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

T his story began one evening in the early 1980s.

This was a time when my Hindi film experiences were largely restricted to the Sunday evening fare doled out by Doordarshan. I was just shy of ten years and my taste in movies was dictated by a man called Amitabh Bachchan, and in his absence, I had learned to spot the word Action (or Thrills) in the credits. If that existed, then one could look forward to some fisticuffs at the end of three hours of songs and tearsa big incentive for a young boy.

That evening, my mother (the certified movie buff in the family) and I took our positions in front of our black-and-white television set for our weekly Hindi movie fix. My father seldom watched the Sunday film, often preferring to go for a walk instead, but that day he was in the room as well. To my delight, the filmMajboorstarred Amitabh Bachchan, which sealed the deal for me. My father, on the other hand, shuffled in his seat and wondered aloud if the film would be worth it. A minute or two into the credits, he got excited and exclaimed, Arre SalimJaved, taholey toh dekhtei hobey! (A SalimJaved film, have to watch it then!) Apparently, these two gentlemenSalimJaved, as I learned then, was not one person, but a team of twohad written the story of the film and also the lines my hero would say.

After the film ended, I thought about this and was quite intrigued that there could be other highlights in a film apart from the actors and the fight director. My father remembered a film called Deewaar, which was written by SalimJaved, and he said it was one of the best that he had watched. I asked him if it had fights and my father mentioned there was just one. I made a mental note to watch Deewaar one day but with just one fight, it was not a top priority.

Over the next couple of years, I started noticing this nameSalimJavedand was quite delighted to find that they had written many of my favourite films. Seeta Aur Geeta was their doing, as was Yaadon Ki Baaraat. Don had their name too, as did Haathi Mere Saathi. And wonder of wonders, my all-time favouriteSholaywas also written by them. Long before I understood what film writing is all about or the difference between the screenplay and the story, I had added SalimJaved to the list of names to watch out for in a films credits.

As I read more about writing for the screen, I correlated much of that to the films of SalimJaved. Satyajit Ray, film writer par excellence, talked about the importance of detailing events, locations and characters in a script. He talked about real dialogues. He talked about backstories of characters, even if they were not shown in the film. SalimJaved followed many of those principles, without being conscious of them. Watching SalimJaveds classic filmsDeewaar, Trishul, Kaala Patthar, Shaktiwhen I grew older, I realized how good they really were.

When I met Salim sahib for an interview, he said, One hit film, two hit films, even three hit films in a row can be a fluke. But ten or eleven hits in a row cannot be a fluke. If a stuntman leaps off a seven-storeyed building and lands on his feet, people would call it a miracle. Second time can also be called a miracle. But if he keeps doing it again and again, youll have to admit he has a technique.

But almost in the same breath, he also said that as writers they had no conscious technique. They were not trying to make any social commentary with Deewaar and they were not inspired so much by Akira Kurosawa as by Sergio Leone.

That gave me the idea of writing their story in the signature SalimJaved stylea lot of interesting events that built to a crescendo, a bit of context to make sense, but not much of analysis.

I believe they brought a certain swagger to the profession of writing, longprobably stillconsidered to be a back-room job. There were more prolific writers, writers who had given a greater number of hits. But none of them had succeeded in changing the dynamics of an industry, notorious for being set in its ways. None of them raised their collars and advertised their success the way SalimJaved did. They struck me as two extremely humble men personally, who were extremely proud professionally.

Strangely, there arent too many books on Hindi film writing. Books on Javed Akhtar and Gulzar largely focus on their careers as lyricists (and in Gulzars case, as a director). Actors, actresses, directors, music directors, lyricists have all got excellent biographies but not the people without whom the industry would have been just a blank sheet of paper.

Here, then, is the story of two heroes.

A story of a friendship that became a bitter rivalry and finally mellowed down to a cordial relationship. And of the philosophy with which they approached their work. In the process Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar ended up creating two film families that are doing many of the things that they were not able to do themselves.

In a way, my fatherwho was not a Bollywood fan at allstarted this story, and also laid down the benchmark of a good film dialogue. He remembered only one, and when a non-fan remembers something, it is likely to be bloody good. For as long as he lived, any discussion on film dialogues with him began and ended with just one line: Main aaj bhi phenke hue paise nahin uthata...

It is not for nothing Deewaar is called the Perfect Hindi Film Screenplay.