Films are no longer being made for people who are angry,but for those who are having a party
Akhtar speaks about why,unlike the angry young man persona that he created for Amitabh Bachchan,modern Bollywood heroes arent angry
Together with Salim Khan,Javed Akhtar wrote some of the biggest movies of the 1970s,like Sholay and Deewar. Over the years,Akhtar switched to writing lyrics and has penned some memorable lines in films such as Silsila,Saath-Saath and Saagar. In this Idea Exchange moderated by Senior Editor Politics Vandita Mishra,Akhtar speaks about why,unlike the angry young man persona that he created for Amitabh Bachchan,modern Bollywood heroes arent angry
Vandita Mishra: At a time of exciting developments in Bollywood with the euphoria of new expression and voices,the lament is that the writer and the poet are not part of this new creativity. Why is that so?
Javed Akhtar: This lament is not recent. It was there in the fifties,sixties and even seventies. In the last 20-odd years,for the first time,the urban middle-class has become affluent and they have disposable incomes. This has brought in multiplexes where you have tickets costing Rs 350-Rs 500. Business has increased but if you look at it closely,the audience is shrinking. In the last 15 years,you can count on your fingertips the instances when the protagonist came from the working class. Today,films are not being made for them,films are being made for multiplexes. We have approximately 1,600 multiplex screens in the country and around 14,000 single theatres. Most films nowadays cater to a certain segment of the society,while films with widespread appeal like Dabangg and Raju Hiranis film like 3 Idiots,are exceptions,not the rule. The rule is you make things that are beautiful,dont talk about poverty,dont talk about grim social problems,unemployment,farmer suicide,starvationthese are not sexy topics.
Vandita Mishra: How about films like Udaan and Band Baaja Baarat?
Javed Akhtar: Udaan has been highly appreciated. But here again,if I say I produced a film in Rs 3 crore and the film earns Rs 5 crore,I say the film has done well. In all fairness,we should not consider the success of the film in relation to its budget.
Shekhar Gupta: Rural India has disappeared from films now.
Javed Akhtar: Yes,because the urban population that has developed is purely urban. It has nothing to do with rural India,unlike during the fifties or the sixties when the urban middle class had a certain connect with rural India.
Shubhra Gupta: Your kind of storyteller is out of vogue. Do you think your son Farhan Akhtar has the same kind of story-telling skills that you have?
Javed Akhtar: I honestly hope not because it would not be a happy situation if the next generation is exactly like the previous generation. People should change and become better and to expect that we should make the same kind of films that were made in the seventies is not a good idea. I would not be happy to see that. Life has changed. When you compare the films of the seventies with the films of the forties,you realise that the tempo had increased because the tempo of life had increased. Cinema,music,theatre are related to societythey do not exist in a void. When societys tempo and pace increase,inevitably this will be reflected in the arts. It is difficult to believe that a teenager of today would sing a song of K L Saigal. It is not possible because that tempo,that tune,is not in sync with todays generation. Films like Pukar,Mahal,Mughal-E-Azam are great films,but I dont think that kind of rhetoric would work today. At the same time,there is a sense of loss in me as far as the language is concerned. Someone has said aptly that a film dialogue should be like a poor mans telegram. There should be some elegant turn of phrase,some wit,some really original coinage tooall of those are missing in todays dialogues. Language is shrinking in todays world. It is becoming strictly a vehicle of communication; but language is much more than that. It carries tradition,ethos,culture,those are missing now. And that,obviously,reflects in film dialogues as well.
Coomi Kapoor: You have been heading the campaign to ensure a writer gets a fair deal from the film producer. How successful has the move to bring in a new legislation been?
I am happy to see that the government is bringing in a Bill on this issue. There is great receptivity among the Opposition parties. It is one of those very few Bills that have crossed the quicksand of the Standing Committee in four months. It has been passed unanimously without one voice of dissent. That is wonderful. In fact,the Standing Committee has suggested minor tweaks to make it even more foolproof. In the next session,I suppose it will become an Act.
Coomi Kapoor: But the producers argument is that the singer is just as important.
Javed Akhtar: Well be happy if they give this kind of royalty to singers also. We have no problem with that. This Bill is not creating a royalty or starting a new one. Such royalties exist across the world,we just dont receive them in India. This Bill will protect that royalty which is prevalent but is generally taken away by a lopsided contract. When a musician like Pt Ravi Shankar or Hari Prasad Chaurasia signs a contract with a company,the company says we will produce your album,provided you give us the rights in perpetuity. So the rights are there,till the writer or music director signs off these rights. The new law will say that you can buy the copyright,but these royalties will not go hand in hand with the copyright. They are non-assignable.
Suanshu Khurana: Talking about Pt. Ravi Shankar,his recording of Saare Jahaan Se Achcha is still called an Indian HMV recording. It is not even attributed to him.
Javed Akhtar: Nowadays,any song you catch on TV has no writers name,music directors name or the singers name,it is Saregama,or Tips or T-Series. This is unbelievable. It does not happen anywhere else in the world. Recently,at a music awards function,CEOs of different music companies went along with the musicians to receive the awards. Have you ever seen that happening at the Grammy Awards? It is pathetic.
Shefalee Vasudev: The India in which you carved out the character of the angry young man has become an India that is perhaps angrier still or has reason to be more outraged than earlier. But the angry young man seems to disappeared from films. The protagonists are happy dancing to bhangra beats,etc.
