Writer as a Fighter

Recently, in a glitzy and glamours awards show, Javed Akhtar, was awarded ‘life time achievement award’. He went on stage to accept that award; but did it with his kind of acceptance speech, “...if you are thinking, this is a polite way to tell me, that I have worked enough and I should retire, then forget about it.” He said the line, with more stressing it on ‘forget about it’ and then walked out of the stage with his award. Its very uncanny to see such fighting spirit in anyone whether it is common man or a celebrity but he is a writer who used his pen to fight also.

There was a time I used avoid watching Amitabh Bachchan, on the screen, due to his unnecessarily angry image. I still do not choose to watch those movies, as watching him just agitated me more, than it entertained, but it was also the time when his angry young man image got so famous in whole world in India. Amitabh Bachchan, rose to the height of fame from those images. One thing, very few people know is, that it was the story written by Javed-Saleem, which gave him this kind of larger than life name, fame and image.

Why they choose a hero to portray the kind of image, who was always fighting for his right with society. It so happened that when Amitabh Bachchan, was playing angry young man then Indira Gandhi was the Prime Minister of India. She had slapped in India, the Indian Emergency period, It was one of the most controversial times in the history of independent India. The then President of India, Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, upon advice of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, declared a state of emergency, under Article 352 of the Constitution of India, effectively bestowing on her the power to rule by decree, suspending elections and civil liberties. Some how, it seemed that she could not have any control over the cinema and suddenly one hero of the nation was voicing one voice, who represented all its country-men. Credit of his fame, is some what goes to the writing of the Salim-Javed also, who wrote it to vent their frustration about the emergency period. But angry young man image lasted longer than the emergency time frame [from 1975 June – 1977 March, totaling a 21-month].

When I was in school I used to admire Mrs. Gandhi so much for representing womans in powerful positions but after learning some inside story like above and many more like that my respect and admiration for her diminished drastically.

Some of the best stories by the writer duo came on seventies, like Shole, which happened in ’75, which is regarded as the milestone of Indian movie industry and Deewar and this famous lines from “Aaj mere paas building hai, gaadi hai, bank balance hai. Tumhare pas kya hai. Kya hai tumhare pas. ……………. Mere pas … Maa Hai.” [Today, I have a house, a car, a bank balance and what do you have.............. I have Mom].

During the following years more movie released; Amitabh Bachchan, as an angry young man. Those cinemas really changed the face of India and at times hammed whole nations thinking patterns also. The point was, what they wanted to say was, Amitabh Bachchan was saying and the Indians loved him more than anything in fact they do worship him.

On the other hand Salim-Javed – iconic writers, whose Zanjeer sent Amitabh Bachchan’s stock Northwards, whose Sholay became a synonym for blistering blockbuster success, who earned more than the superstars, who sold films on their names and got hoardings of their own.

And then they broke up stunningly and suddenly. For 15 years they ruled at the top and one day went abruptly in two different directions.

Although, I am not an Indian; but some of the sea changes, India experienced in the following decades was also because some power house writers like Salim-Javed wrote it and envisioned it well ahead of times in their country and society. Interesting, they needed Amitabh Bachchan, to carry their message to India and who knows its a vice-a-versa.