Javed Akhtar opens up on his fallout with Salim Khan

Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar were the iconic writing partners in the 1970s. They together delivered some major  blockbusters such as ‘Sholay’, ‘Deewar, Zanjeer’, ‘Don’, ‘Haathi Mere Saathi’, ‘Yaadon Ki Baarat’ and many more. Javed Akhtar recently opened up on why they parted ways after working together for a long time. He also mentioned that Salim encouraged him to become a screenwriter.

In an interview with BBC News Hindi, Javed Akhtar talked about Salim and said, ‘Salim saab unn chand logo mein se the jo mujhe boht encourage karte the... Agar shayad main kahin aur reh raha hota toh itni mulaqat na hoti unse lekin ab paas mein mujhe mil gaya kamra toh main aksar chala jata tha (Salim was one of the few who would encourage me. Had I been living somewhere else, we might have not met often, but because I got a room close to his home, I would often visit him).’

He further spoke on their hardwork to reach this phase and why they separated. Javed said, ‘Shuru mein jab hum nakaam log the, struggle kar rahe the, toh bilkul ek the. Koi humare aur dost nahi the, hum hi baith ke subah se shaam tak kaam karte the. Shaam ko bhi saath the, raat ko khana bhi saath hota tha. 24 mein se 15-16 hours toh saath hi hote the... Jab kamyabi ayi, toh naye naye log zindagi mein ana shuru ho gaye aur voh circle dheere dheere alag ho gaye. Toh voh mental rapport tha humara, voh toot gaya. Toh fir woh kaam nahi ho sakta tha (In our struggling days, we were one tea. We did not have any other friends, we would work together from morning till evening. We would even have meals together. Out of 24 hours, we would spend 15-16 hours with each other. But as we became successful, new people came into our lives and our friend's circle got separated. The mental rapport we had was broken. We could no longer work as a team).’

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