Silent separation of Salim-Javed!

In the book Talking Life 2023 which is writer Javed Akhtar 78 in conversation with Nasreen Munni Kabir Javed defines old agemdashitrsquos always ten years ahead of you Meaning if yoursquore 15 you think 25 is old age and so on and so forthIn that respect Javedrsquos screenwriting partner for 11 years Salim Khan was almost exactly a decade older than himAnd as Javed puts it in Namrata Raorsquos telling timely brilliant documentary series Angry Young Men on Amazon Prime Video he saw Salim as a parental figure While they were surely equals at the writing tableJavedrsquos filmmaker daughter Zoya rightly informs in the series that SalimJaved together wrote 24 screenplays of which 22 were blockbusters Something that has no precedence and wonrsquot have a followup eitherAn equally fine screenplay is evidently their lives itself And that organically showed up in their entertaining mainstream takes onscreenBoth lost their mothers early Left small towns to rough it out on Bombayrsquos streetsstudiosmdashnever once seeking support from homeextended family Broke but never brokenFor a worldview itrsquos remarkable how often they separately mirror each other And I impulsively click on any interview I find of either onlineAsk Salim ldquoWhat helps with writing the mostrdquo Reading ldquoChain readerrdquo Javed echoes ldquoReading is the riyaaz of writingrdquo What about vital ingredients for success Javed ldquoTalent discipline selfrespectrdquo Salim concurs ldquoTalent and discipline are usually hard to find in the same personrdquoWhat uniquely unites these writerly giants of rsquo70s big screen with strongly progressive values though is actually sense of humourFor all their projection of the lsquoangry young manrsquo these topclass conversationalists are genuinely funny witty men Even in the brashnessarrogance of youthWhich was probably just their swagchutzpah to break through Bollywood as writersmdashotherwise considered low in the industrial foodchainHence demanding reverence through irreverencemdashshattering ceilings for salaries asking for impossible sums and credit through their own paintbrush stencil over posters of Zanjeer 1973The unlikely superhit Zanjeer is of course what truly made SalimJaved and visually rebirthed Amitabh Bachchan Bachchan as a superstar born naturally got attached to the writing duoSalimJaved in turn graduated to makers of projectsmdashcasting for Gabbar Amjad Khan let alone pushing for Big B bringing Raj Babbar into Bollywood Smita Patil into the mainstreamhellipThere was boxoffice gold at the finishing line of their bound scripts Screenwriters since SalimJaved havenrsquot wielded the same powerBecause stars hardly align this smoothly Most writers in Hindi cinema I know would rather be directors or showrunners There is possibly greater fame hence access and dignity thereOf the two who actually wrote is a question moviebuffs have always wondered Decades hence Javed makes this clear in Nasreenrsquos book Dialogues was Javedrsquos department Storyoutline came from SalimTogether they worked on screenplay Thatrsquos the narration or andaazebayaan rightmdashwhat you get paid for A stenographer keyed in script from scribbled sheets Gracious Javed further adds the lsquoangry young manrsquo in that sense was Salimrsquos conceptionBarring such details most of SalimJavedrsquos life is rather wellknown What is it that attracts us to the sharply edited Geeta Singh smartly shot Angry Young Men produced by their children then Irsquove watched it twice already Well foremost movienostalgia max what elseEven frames with Helen talking Yoursquove gotta be a Bombay journalist to know how rare that is Helen met the then actor Salim future husband on the set of Kabli Khan 1963 where she was the heroine and he was the villain They only got closer during Don 1978Therersquos also SalimJavedrsquos motherfigure Nirupa Roymdashwho passed away in 2004 while I didnrsquot spot mention of this in the seriesmdashappearing as if in a fresh interviewThe rarest sight however is Javed himself breaking downmdashover the meaty matter of fivestar hotel breakfasts that hersquos used to now but wonders if he deserves them stillA revealing moment is when Javed confesses to a writerrsquos block once he split up with Salimmdashwho used to put storyoutlines on the table after all Javed considered leaving town starting life anew assuming another name and profession as ldquoShyam Sundarrdquo or some suchThis silent separation of SalimJaved is obviously the elephant in the writersrsquo room Itrsquos not exactly the point of the documentary As against the similarly leaderfollower Leander PaesMahesh Bhupathi split in the remarkably detailed doc series Break Point 2021Undoubtedly it was Javed who walked away Salim simply did not see it coming apparentlyHe says their last two films together Shakti Tamil remake and Mr India that Javed finished off on his own were in fact theatrical hitsCanrsquot denyThat said in Nasreenrsquos book Javed speaks of two scripts he left behind with Salim upon parting waysmdashKaali a dacoitdrama thatrsquos lost its relevance now and Sailaab that went straight to TV as Yeh Majhdhaar with Salman KhanIn Angry Young Men Javed admits that besides them socially drifting apart as well ldquoThe major reason for the split was the careerspring drying up kaam mein thakan tiredness showing inthe workrdquoSalimJaved had a technicolour dreamrun for over a decade Which is already a long time in showbizmdashsadly for them and us of courseMayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture He tweets mayankw14Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper