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Writer Javed Akhtar tearfully recalled his struggles in the film industry, and said that to this day, he cannot forget the time he went hungry because he didn’t have enough money to buy a meal. He also remembered the inhuman conditions in which he first moved to Mumbai as a teenager, and expressed signs of imposter syndrome as he spoke about the luxuries that he can afford now.
Javed Akhtar and his longtime writing partner Salim Khan opened up about their lives and careers in the new Prime Video documentary series Angry Young Men. In the show, Javed recalled the earliest days of his career, and recalled the confidence with which he left his family home and moved to Mumbai. “I decided that after my graduation, I’d go to Bombay and work as an assistant director, hopefully with either Guru Dutt or Raj Kapoor. I was sure that after a couple of years of doing this, I’d definitely become a director,” he said.
Also read – Angry Young Men review: Salim-Javed documentary coasts on full-blown nostalgia and interesting trivia
He continued, “I was in my father’s house for exactly five days, and then I went on my own. I lived with some friends, slept on railways stations, parks, studio compounds, in corridors, on benches, and so on. Some days, I’d walk all the way from Dadar to Bandra, because I didn’t have money for bus fare. Some days, it would strike me that I hadn’t eaten for two days. I would always think to myself that if one day a biography were to be written about me, this would make for an incredible moment.”
His wife, actor Shabana Azmi, narrated a story about his lowest times, and said, “One day, he realised that he hadn’t eaten for three days. He saw a light in someone’s house, and thought to himself, ‘This is not how I die. Times will change’.” Tearfully recalling the hunger that he experienced, and the trauma that it still causes him, Javed said, “There are two kinds of deprivation – of sleep and of food – that leave a mark on you that you never forget. I stay in five-star hotels, in huge suites with large double beds. And I look back on how I came to Bombay, in a third-class compartment that didn’t even have any room to sit. I remember how I was deprived of sleep, and how tired I was. All I needed was a fraction of the room I had now. They bring out so much food, and I always wonder where this food was on the days I had nothing to eat. To this day, I feel like I haven’t deserved this food. I can’t get over that.”
He also spoke about the indignity of not having a pair of trousers to wear. “One day, I realised I have nothing to wear. Now, you’ll wonder how that’s possible. But that’s how it was. I had worn out my last pair of trousers, my only pair of trousers…” He said that he never thought of asking his family for money. “Which family? I had left all that behind, I never looked back, nor did I ask them for anything. My aunt raised me, and when I walked away at the age of 15, I walked away for good,” he said.
Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar wrote seminal blockbusters such as Deewaar, Sholay, and Zanjeer, and introduced Hindi cinema to the Angry Young Man archetype, popularised by Amitabh Bachchan.
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