Iconic lyricist Javed Akhtar’s most personal tell-all interview. What shaped him I Shoma Chaudhury

A never before insight into the making of #JavedAkhtar’s mind.
From his legendary partnership with #SalimKhan & why they broke up. His extraordinary mother & his estranged father. His alcoholism & his divorce. His poetry & his poverty. His anger & his wit. His atheism & his self-belief.
Iconic lyricist, scriptwriter and poet, Javed Akhtar opens up for the first time about everything that shaped him. And his rocky road to stardom.
#ENQUIRY. With #ShomaChaudhury
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[@KrishnaPillalamarri]

Around 34:00, he says we should not make a big deal of our hardships (as if only we 'suffered'), wear them like medals, ... Very thought provoking. A very humble thought.

[@blossom7664]

I think this was directed to Kangana

[@azharuddinsaiyed]

Its pure gold. Just for the records, his one couplet brought me out of depression.

[@amitabh4000]

Which one??

[@azharuddinsaiyed]

@@amitabh4000 Title of the poem is "Abhi Kuchh Din Lagenge" I was dealing with betrayal and I heard this couplet Jaha itane masaaib ho jaha itani pareshani Kisi ka bewafaa hona he koi saaniha kya? Bahot maakul he ye baat lekin is Haqeeqat tak Dil e naadan ko laane me abhi kuchh din lagenge.

[@2435VARUN]

@@azharuddinsaiyed Thank you for suggesting this

[@rakeshkotla9714]

​@@azharuddinsaiyed 😢😢😢😮🎉

[@rakeshkotla9714]

R 😂😢

[@kiranchandrakantpatil4280]

After Kunal Kamra tweeted... One of the best interview of Javed Sahab...

[@maazaaju4501]

He has a gift for story telling. Very engrossing.

[@goodwilrv]

Oh my god.. this interview is a damn degree course to life.. how one should live..how one should think in times of failure.. and bad times.!! Your uncanny clarity, uncompromised values and ways are just so so educational Javed Saab. I highly highly admire not only your talent but your way of arguments, your way of self criticism and honesty is just fabulous.

[@kumarabhishek2242]

This is how a interviewer should be....and I don't want to say anything about Javed Akhtar because he is just ❤️

[@shomachaudhury4477]

Thanks very much Abhishek :)

[@sharifaroy5213]

Very interesting. Candid and insightful. Always a pleasure to listen to. Thank you Javed Saab.

[@saurabhsrivastava522]

I can listen to Javed saab for hours...

[@Nzp6959]

Me too

[@maneeshthapa7855]

Welcome to the tribe..😄

[@saurabhsrivastava522]

@Mulayam Singh lol chutiya kahin ka

[@saurabhsrivastava522]

@UCkEzciV-sgQv0KkDQy-PnHQ haan ji bas itni hi haazir jawaabi hai aapki. class 2 level waali. lage raho chutiya ji

[@saurabhsrivastava522]

@Mulayam Singh hahaha. jawaab bhi chutiya waala. Sanghi sab aise hi bina dimaag ke hote hain.

[@kumarnarayana5105]

Thank you Shoma for bringing us Javed Saab again... We all love him no doubt, but also applaud your excellence in the art of interviewing !

[@shomachaudhury4477]

Thank you very much. Really appreciate your compliment...

[@Shankar-Ayala]

Thanks for the detailed interview which was needed post receiving the RD award. Not surprisingly, neither the godi media nor govt has acknowledged his achievement.

[@rajbhushankamble9846]

Javed Saab is one of the few intellectuals in India today.

[@chetanavikaswardha1917]

Must watch full. Very meaningful, thoughtful about many aspects of life in concrete and specifics. Insightful. Amazingly honest and sincere too. Interesting ? Of course, so much beyond limits. Both the interviewer Shoma and Javed Akhtar excel. --- Ashok Bang, Wardha.

