young Man.

  Salim Khan’s innate confidence comes across when he explains why he chose Naam to be his ‘return film’. ‘I was not working for quite some time and decided to wait for the perfect vehicle I would return with. I wanted my return to be with a strong film whose success could be solely ascribed to me. Naam was Mahesh Bhatt’s first commercial venture and he was yet to prove himself at the box office. Sanjay Dutt had just returned from drug rehab and faith in him wasn’t very high. Kumar Gaurav and the film’s producer Rajendra Kumar were no longer top stars either. I realized that if Naam did well, I would get most of the credit.’

  While Naam was produced by Kumar Gaurav to relaunch himself as a hero, it was Sanjay Dutt, his brother in the film (and his brother-in-law in real life), who walked away with all the accolades for his edgy performance as a lovable goon forever on the brink of falling apart. Naam did not have any majorly memorable dialogues but it brought out the angst and frustration of the time’s rudderless youth exceptionally well. Sanjay Dutt’s journey from a roadside ruffian to a false job in Dubai to a criminal’s henchman to redemption was both frustrating and gritty, drawing the audience into this compelling story. The standard themes of brothers with contrasting characters and the fallible hero were given a fresh lease of life in the film, and became wildly popular once again.

  Naam was another triumph—becoming the third-highest grosser of the year—beating massive star vehicles and turning Sanjay Dutt into a superstar. Apart from that, what Naam also did was put Salim Khan’s name right after the director’s once again. He had achieved exactly what he wanted—the gossip columns were talking about the rivalry between Salim–Javed once again.

  Hindustan Times’ gossip column reported (in May 1987), ‘Salim is on a signing spree . . . He and Mahesh Bhatt seem to operate as a team, signing films in a package deal. There are not many good writers in the industry and if Salim has signed a dozen films, it is because producers infer that if Javed has failed, Salim must succeed.’26

  After Naam, Salim worked with Mahesh Bhatt on two more films—Kabzaa and Jurm. Neither was as successful as their first venture together but they were reasonably interesting.

  Kabzaa was adapted from On the Waterfront, starring Sanjay Dutt as the hero, played by Marlon Brand in the Hollywood version, who takes on Paresh Rawal and his cohorts
after an initial period of indecision and petty crime. It was again a congregation of familiar characters—the two brothers, an apparently benevolent crime boss, the do-gooder—appearing in a tale of evil forces trying to evict the poor and righteous from their homes. Many of the devices were familiar from earlier Salim–Javed films, right down to the hero’s name—Sanjay Dutt’s name was Ravi Verma in the film. Kabzaa suffered from an indifferent performance by Sanjay who, after a stint of stardom, could not recreate his earlier intensity, causing at least some of the scenes to lose their punch. Overall, Kabzaa was not a major success.

  Jurm was more of a Hollywood thriller, both in treatment and plot. A police officer (Vinod Khanna), deputed to protect a murder witness (Sangeeta Bijlani) gets into an adulterous liaison with her while murderous villains keep trying to eliminate her. Loosely based on the 1987 Hollywood thriller Someone to Watch Over Me, Jurm was a tightly scripted, fast-paced thriller that held interest by smartly mixing a love triangle with a murder mystery. It was conceived as a quickie at a time when Mahesh Bhatt was directing some three or four movies simultaneously. Shot on a small budget, it made decent money on the investment but wasn’t a particularly memorable film. (Jurm’s biggest claim to fame is the song Jab koi baat bigad jaaye lifted from the hit single, ‘500 miles’).

  Having secured a foothold in the industry once again, Salim Khan wrote two films for Amitabh Bachchan—reuniting with the star after several years for two very absorbing films. Unfortunately, neither of the films did too well commercially but they are both important milestones in the evolution of Amitabh Bachchan as a Hindi film hero.

  The first film was Toofan. It was the typical Manmohan Desai formula but with several interesting twists—including the device that was the eponymous hero’s superpower. Whenever the caped superhero attacked the villains, a massive storm was always at hand to disorient them. In the standard-issue story of two brothers separated at birth taking up arms against dacoits, Salim Khan managed to rummage through his bag of tricks and come up with several cool gimmicks. A villain with a wooden hand, a bumbling magician as hero, a superhero with a storm at his beck and call and a high-tech bow and arrow, and several complicated subplots made Toofan somewhat distinctive among similar films of the time.

  The other Amitabh film he wrote soon afterwards was Akayla, a project by yet another old-time favourite, Ramesh Sippy, where the hero had evolved from being an angry young man to an angry middle-aged one. Amitabh was Vijay yet again but this time, he was an alcoholic cop—somewhat inspired by Dirty Harry—of indeterminate age. A backstory traced back to his college days meant he was not really middle-aged but his brooding demeanour made it seem so. Along with Agneepath (written by Santosh Saroj and Kader Khan) and Main Azaad Hoon (written by Javed Akhtar), Akayla was the actor’s exploration into slightly older roles and flawed characters. Unfortunately, none of these films did very well at the box office—even though the actor’s performances were hugely appreciated—and Amitabh’s transition to these kinds of roles had to wait for nearly a decade.

  In a way, Javed and Salim writing Main Azaad Hoon (1989) and Akayla (1991) respectively in quick succession resulted in two different interpretations of the Angry Young Man coming to the fore. In the former, the hero was non-violent, almost like a satyagrahi, while in the latter, he was battle-scarred, cynical and brutal. The anger poured out in very different ways and they could be seen as Salim and Javed’s individual interpretations of the iconic character.

  Salim’s other scripts were not at all commensurate with his reputation and the fatigue (or perhaps it was his disinterest) showed.

