At the tender age of 15 Javed Akhtar moved away from his family in search of work and the desire to make it big in Mumbai. He asserted never looking back or asking anyone for financial help even during desperate times
Javed Akhtar Pic/AFP
Legendary screenwriter and lyricist Javed Akhtar, a part of the iconic duo Salim-Javed, recalled his struggling days in Mumbai, then Bombay. He went down memory lane in the three-part docuseries 'Angry Young Men' and got teary-eyed as he spoke about being deprived of food, sleep, and even clothes to wear during his time in the city.
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Javed shared, “When you’re a teenager, life is easy, and you can do anything. That’s what I believed. I decided after my graduation that I’d move to Bombay to work as an assistant director, either with Guru Dutt or Raj Kapoor. They were directors, I admired at that time. I was sure I’d become a director myself in a short time.”
Little did he know that things weren’t going to be a cakewalk. The ‘Sholay’ writer recalled, “I slept at railway stations, studio compounds, in corridors, on benches, and so on. Sometimes I had to walk miles from Dadar to Bandra because I didn’t have money for the bus fare. Sometimes I realised I hadn’t eaten for two days. I used to always think the day I wrote my autobiography or if someone did, this day would make for an amazing moment. This thought never crossed my mind that I wouldn’t make it.”
At the tender age of 15 Javed moved away from his family in search of work and the desire to make it big in the maximum city. He asserted never looking back or asking anyone for financial help even during desperate times. “When I was 18, I realised I had nothing to wear. Now how that’s possible? Obviously, I’ve been wearing clothes for 18 years. So how could I have nothing to wear? But that’s how it was. My last trousers and the only trousers I had were torn to the extent that they couldn’t be worn anymore, and I had no other trousers,” he said.
As he continued to speak of his initial days in Mumbai, Javed got teary-eyed. He said, “If you have been deprived of food or sleep in your life, it leaves a deep mark on you that you will never forget. When I go to a five-star hotel with large sprawling double beds, and sometimes when I am lying there, I remember coming to Bombay in the third-class train compartment. It used to take two days. There was no place to sit in the compartment, not even a place to lean against and I was deprived of sleep, and how tired I was, if only I had a little stretch of that double bed. Sometimes I’m served breakfast on a trolley with butter, jam, half-fried eggs, and coffee. I think if deserve this even now. I think this breakfast can’t be for me, it must be someone else’s. I can’t get over that.”
'Angry Young Men' premieres exclusively on Prime Video in India on August 20.
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