[@transcend1078]

Thank you for making this. Thank you so much. 🤝🤝🤝

[@itsinthegamedude1228]

i want this honesty in my life i don’t need anything else

[@keshav3693]

Jawed sahab always Rocks 🔥 We all love him ❤️

[@sabihatanveer8494]

Shoma' Inquesitvity, makes it a worthy watch, a good one

[@pradeepchandra5975]

Outstanding interview .Javed Saab is superr as always.A great storyteller .

[@rohitkataria9274]

Listening to Javed Akhtar is like taking your car for a regular maintenance: resets the misalignments of thoughts and flushes out the humbug that creeps within. Shoma, your eloquence is worth envying!! Thoroughly enjoyed how well the questions were put and then how your follow ups were right on. Thank you !

[@shomachaudhury4477]

Thank you very much Rohit... Javed Saheb was on fire... he's such a wonderful raconteur...

[@jaguaratama]

Intimate is an understatement... this interview shaved off the edges of my heart 🙏🙏🙏

[@shomachaudhury4477]

Yes, even Shabana messaged me to say Javed Saheb was caught in a rare mood...

[@priyathakur7352]

amazing amazing interview

[@astrawar5423]

If you are poor, you can't afford to be boring 🙏🙏

[@umairkamal492]

What a great interview,totally can be a life lesson to anyone,You extracted all the right information from him.Amazing job by you two !!

[@ranziesinghe]

here bcoz of Kamra nice interview

[@nus786]

Gold interview ❤

[@igavik]

Remarkable!

[@sanyam9520]

Best thank u

[@Dr.SandeshRathod]

Why so less subscriber on a channel with such a quality interview

[@Thekyurawcity]

Because it takes time

[@shashidhar264]

Bcoz the Indian youth is busy somewhere else.💁‍♂

[@shomachaudhury4477]

Thanks Sandesh :) I feel the same :)) Do help spread the word ...

[@mtaj]

Bahan aap Shashi Tharoor ke fan ho kya, half of the words in the intro went above my head.

[@shyamamur9322]

One of the best interviews conducted well done Shoma Chaudhury

[@shomachaudhury4477]

Thank you Shyam...

[@smk2SOA]

Akanda Bharatiya's Tiny list of Millions of Wisemen n Stalwarts n Truly Genuine Gyana people are :- Buddha, Chanukya (Guru of our Nation who coin it), Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, Sambaji Maharaj, Namdev,, Rana Pratap, etc. Gurus like Adi Shankara Charya, Madhavacharya, Ramanujacharya, Vidyaranya, Guru Ragavendra, Basavanna, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Tukaram, TulasiDas, Vallabhacharya, Guru Nanak, Guru Govind, M Babaji, Lahari Mahasaya, Sri Yukteswar, Yogananada, Ramana Maharshi, YogaSwami, Bholanath Chattopadhaya n RamaKrishna Paramahamsa, Vivekananda, Juddi KrishnaMurthy, Rajaneesh, Mahesh Yogi, SiddaGanga Shivakumara Swami, Brahmananda Saraswati, Dayananda Saraswati, Shiradi n Sathya Sai Baba, Mata Amritanandamayi, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada Swamy, n Osho, Sadhguru, Sri Sri RaviShankar, n other many Guru /Yogis Stalwarts like Dr. Vishweshwaraiah, Bose (Boson effect), CV Raman, Ramanujam, Dr. AMBEDKAR, Dr. Rajendra Prasad, Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, APJ Abdul Kalam, R.Tagore, VeerSavarkar, MS SubbaLakshmi n Latha Mangeshkar, RukminiDevi Arundale, AnnaHazarre, Etc. Few Political Leaders are also in the list as follows. SubashChandra Bose, Lal B Shastri, V.Patel, JP Narayan, PVN Rao, Atal B Vajapayee, Modi, Subramaniam Swamy, etc etc. Of all the political list, last political person is Mahatma Gandhi (Most hyped lucky guy in this list) , Etc.. We need another 100 people to make Bharat as VishwaGuru.

