Writer behind Silsila, Chandni, Shah Rukh Khan’s debut film was forced to sell his house, said ‘main footpath pe aa gaya’

He was always a passionate writer but to make ends meet in Bombay, he tried to become a taxi driver. He told Scroll in a chat in 2017, “But on the very first day, I hit a pole while reversing.” He tried to find work at a typing institute but couldn’t secure that as well. When his brother asked him to look after his textile shop during the afternoon, a customer walked away with a thaan (bundle) of material. Sagar, meanwhile, was immersed in a book. He eventually found himself a job at an advertising company but left it two years later for it did not adhere to his Marxist ethos.

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Sagar Sarhadi wrote the screenplay of Yash Chopra’s Kabhi Kabhie.

Sagar was a writer and eventually got a chance to write a film called Patni. After watching one of his plays, Yash Chopra offered him the opportunity to write the screenplay of Kabhi Kabhie, and from then on, his life changed. He told Scroll in the same chat, “Yash made me a household name. Despite being so successful, he never tinkered with my screenplay and dialogue. Only once did he cut out a few lines from a scene but not before consulting me.” Sagar recalled in a chat with Sansad TV that financier Gulshan Rai did not like the dialogues of Kabhi Kabhie as he felt that they were “bookish” but they worked wonders, and after this, Dilip Kumar became his fan. Dilip wanted Sagar to write for him but this wasn’t his goal as a writer.

After writing a bunch of films for Yash Chopra, Sagar decided to make Bazaar after he read a news article about women being married off for money. Even though Sagar’s friends had made him fully aware that a film like this wouldn’t work at the box office, he went ahead and made the now classic film. The film starring Smita Patil, Naseeruddin Shah, Supriya Pathak, Farooq Shaikh was made after Sagar borrowed some money, and sought Shashi Kapoor’s permission to borrow some equipment to shoot the film. Shashi obliged and thus, Bazaar was made. To everyone’s surprise, the film was successful but only in certain circles, and Sagar knew that he was on the right track. But his luck ran out and his next film brought him to the streets. While Sagar continued to write dialogues for some Yash Chopra films, his next film forced him to sell his own apartment.

Naseeruddin Shah and Smita Patil in Bazaar.

During the making of his film Tere Shaher Mein, the producer borrowed some money from a loan shark. “When the producer couldn’t pay him, the financier forced me to cough up the money. He got my signature on a guarantee letter by fraud. I had to sell my flat,” he recalled and added, “The financier used to threaten me that he would bring me on the footpath, and he did.” He tried to make more films, but every single time he ran into some or the other roadblock.

Sagar did not pursue his career with Yash Raj Films because he believed that his talent as a writer couldn’t be limited to just romance. He also consciously realised that the world of Bollywood wasn’t meant for him, and so he decided to look for subjects that could create significant pieces of art via cinema.

In the early 2000s, Sagar gave Nawazuddin Siddiqui his first break in a film called Chauser but such was his luck that the film never released. By the end of his life, Sagar believed that “cinema has ceased to exist in India.” Sagar passed away at 88 in 2021 after a long illness.