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Aditya Chopra’s Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge is the most successful film of the director’s career. Starring Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol in lead roles, the 1995 film was one of the most popular films of that era and continues to be seen as a significant milestone in Hindi film industry’s exposure in the overseas market. The film was a win-win situation for almost everyone who was attached to it, everyone but the writers. Honey Irani, who wrote many films like Darr, Lamhe and Aaina for Aditya’s father Yash Chopra, the producer of DDLJ, was apparently also involved with the writing of DDLJ. However, Aditya Chopra refuted those claims but this led to a rift between Honey’s son Farhan Akhtar and Aditya Chopra.
Anupama Chopra’s book Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge A Modern Classic revisits this incident. Honey and Yash’s wife Pamela Chopra had a long standing friendship. Honey was previously married to Javed Akhtar, and Javed too, had done a lot of work with Yash, in the capacity of a screenwriter, as well as a lyricist. The credit war for the writing of the film reportedly started in the month before the film’s release in October 1995. As per Anupama’s book, whose mother Kamna Chandra wrote Chandni for Yash, Aditya claimed that Honey had miniscule contribution in the film’s writing. But Honey had a different version in her defence. As per Honey, she had had several early morning meetings with Aditya and she even accompanied the crew to the shoot in Switzerland. While she admitted that Aditya had done “quite a lot of work” on the film’s writing but she helped in fleshing out the narrative. Nevertheless, she demanded that her work be acknowledged in the credits. “Even if 80 percent of the screenplay was his, at least 20 percent was mine. Don’t take that 20 percent away from me,” she told Anupama.
Aditya, however, refuted these claims completely. When asked about the writing controversy in an interview with Filmfare in 1996, Aditya said that he had always wanted to make movies. He said that he would write a “make a better film and hope that it will meet with this kind of success and appreciation again.” He said, “As I told you, I’ve always believed that one’s work should speak for oneself. So, I think I’ll have to start all over again from the beginning – try and work harder, try and write a better script, make a better film and hope that it will meet with this kind of success and appreciation again. Hopefully then, there won’t be any doubts left. Hopefully then, I’ll feel that I belong here. Believe me, that’s my honest response to your question… and that’s all I will ever say on the subject.”
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Honey never worked with Yash Raj Films after this incident. A few years later, when her son Farhan made his debut feature film Dil Chahta Hai in 2001, he was asked about his rift with the Chopras following the debacle with the credit. Farhan and Uday, Aditya’s younger brother, were close friends growing up but this incident affected their friendship. Farhan told Rediff in a 2002 interview, “I would be lying if I said I wasn’t upset.” He added, “Not just at Uday, but at all of them. Because these are people I knew for practically all my life. It really upset my Mom for a long time because they were her close friends.” At the time, Farhan was in the process of healing and said that “time has healed things” but maintained, “Unfortunately, there are certain things you cannot forget.”
Writer Javed Siddiqui got a co-writer credit for the dialogues of the film but even he wasn’t happy with that. In Anupama Chopra’s book, Siddiqui said that getting a co-writer credit was “an injustice”. He claimed that he had written almost all of the dialogue of the film and Aditya had hardly changed things.
Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge continues to be the longest running film in Indian cinemas.
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