When ‘drunk to the gills’ Javed Akhtar approached Rishi Kapoor at a bar, vowed to ‘never write again’ if his film isn’t a bigger hit than Bobby

Rishi Kapoor had several run-ins with Javed Akhtar during his lifestyle, and the first time they met, the writer drunkenly approached him at a bar and promised to make a film that would out-perform Bobby.

By: Entertainment Desk

New Delhi | June 22, 2023 04:13 PM IST

3 min read

Rishi Kapoor and Javed Akhtar didn't see eye to eye.

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In the early 1970s, late actor Rishi Kapoor was riding high on the success of Bobby, his debut film as an adult lead. In his autobiography, the actor recalled running into Javed Akhtar at a hotel bar in Bengaluru shortly after Bobby’s blockbuster release, when the writer was in town for the shoot of Sholay. Their interaction wasn’t pleasant.

Rishi Kapoor wrote that back then, movies would get a staggered release across the country because piracy wasn’t a threat. And so, a couple of months after Bobby had opened in Mumbai, Rishi was in Bangalore for the film’s release. He heard that Sholay was also being shot there at the time, and so he went to the hotel where the crew was staying. “The first person I noticed was a strange man sitting at the bar and looking at me with what seemed like disdain. I didn’t quite understand what he wanted from me. A little later, he came up to me and asked, ‘Are you Rishi Kapoor?'” the actor wrote.

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Rishi continued, “He introduced himself as Javed Akhtar. He could have been the king of England for all I cared. Besides, Salim–Javed had not yet become the Salim–Javed. I knew they had written a few films like Zanjeer and Yaadon Ki Baaraat (1973) but I wasn’t in awe of them. Javed said ‘You must be very happy that Bobby is such a huge hit.’” The writer congratulated him on Bobby’s success, and then went on to remind Rishi of Salim-Javed’s hit-rate. In 1972, they wrote Yaadon Ki Baaraat, he told the actor. In 1973, they wrote Zanjeer. In 1974, they’d present Haath Ki Safaai. In 1975, Javed told Rishi, they’d release such a movie ‘that if it makes even one rupee less than Bobby’, he’d ‘break the nib’ of his pen and ‘never write again’ in his life.

Explaining the odd encounter, Rishi continued, “The man was drunk to the gills but his confidence was phenomenal. Bobby had done unprecedented business and to predict that an unreleased film would break its record or else he would quit his profession was brave, if not foolhardy.” Javed has often spoken about his alcoholism; he is now sober.

This wasn’t his only ‘flare-up’ with Salim-Javed. After he turned down a supporting role in their film Trishul, he wrote that Salim Khan threatened to destroy his career. Even though Rishi mended fences with Salim later, his equation with Javed Akhtar deteriorated even further after the writer made comments about Raj Kapoor in public, for which Rishi was never able to forgive him.

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