SALIM AUR JAVED SAATH HUVE TOH DHAMAAKA HUVA , ABB ALAG HUVE TOH DOUBLE DHAMAAKA HUVA By Ali Peter John

They were two among the thousands of young men who came to Bombay in the sixties with their dreams of making it big - Ali Peter John

Salim was a very handsome young man who is said to have belonged to a royal family somewhere in Indore in Madhya Pradesh and called himself Prince Salim.

Javed was the rebel son of the great but poor (financially) Urdu poet,Jan Nissar Akhtar and wanted to be a director or a successful writer.

Salim was with rich enough to have his own room and luck to favoured him when he found small roles in big films, the most notable being his role in the memorable film, ‘ Teesri Manzil' with Shammi Kapoor and Asha Parekh in the romantic lead and the highlight of the film being its director, Vijay Anand. Prince Salim tried for other roles but was not successful.

Javed had rebelled against his father and did not want to live with him in a chawl on Mohammed Ali Road in Central Bombay.

He preferred to sleep in the Mahakali caves and spend the day struggling for work.

He also lived in the costume room of the actress Meena Kumari at Kamal Studio where he had the shocking experience of seeing one of Meena Kumari's Filmfare trophies for the best actress on his head.

It was one of the many realities he had discovered. He joined the director Brij and then S.M Sagar who was also the secretary of the veteran actor Ashok Kumar.

During his stay at Mahakali caves, he mostly had strugglers for company who got him attracted to the local illicit liquor of which one of his friends, Jagdish even died. There was no guarantee of where breakfast, lunch or dinner would come from.

The two young man were very unhappy about the circumstances they were caught in.

Luck favoured them again and by sheer coincidence, they both joined the Story Department of Sippy Films which was owned by G.P Sippy whose son, Ramesh Sippy was growing to be a director.

Salim and Javed were paid a hundred and fifty rupees per month, but they had the opportunity to offer their ideas to Ramesh Sippy.

They grew to be very good friends and discussed story ideas in the office and even in the small hotels(especially Irani hotels) where they spent their evenings exchanging ideas for future scripts.

It was during one of these many evenings that they decided to form a team of writers and that is how two young man took their first steps to create history and Salim-Javed.

They wrote the scripts of films like ‘Aakhri Daao' , ‘Haathi Mera Saathi', ‘Seeta Aur Geeta', ‘Andaaz', ‘Zanjeer', ‘Sholey', ‘Deewar', ‘Kaala Pathar' and a multi-starrer called ‘Patthar Ke Log' which did not go beyond a grand launching ceremony at a five-star hotel.

They had created history in the true sense. They gave the Hindi film writer a new status and dignity.

They were the highest paid writers ever, charging over ten lakhs of rupees even from a big filmmaker like Yash Chopra.

They were the first writers to see that they got the right place in the publicity and the credit titles of the films they wrote.

They bought the best houses and travelled in cars that made the stars envy them.

They attended functions together and no function or event to which they were invited started till they arrived.

Salim still remembers how they had spent their own money to have hoardings and posters of films written by them with only their names on them. The line always used to be ‘A film written by Salim-Javed'.

Their success story gave some of the ruling writers a massive complex and they went to the extent of asking for a rupee more than the price paid to Salim-Javed, but history was made by the two writers and it couldn't be repeated again.

There were heated discussions about who really wrote the scripts. Some said it was Javed who did the writing, especially the dialogue and Salim was the selling face of the team.

Critics were also confused about who to give the credit for the writing of the story or the screenplay or the dialogue.

The team however maintained a dignified silence over every kind of controversy and criticism.

Salim married Salma and had children who were named Salman, Arbaaz, Sohail, Alvira and Arpita who was adopted after Salim who had a long affair with the dancing-star Helen accepted her and his family also made her a part of the family.

Salma and Helen were the best of friends,a situation created by Salim who had a very kind side to his life.

Javed married the one-time child artist Honey Irani who was also an aspiring writer and they had two children,Zoya and Farhan.....

But,then came the bombshell. The two were working on the script when Javed took Salim by shock when he said that he wanted to split and go his own way.

Two days later, it was official. The most successful team of writers had split and the news made headlines even in every daily newspaper in the country.
Javed did not tell Salim why he wanted to go his own way, but it had become clear that he wanted to write lyrics and he proved that he was a good poet with films like ‘Mr India', ‘Meri Jung', ‘Mashaal' and ‘Silsila'.

He also wrote the scripts of most of the films mentioned above, besides ‘Roop Ki Rani Chooro Ka Raja' and‘ Prem' both of which were disasters at the box-office.

Salim tried writting his own scripts and with films like ‘Falak' , ‘Angaaray' and ‘Naam' he proved his critics wrong. He could write and write very well.

Javed who had married Shabana Azmi had now started taking interest in all kinds of social and even political issues.

He was one of the most wanted participants in musharias,kavi sammelans, debates on different channels and panel discussions.

He ended up being honoured with the Padmabhushan and was nominated to the Rajya Sabha in which he took active interest in making powerful speeches, but the film industry was very upset with him because the only good thing he did was to see that lyricists got a very good share in the profits made by a film.

This victory however led to his being boycotted by most filmmakers and he is now writing lyrics only for his son, Farhan and daughter Zoya.

The last time the one time partners came together was when the late Prakash Mehra's son,Amit Mehra wanted to remake ‘Zanjeer' and they charged the producer ten times or more than they were paid for the original.

They took their share of the money and behaved like strangers who had never met or done anything together.

Salim still keeps in touch with Javed's children, but Javed according to Salim has not maintained any kind of relationship with him or his family.

Salim is eighty four now and is still in the pink (literally) of health and is looking after the well-being of his family and spends most of his time taking interest in the ‘Being Human' brand and the Salman Khan Welfare Trust.

He is at his happiest best when he lives on his farm where the Khans take care of the welfare of several families. During his spare time, he writes a column for a Hindi daily.

Would the two writers who have created some of the most interesting and powerful stories succeed in writing the story, screenplay and dialogue of a film called ‘ Salim-Javed-the known and unknown story'?