[@moksh8067]

Can someone qoute 25:35 in Persian?

[@er.vineetsharma4874]

Amazing

[@abhisekdevgoswami1940]

Great line what u conclude from situation adversity is experience not the situation or adversity

[@arghadeb9180]

Thank you for the interview

[@noorjahan1793]

It was amazing ❤️ Well done sister👍

[@dullhorse9251]

RELIGION IS THE OPIUM OF MANKIND AND WOMANKIND , but its the best business , the oldest business . if god is north then religion is south. .........but most humanity is confused about god, so they fear god , so they buy themselves a sudogod.... which is religion.

[@KrishnaPillalamarri]

Sounds 'logical', 'reasonable', 'modern' and all that sort of thing. Let's say perhaps Nehru favored this approach, Gandhi was quite religious, we (I mean, I myself) don't know much about Sardar's views on this - which of these would you say is 'confused'? It is the height of arrogance to cast all people who believe in religion as 'deficient or incapable of thinking'. This applies to Javed Akhtar himself, who cavalierly tosses this appellation on people of faith.

[@fazailahemed1023]

Excellent interview. Credit must go to the host

[@shomachaudhury4477]

Thank you Fazail... :)

[@alainmaitre2069]

Love Shoma

[@sabihatanveer8494]

He's saying pakeeza and the subtitles read Pakistan, great work by who ever should be credited with this spellbinding, work of typing, back to school pronto is what comes to mind

[@shomachaudhury4477]

That's auto generated sub titles, not manually done ...

[@WOLVERINE_69]

aadhe viewer to language ke KARAN kam ho jate hai

[@scientificnirvana1009]

Amazing tell all by Javed sahib!

[@astrawar5423]

A poor man joke has to be very really funny🙏🙏

[@digipak07]

Intellectual no doubt but sorry to say many stories seems like made up. Fascinating stories though. I am fascinated by communism too but the way he mentions it is funny. Whether you have been a communist or not, you can still feel for down trodden and weaker section. It is quite funny like he feels it is only due to communism he feels like that. Also it is funny that he gets furious over mis-pronunciation of the Urdu words but never taught both of his kids to write and read Urdu.

[@drsauravsolunke7798]

Bro he put a Urdu teacher for his children's . He mentioned that incident in dekhta interview.Kindly Do some research before putting thoughts.

[@digipak07]

@@drsauravsolunke7798 You need some research too sir. I saw that on “Rekhta” ( not “Dekhta”) and that is not a satisfactory answer. Thank you for your uncalled for suggestion

[@sujithkumar2041]

Very good IV Shoma. Congratulations!

[@shomachaudhury4477]

Thank you Sujith...

[@narenderaggarwal9882]

First in India we have limited intellectuals.. and there too journalists have limited questions.. For example the story of his nani... now it feels like she was my nani also... Shoma please try to broaden the range of inquiries so that eveyone can benefit... thank you.

[@abhisekdevgoswami1940]

Great interview I can hear him hrs

[@abhinavkhare9060]

firstly it was a great interview but please don't put that up ahead thing

[@munirvahora9291]

Kamra 🙏

[@shreshtha182]

❤

[@jaguaratama]

Inspired instagram posts: @layogic

[@zindagi_uncut]

An atom bomb had killed thousands of people. it doesn't mean atomic energy is wrong or evil...it was simply in the wrong hands. same goes with religion. unfortunately, Javed Saab believed someone else's version of religion if he himself searched without any preconceived notions. I am sure his views will be totally different.

[@pareshray842]

Wher is my dignity and space as a non minority or bc or obc ???