Javed Akhtar: As I said,films are no longer being made for people who are angry; the films are being made for people who are having a party. I dont say multiplexes are a bad phenomenon because they have allowed us to make different kinds of films. I dont think Indian cinema had ever seen this kind of variety before. But these films turn a blind eye to Indian social realities because people who are angry dont buy tickets worth Rs 500. And anyone who can buy a Rs 500 ticket will not be angry. It is as simple as that. So if I am making a film for the multiplex,why would I make my hero angry? This kind of film will be patronised by people who are doing fine and dont want to be disturbed. The fifties and sixties were different days: rich people were bad people,poor people were good people. It was so easy to see everything in black and white terms. Now,everyone is in a grey area,so where are the villains? We dont have them any longer.
Vandita Mishra: When you were writing the scripts,how far was politics a direct influence? Did you have a political ideology or stance?
Javed Akhtar: A lot has been written on Deewar but at the time,we were blissfully unaware of any social implication or relevance of our scripts. We thought they were good stories and were having fun writing them. Perhaps it is good that we were unaware. When a writer is aware of the social implications and of a character in that socio-economic milieu,the writer is seated outside that ethos and is looking at it. But if you are unaware,you are breathing in that situation,you are part of the situation. So we were just average Indians and maybe we were in sync with the times.
Shubhra Gupta: You spoke of the sense of loss that you feel about language in films now and how it is no longer part of our movies because most of our young filmmakers have no idea of Hindi or its roots. It is a pastiche of Hindi and English that passes for the spoken language. How far is this responsible for the kind of confused film-making we now see?
Javed Akhtar: Every language has its own traditions,particularly poetry. Urdu poetry especially is richer because over the centuries,it has developed symbols. So a trained ear brought up on poetry would know the meaning of a certain word and its implications. The word has a tradition behind it. When you have such symbols,it becomes easy to say a great deal in a very few words. When you destroy those symbols,you can only say what you mean and you can only mean what you say. The layering is lost. Another thing that has happened is that this urban class is strictly urban. There was a time when the middle class was an extension of the landed gentry. They had some kind of connect with the earthy traditions. They knew folk songs,folk symbols. In a modern song,nature has gone. You will not talk about badal clouds,jharna fountain,nadi river,barsaat rain,phool flowers,kali bud . They are not cool. But when you say kali,it does not only mean a bud. It is this imagery that we have lost in our songs and they are becoming more and more prosaic. Largely because most of our filmmakers are brought up on some other languagethat language has a different culture,different traditions. In that language,you can call a film,Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,can you call a film,garam tin ki chhat par billi?The language of poetry is lost because this generation has not been brought up on the language of traditional poetry.
Somya Lakhani: What do you think of reality music shows on TV? We find a lot of high drama in them and its not always that the best singers win.
Javed Akhtar: I dont see what is wrong with them. People watch these shows and thoroughly enjoy them. People who participate in them come from very small towns and that gives them exposure. They may not become Sonu Nigam or Alka Yagnik,but even if they enter the last eight,they become successful singers. They go around the world because these programmes are watched in many countries,they perform and make a lot of money. So they are happy even if they are not popular playback singers. It is also a profitable project for the companies and for the judges. So everybody is happy. I fail to understand why people have problems with them.
Vandita Mishra: How intimate was the association between the roles you created and Amitabh Bachchan?
Javed Akhtar: When we wrote these three filmsZanjeer,Deewar and Sholayhe was not a successful actor. The roles were cast within six months of each other. Zanjeer released in 1975 but the casting took place in 1973. He was an exceptional actor and realising that,we saw to it that he was cast in the film. But by 1975,he had become so big that we could not pretend that we were unaware of his status. So in Trishul,we knew what role he was going to play. Perhaps we were meeting him half-way. Definitely,knowing that we had that kind of actor was a factor while writing. But Don was written much earlier and originally Dev Anand was going to play the role.
Vandita Mishra: Why did you stop writing scripts? Do you consider the possibility of writing scripts again?
Javed Akhtar: I can wax eloquent about this but writing a script is much more hard work than writing lyrics. Obviously,you need talent for writing lyrics but if you have a grasp over the tune,it is an easier,cushier job. But now,I do feel that I ought to write a script. As a matter of fact,I have finished a screenplaynot the dialogues but the scenario is complete. All I can say is that my style is not for the multiplexes.
Irena Akbar: Whenever there is a Muslim-related matter,most journalists turn to Shabana Azmi and you for quotes because you come forward and talk about issues facing Muslims. Do you think actors who are Muslim should come forward to voice their opinions more often on such issues?
Javed Akhtar: It is very easy for me to say that,of course,they should. But the fact is that they are very vulnerable people. When a star speaks,he feels scared that this message will reach everybody. This actor is responsible to a producer,his picture will release in different cities,theatres across the country. In the past,films of big stars have not been released in certain states. That discourages them from getting into controversial issues. You can talk about AIDSthat is not controversial. But the moment you talk of things which challenge the power structure,its tricky. Now there are some people who do not care,like Shabana,but you cannot ask people to become martyrs,it is up to them.
Vandita Mishra: Do you feel that being an activist can sometimes come in the way? For instance,the incident that involved your having a cake in the shape of a slum for Shabana Azmis birthday created a controversy.
Javed Akhtar: I dont care. If people dont have a sense of humour,that is not my responsibility. Being a person of principles does not mean you should become a bore. Shabana is such a committed worker as far as slums are concerned. She is a fanatic about them. So when it was her 60th birthday,I ordered a cake that had jhoparpattis and a dirty open drain with chocolate sauce. It was a harmless joke. Over that,there were so many tweets saying I was making fun of the slum dwellers.
Somya Lakhani: There was a time when there was art cinema and there was commercial cinema. But for young people now,there is no art cinema. What do you think of the trend?
Javed Akhtar: Ideally,in a society,all kinds of films should be viable and patronised by different sections of society. It is so unfortunate that films which were really serious have been eliminated. I think it will take a generation or two to develop the kind of aesthetics and intelligence we need for serious cinema.
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