BENGALURU: In a freewheeling chat between Javed Akhtar and Nasreen Munni Kabir, Akhtar speaks with honesty about the ups and downs of his extraordinary life.
Excerpts:
Nasreen Munni Kabir: You really lived through tough times. I mean sleeping on a plank across wooden crates.
Javed Akhtar: Those days have not left me because I still have vivid memories of those times. I am so grateful to life for having given me so much. Imagine where I started.
If I am having a grand meal or eating some delicacy, I ask myself, do I deserve this? When I am sitting in my car and I look outside the window and see people walking on the street or I see families living on the pavement, I ask myself, am I smarter and more talented than each one of them? There has to be someone in this crowd who must be extremely talented in some field but just could not get the right opportunity. Sometimes, it is just a random chance that puts you in the right place at the right time.
Nasreen Munni Kabir: Did you ever think of giving it all up?
Javed Akhtar: There were some desperate moments, but it never occurred to me to give up, or to commit suicide or anything like that. I look at my past today and I’m amazed by the optimism I had and wonder why it never abandoned me. Even in the worst of times I had no doubt that I would make it one day, and bad days were just a passing phase. What made me think that? I don’t know. It was totally foolish because things could have gone so wrong, and things do go wrong for many, but I firmly believed it was only a matter of time before my star would shine. This foolish optimism saw me through those bad times.
Nasreen Munni Kabir: If optimism helped you, why do you call it foolish?
Javed Akhtar: If I could see my situation objectively, I could’ve become depressed. So, I was not objective. I remember when I was eighteen, my last pair of decent trousers got badly torn and there was no way I could wear them. It was a real problem, and it upset me, though somewhere at the back of my mind, I was happy it had happened, because I thought this could be the highlight of a book I’d write when I became somebody. Here was an eighteen-year-old boy who had no clothes to wear yet found it all amusing. I stayed in my room with a bed sheet wrapped around me till a friend of mine lent me a pair of trousers.
Nasreen Munni Kabir: It’s interesting how you saw events in your life as stories to be recounted in a book one day.
Javed Akhtar: Yes. What can you do with a man who is crazy? How can you demoralise him?
Nasreen Munni Kabir: I remember reading a story about you sleeping in a costume room at Kamal Studio where you found the Filmfare Awards statuettes belonging to Meena Kumari. Did that really happen?
Javed Akhtar: It’s a true story. At one point I was told by Kamal Amrohi’s staff that I could live in an unused room where they stored costumes and props from the production of Pakeezah. There were many cupboards and drawers full of things, including artificial jewellery, clothes for men and women, shoes for the extras, etc.
One evening I opened a drawer and found several pairs of sandals. And right in the middle of those sad-looking, worn-out sandals I found three Filmfare Awards statuettes. I took them out of the drawer to examine them closely and realised they belonged to Meena Kumari — they were awards for her earlier films. I dusted the statuettes and put them in a row near the big mirror that dominated the room. In those days Filmfare Awards were like the Oscars for us and besides the National Award, this was the only film award we knew about.
Whenever I found myself alone in that room, I locked the door from the inside, stood in front of the mirror with the statuette in my hand, and posed as if I had been awarded this trophy. The audience clapped and cheered me on, and I’d wave to them in recognition of their admiration. That was the first time I held a Filmfare Awards statuette in my hands and just imagine, here I was holding a statuette won by the great Meena Kumari!
Nasreen Munni Kabir: I wonder if the director Farah Khan, Honey Irani’s niece and therefore related to you, ever heard or read this story. She has a very similar scene in Om Shanti Om in which Shah Rukh Khan is holding a film award and giving an acceptance speech. It’s all imaginary in the character’s mind.
Javed Akhtar: Well, I have written about this incident, but I have serious doubts concerning Farah’s reading habits! It’s quite difficult to believe she would have read about it. [smiles] So I think she could have very well thought up the idea on her own.
(Excerpted with permission from Javed Akhtar & Nasreen Munni Kabir’s ‘Talking Life’, published by Westland Books)