Page 34 - Seniorstoday Sep 2024 Issue

Lord Jim. (Of the two, Javed Akhtar, with a Andaz the same year. Before they came
literary background is the more voracious into the industry, story, screenplay and
reader). dialogues were seldom written by the same
Both of them came to Mumbai from person/s. Salim-Javed lent professionalism
Madhya Pradesh, and went through the and finesse to what was till then a helter-
grind that a struggle to make it in Mumbai skelter process, with scenes and lines often
can be. From living in squalid lodges, being written on the set, many a time with
sleeping hungry, not having enough the interference of the star.
money for bus fare to reach their meeting
venues. There is no better teacher than life,
and their exposure to the underbelly of
Mumbai also expanded their vocabulary of
Bambaiya. Image Courtesy: mensxp.com
What they brought to their films was
a modern sensibility and their innate
understanding of language. They never
needed to write the convoluted dialogue There were respected writers before them,
that Kader Khan later wrote in his scripts, but none had their names on posters; none
when a Mogambo khush hua (Mr India) featured in fanzines, none were credited
did the trick. Their greatest strength for changing the course of Hindi cinema,
was not originality of plots—and Akhtar and none had such a major influence not
says in the docuseries, that nobody back just on the cinemas of other Indian regions,
then knew where the story ideas were but on some international directors too.
coming from--because by the time they Now, the focus has shifted to the star,
had altered and polished them, nobody the screenwriter gets very little credit;
could trace the source. Salim Khan came though indie cinema and OTT have
up with plot ideas, Javed Akhtar wrote brought a new level of creativity to script
the dialogue, and then both worked on writing, the Salim-Javed power and style
the final draft. Why they split after Mr cannot be resurrected— they could not
India is not known, but while both wrote manage it when they went solo, so it is
films individually, that special spark was mushkil if not namumkin to catch the
missing. flair of Salim-Javed, even at a time when
Salim met Javed during the making of Hindi mainstream cinema need a massive
Sarhadi Lootera. Salim was acting in it transfusion of fresh ideas.
and Javed was a clapper boy, who also
wrote some dialogue for the S.M. Sagar
film. They became friends, and decided, in
1971, to team up and write scripts. Rajesh
Khanna offered them a chance to improve
on the screenplay of Chinappa Devar’s
Deiva Cheyal, the Tamil original of Haathi
Mere Saathi, and promised them a good fee
and credit. They also wrote Adhikar and

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