[@humanistcharvaka982]

50:30

[@83abhinavnigam]

Kaash

[@CreativeExplorer517]

jalde bol sale panvel jana hai

[@smk2SOA]

Clarity of understanding which he lack, which is clearly visible in his talks. Dear Javed , you need to read some books of Vivekananda Yogananda, Osho, Sadhguru Sri sri RaviShankar etc . Vivekanandas books. Dear Javed, you wont understand the real values wisdom. You are not an inquisitive person n Simply wont understand the values of Vivekananda books . That is why clarity is more important than the confidence. You need to have Clarity with Inquisitive nature. Both nature which you lack will never have understanding in the Vivekananda books. It is clearly visible with your talks.

[@smk2SOA]

Your talks are insignificant.

[@amarjitsingh5153]

This man is sick

[@johnabram4159]

Why? Why do you think so?

[@kuchbhikaho2121]

I can understand his rational and atheist thing, but if mother was atheist why she was keeping Krishna idol, it means she was not atheist but inclined towards Hindu mythology which I am not having problem, everyone has choice to follow the religion he or she like, but then no point of saying I am atheist

[@NileshKumar-nr2vj]

Many atheist people keep idols just as a showpiece. Specially Buddha statue is everywhere to be find

[@KrishnaPillalamarri]

I know a lot of people who consider Buddha as an atheist!

[@NileshKumar-nr2vj]

@@KrishnaPillalamarri Buddha was agnostic. Actually he was not interested in God some divine creators. But he is prayed like s God

[@UMESHPILANIA]

46:40 that belief is provided to some people by the religion that they follow, Yes, that faith, How can you oppose that??

[@zxcthug]

"When I met javed sahab last time, he was telling me that some Guru told him not to use his mind, I do not know which Guru said this but one thing is clear, the advice has been taken seriously !"

[@sayanadak-575]

That was must be dhongi sadhguru!!

[@zxcthug]

@@sayanadak-575 no doubt you're illiterate 👍

[@sayanadak-575]

@@zxcthug I am feeling so blessed that I have the kind of illiteracy which makes me logical and you have the kind of litracy which forcing you to believe on that donghi guru!! Thanks for letting me know how illiterate I am!!!

[@zxcthug]

@@sayanadak-575 So you're illiterate and funny ! Good 👍

[@sayanadak-575]

@@zxcthug Now I know why our country has not yet become a superpower!!!

[@CreativeExplorer517]

educated gawar insan honge aisa sach suna tha jab aise lug ko dekhta ho. tu sach lagne laga hai

[@abhishek758]

Bkwas all set questions for well prepared ans

[@smk2SOA]

Dear Javed , you need to read some books of Vivekananda Yogananda, Osho, Sadhguru Sri sri RaviShankar etc . Vivekanandas books. Dear Javed, you wont understand the real values wisdom. You are not an inquisitive person n Simply wont understand the values of Vivekananda books . That is why clarity is more important than the confidence. You need to have Clarity with Inquisitive nature. Both nature which you lack will never have understanding in the Vivekananda books. It is clearly visible with your talks.

[@NickManeck]

Shoma, Focus more on asking open ended questions. Asking guests to answer either / or questions limits the quality of the interview. Be brief and open ended.

[@smk2SOA]

HE thinks he is best. Actually he is too much over confidence on his views. N his knowledge. This is not good. Clarity is more important than confidence which he lacks.

[@sayanadak-575]

I think you are lacking your brain!!!

[@smk2SOA]

@@sayanadak-575 what do know about Wisdom n Gyan. How many years of experience do you have .

[@sayanadak-575]

What kind of wisdom are you talking about??? It is like you have a wealth of wisdom then share some wisdom with people and make their life better!!

[@smk2SOA]

@@sayanadak-575 Read books of these people Vivekananda, Sadhguru n Osho n Sri sri RaviShankar n other thousands people

[@sayanadak-575]

@@smk2SOA I have read swami vivekananda's book and his philosophy is to do good for human and I respect that. Other 3 donghi baba's book I don't want to read!!!

