When Shabana Azmi came to receive a hungover Javed Akhtar at the airport, didn’t know he’d ‘quit drinking’ the night before

Javed Akhtar recalled the day after he quit drinking, and Shabana Azmi came to get him at the airport. The writer recalled how he never touched alcohol after that day.

By: Entertainment Desk

New Delhi | Updated: February 26, 2023 08:49 AM IST

3 min read

Javed Akhtar said that he quit drinking in 1991. (Photo: Express Archives)

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Javed Akhtar has been open about his issues with alcohol in the past, and in a recent interview, the writer-lyricist said that when he decided to quit drinking, he consumed an entire bottle of rum in one night. He had pledged that he would never touch alcohol again, and this was his way of bidding adieu to liquor. This incident happened while he was in Kenya, and the next morning, he was supposed to fly to London and meet his wife, actor Shabana Azmi.

“I was in Kenya when I quit. Next day, I had to go to London. Shabana came to receive me at Heathrow. I had been drinking all night. I had finished an entire bottle. She says she thought, ‘Oh my god, another bout of drinking and…’ I told her I have quit and I had breakfast. All my friends were in London for vacation and everyone was drinking the whole time. I never touched it again,” he said at the ABP Ideas of India 2023 Summit. Javed said that he never had any withdrawal symptoms and never felt tempted to drink again. By his own admission, he stopped drinking in 1991.

When asked if his drinking affected his relationship with Shabana, Javed said, “Obviously, she was not in love with me because I was drinking. She was in love with in spite of my drinking.” He added that Shabana was “very happy” when he stopped drinking. “I released yeh bevakoofi hai jo main kar raha hun. Isme koi glamour nahi hai, koi dignity nahi hai, koi charm nahi hai. (I realised what I was doing was stupid. There is no glamour, dignity or charm in this).”

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Javed also recalled that a couple of years after he quit drinking, he also stopped smoking. He recalled an anecdote from the early 1990s when he was asked to visit a cardiologist. While he was waiting for his appointment, he told Shabana that the doctor will surely ask him to stop smoking, and his “conscience will not accept that I stop smoking because someone has asked me to.” So before walking in, he threw the packet of cigarettes in the dustbin there and then. “Voh din hai aur aaj ka din maine cigarette nai pi (I haven’t smoked since that day),” he said.

Javed first opened up about his issues with alcohol on Aamir Khan’s chat show Satyamev Jayate.

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