Written by Javed Akhtar and headlined by Amitabh Bachchan and Shashi Kapoor, ‘Deewaar’ even after 5 decades stands as one of the cinematic gems of the Indian entertainment industry. The movie showed us the power of writing, gave Bollywood its very own ‘angry young man’, and much more. Thus, as the movie recently celebrated its 50th anniversary, we connected with Javed Akhtar who took us down memory lane, shared anecdotes, and set a few things straight regarding the casting.
Here are the excerpts from the interview:
50 years of one of Salim-Javed’s best works. Where do you place it in your dazzling repertoire?
“The dazzling repertoire is not for me to judge. Yeh sab retro-tareef beqar ki baatein hai. We(Salim-Javed) did what we did back then when we were younger different people. To praise ourselves for the impact that ‘Deewaar’ made in 1975, and to take credit for it would be very unfair and embarrassing. It is like parents praising their own children. We’ve now….”
Evolved?
“Again, a self-congratulatory word. It suggests that I have become a better person over the years, and I am not sure of that. No, I’ve now moved on. I am not the person now that I was when I wrote ‘Deewaar’ with Salim Khan.”
Most of your fans consider it to be one of your finest works, if not ‘the finest.’
“Mehnat toh humne apne saare scripts pe kiye (we worked hard on all our scripts), even the ones that didn’t work like ‘Imaan Dharam,’ ‘Aakhri Dao’ and ‘Shaan’. If ‘Deewaar’ and ‘Sholay’ worked better than ‘Aaakhri Dao’ in 1975, it is not necessarily because they deserved to. Many factors went into making ‘Deewaar’ the film it was.”
What about the ‘Vijay’ factor? Would you say the Angry Young Man persona that you and Salim Saab created for Amitabh Bachchan, went a long way in making him the mega-star that he was?
“I would like to correct you. We didn’t create the Angry Young Man persona for Amitabh Bachchan. We created the Vijay persona and then Amitabh Bachchan fitted into it.”
Was Rajesh Khanna the first choice for ‘Deewaar’?
“He was not the first choice. He was signed up with Gulshan Rai the producer of ‘Deewaar’ for a film. At that time there was no ‘Deewaar’ in the picture. When the producer offered to have Rajesh Khanna in ‘Deewaar’ we(Salim Khana and Javed Akhtar) refused point blank. By then, ‘Zanjeer’ was almost complete and we knew Amitabh Bachchan’s potential. We wanted no other actor except Amitabh Bachchan for ‘Deewaar.’ Rajesh Khanna with a romantic musical image would not have been right.”
Did you fight to have Amitabh Bachchan in ‘Deewaar’?
“Nothing so dramatic. Gulshan Raiji saw our point of view and immediately agreed.”
Javed Saab, be as modest as you like. But in 1975 you and Salim Saab created history twice over with ‘Deewaar’ and ‘Sholay’?
“I admit that 1975 was a turning point for us. ‘Deewaar’ and ‘Sholay’ were released within seven months of one another. In 1978 we had ‘Don’ and ‘Trishul’ on two consecutive Fridays.”
