Bollywood’s famous lyricist Javed Akhtar is celebrating his 79th birthday Today on 17th January 2024. Javed Akhtar got poetic taste from his father Jan Nisar Akhtar, who was a famous poet, and his mother Safia Akhtar, a famous Urdu writer.
Few would know that his real name is ‘Jadu’, which was taken from a line of a poem written by his father, ‘Lamha lamha kisi jadu ka fasana hoga’. He is known as Javed because it is closest to the word Jaadu. Lyricist Javed Akhtar spent his childhood in different cities. His mother died when he was young, after which his father Jan Nisar Akhtar married again.
Javed Akhtar came to Mumbai, the city of dreams, after completing his studies. In those days he had no money to eat. Not only this, he spent many nights under the trees and in the corridors. Later he got a place in Kamal Amrohi’s Studio. After some time, Javed got the job of clapper boy in Hindi Films. During the shooting of the film ‘Sarhadi Lootera’, he met Salim Khan who was the hero of this film. This meeting was very special for him and after that, he did not look back.
Salim and Javed together gave many super-hit Films to the Industry. It is said that in those days Salim Khan used to give story ideas and Javed Akhtar used to write dialogues. In those days, Javed Akhtar used to write scripts in Urdu, which was later translated into Hindi. The pair acted in films like Sholay, Yaadon Ki Baaraat, Deewar, Sita Aur Geeta, Hathi Mera Saathi.
After working together in 24 films on screen, there was a time when the pair of Salim-Javed broke up in 1982. It is said that this pair broke up because of Amitabh Bachchan. In the 80s, Salim-Javed wrote a script in which they wanted Amitabh Bachchan to act, but the actor refused to do it.
Then Javed Ji did not like this and he proposed to his friend Salim that he would never work with Amitabh Bachchan from now onwards. While Salim Khan was against this. Just because of this misunderstanding, the two never worked together again. In an interview, he said, “Our Jodi was old, so we had to break up our Jodi”. He misses that Jodi.
Javed Akhtar himself said in an interview that when he was in school, people used to come to him to write love letters. He was in great demand for writing love letters. He used to write love letters to people he didn’t even know.
Recently, Shah Rukh Khan’s movie Dunki was released. In this film, Javed wrote the song “Nikle The Kabhi Hum Ghar Se”, which was widely discussed. The amount of money Javed Akhtar charged for writing this song was a record in itself. There are no lyricists in Hindi cinema who received so much money for writing just one song. It is being told that he took 25 lakh rupees to write it.