[@surendralodhi1820]

Javed ge keyona aap ke kekhlap kort me kes ho app ne rajpot pandito bniyo dlet.varg ladane wali store film banai

[@gauravdwivedi8856]

Salim khan was more talented and i find him more sensible than him too..Salim khan never gave so much interview and never do show off..javed akhtar is average artist without salim khan

[@dinazaman7418]

Just go through his body of work after leaving his partnership with Salim Khan

[@gauravdwivedi8856]

@@dinazaman7418 Javed akhtar always was a poet, he learnt screenplay writing from Salim khan..after the separation actually both Salim and javed akhtar work was relatively weak compare to their previous work together..guess what javed akhtar wrote alone world famous super flop film rup ki rani choro ka raja

[@dinazaman7418]

@@gauravdwivedi8856 LOL!!! even a quick wikipedia search was enough to know how many screenplays JA wrote alone, apart from roop ki rani choro ka raja. But I guess ignorance too has its own bliss. Peace.

[@gauravdwivedi8856]

@@dinazaman7418 this is the fact both writer duo delivered best when they were together.. Salim khan solo wrote Naam & javed wrote betab, sagar, lakshya but all these film are not good as deewar, sholay, zanjeer..u better do wikipedia, u will find javed bhai other bad movie as well.. Ignorance is bliss for you lady don't advise others..o stree kal aana..hehehe

[@dinazaman7418]

@@gauravdwivedi8856 Thanks. laughed a lot. you started with praising Salim over Javed and ended with the opinion that both were better together than alone. a lot of people value cheap sarcasm over consistent opinions, facts, truth, and intelligence. But I guess it's ok. I am sure we both are two underachievers advocating for two overachievers, who don't need us. So we can stop here.

[@iodides]

why is this interview in english? if this can be classed as english. your fame is due to urdu why cant you stick to it??? people who is watching you are not interested in english.

[@kriminalyrikal]

A failed attempt at trying to win our hearts after a disastrous event where she had an unconscious bias towards Javed when she played a moderator’s role where she only wanted to listen to wanna be Osho.

[@AzharKaz]

Ye ‘be-imaan’ insaan, Javed Akhtar, kai kai ‘imaan-daron’ se zyada imaandaar hai.....

[@noorjahan1793]

It was amazing ❤️ Well done sister👍

[@zxcthug]

"When I met javed sahab last time, he was telling me that some Guru told him not to use his mind, I do not know which Guru said this but one thing is clear, the advice has been taken seriously !"

[@sayanadak-575]

That was must be dhongi sadhguru!!

[@kuchbhikaho2121]

I can understand his rational and atheist thing, but if mother was atheist why she was keeping Krishna idol, it means she was not atheist but inclined towards Hindu mythology which I am not having problem, everyone has choice to follow the religion he or she like, but then no point of saying I am atheist

[@pranabdas7356]

He and his mother are two different person. How an act of his mother making him a theist!!?

[@sanjeevprasad1748]

In Awadh, Krishna is not only God but also a cultural figure. If you study, Raskhan as well as Sufi poets have used Krishna / Ram as name of the Supreme being. Kabir who was a muslim Julaha by caste has always used Ram for GOD (nirgun Ram) in all his poems. So, this was not new and only post 1930s the communal environment has changed significantly where the concept of Hindu Muslim as 2 distinct and separate nation concept was highlighted. If you come to West Bengal, Durga Puja remains a community festival irrespective of religion. Tagore was Brahmo Samaji, non-idol worshipper but Shantiniketan use to celebrate Sharadotsav, durga puja period. Before 80s, there use to be marriages between hindu and sikh and many hindus use to giive first son as sikh. Caste was much more rigid identity vis a vis religion in India. There was always a fluidity in religious identity in India.

[@riyazahmed208]

@@pranabdas7356 true. Javed had a mind of his own. Neither did he follow his mother. Neither did he follow his father. He followed his own light.His own individual thinking.