  While he was not involved in launching Salman Khan into films in any way, Salim wrote the script for one of the actor’s earlier films, Patthar Ke Phool, which was also the much-anticipated debut of Raveena Tandon. The teenage love story graduated to being a police story–cum–revenge drama, with several subplots churned in. With teenage heart-throbs Salman and Raveena in the lead, this movie was supposed to be a huge box-office success but it didn’t do too well. The plot had been in circulation for nearly three decades by then, and the expectation of cool gimmicks and dialogues was not met by the fairly predictable script. (Salim also named Vinod Khanna’s character—Salman’s father in the film—Vijay Verma.)

  The four films Salim wrote in the first half of the 1990s—Mast Kalandar, Aa Gale Lag Jaa, Majhdhaar and Dil Tera Diwana—did not do well at all, though they are unique because some of them were out-and-out love stories, something Salim–Javed as a team and Salim Khan as an individual hadn’t tried at all.

  Majhdhaar was a love triangle while Dil Tera Diwana was a love story in the face of a family feud. Aa Gale Lag Jaa27 was the only one with a twist as it was advertised as ‘a love story with 9 songs and 11 murders’. However, none of the films made much of an impact.

  After the mid-1990s, Salim Khan went into retirement—content to watch his eldest son achieve superstardom and younger sons dabble in acting and production.

  Over the last two decades, he has been a vocal proponent of quality in screenwriting. He has been unfailingly generous whenever he has come across a good script. In the recent past, he complimented Shoojit Sircar and Juhi Chaturvedi—director and screenwriter of Vicky Donor—called them home and presented the duo with one of his own Filmfare trophies. In a statement, he very humbly stated that he himself wouldn’t have been able to handle such a topic and was amazed at the sensitivity and humour with which Vicky Donor was written.

  However, this wasn’t the first award Salim Khan was bestowing on new writers. Prior to Vicky Donor, he had met with the team of A Wednesday and given them a trophy (the one which he received for the screenplay of Zanjeer) for making ‘a very special film’. For Chillar Party, a film produced by Salman Khan, he again had some words of praise and a trophy for the director duo, Vikas Bahl and Nitesh Tiwari. The first time he gave away one of his trophies was after seeing Farhan Akhtar’s performance in Rock On. Some of his home productions—most notably the Dabangg series—have his inputs in the script though he has graciously refused to take any credit for them. Speaking about Abhinav Kashyap’s script for Dabangg, he said, ‘It is his script. When you produce a film, you give inputs to the writer and sometimes he accepts them. So did Abhinav but that doesn’t take away from the fact that Dabangg script was his and the film was his.’

  Javed Akhtar: Going Solo

  After the split, Javed Akhtar hit the ground running. Already in talks with film-makers for writing lyrics, he bagged several massive projects with big banners almost immediately.

  He had already started writing lyrics while they were still a team, and his first release was Silsila (1981). ‘Dekha ek khwab toh yeh silsile hue’ to the tune composed by Shiv–Hari28 became the first song he ever wrote. In fact, he had written this song purely on the insistence of Yash Chopra who had heard the poems Javed had penned and recited at private gatherings. After Chopra’s repeated entreaties, Javed ended up spending a day with the composers and came up with the words that became a huge hit.

  That Javed was able to compose to the tune given to him was not surprising since he came from a family of poets and had the talent, further honed in the company of legendary poets and song writers like Kaifi Azmi and Sahir Ludhianvi. Writing lyrics for Hindi film songs requires creativity in highly constrained circumstances—the tune to which the lyrics must be matched and the speed with which the words have to be turned in being just two such constraints. It is not unusual for many accomplished poets to throw up their hands and quit writing songs. Javed was apprehensive of this and therefore, reluctant to start. However, his father’s death in 1976 and Sahir’s death in 1980 were events that made him acutely aware of the creative legacy he was part of and became a catalyst in his taking up lyric writing in a bigger way.

  Post the split, Javed’s first film was a romantic launch vehicle for an actor who would become one of Hindi cinema’s top stars in the coming decade. Produced by Dharmendra and directed by Rahul Rawail, Beta
ab was the perfect debut in which Sunny Deol romanced, sang, danced (a bit), rode, fought and generally saved the day. Javed wrote the film (though not the lyrics, which were by Anand Bakshi) and continued the same bound-script tradition by providing an end-to-end script. Betaab turned out to be a dream debut for Sunny Deol and became one of the top grossers of 1983, sealing Javed’s reputation as a solo writer in the bargain.

  While Betaab had some great action scenes, it was essentially a romantic film—the standard Hindi film formula of love in the face of parental opposition. What Javed wrote after this were essentially reinterpretations of the Angry Young Man theme. The situations changed as did the motivations of the characters. The actors varied in age significantly, going from absolute newcomers to living legends. What was common between these characters and the heroes of Zanjeer and Deewaar, though, was the unfair treatment meted out to them by their adversaries, their society, their country.

  One of the earlier films in his solo writing career was Duniya, where the man was angry but not really young—Dilip Kumar. Javed Akhtar teamed up with Ramesh Talwar, who had become a close friend (the writer and the director had worked together on several Yash Chopra films), and with whom Javed’s wife Honey Irani worked as an assistant director. Duniya was the standard revenge plot typical to Hindi cinema, written with a lot of intelligence and sophistication. Dilip Kumar returns from prison as an old man to take revenge against the people who ruined his business and destroyed his family. While the plot was old, what was new was the cleverness with which the acts of revenge were planned. Dilip Kumar got a great platform to display his histrionics, the villains got their just desserts and Javed had come up with yet another memorable script for the thespian after Shakti.