THE GOLDEN AGE OF DUO SALIM-JAVED

‘Angry Young Men’ is a behind-thescenes exploration of the phenomenon of the famed screenwriter duo

- KOMAL PANCHAMATIA

Scriptwriter Salim Khan would often tell Zoya Akhtar stories from her childhood and how he and her father, Javed Akhtar, came up with the script for some of their most iconic movies whenever she bumped into him during their morning walk. And that’s how the idea for ‘Angry Young Men’ was born.

The documentary, which Zoya has produced with brother Farhan Akhtar and Salim Khan’s son Salman Khan, is a behindthe-scenes exploration of the phenomenon that Salim-Javed, as they came to be known in the 1970s and 1980s when their name alone on a script was considered a guarantee of success.

“Salim uncle walks on the ‘Bandstand’ and I bumped into him because I was going for a walk. Sometimes, we just hang around, if he is sitting for a breather, I would just go and chill with him. He would tell me stories about how they wrote scripts, about my childhood and things that I don’t remember. I was like, ‘We need to put this on paper’,” Zoya told PTI in an interview.

One day, she and her co-producer Reema Kagti approached Salim Khan during one of his walks to seek his permission for the documentary.

“We were like ‘We want to do this documentary, so will you do it?’ He said, ‘Yes, I’ll do it’. Then we spoke to my dad and he was like, ‘Sure! If he will do it, then I’ll do it’. I called Alvira (Salim Khan’s daughter) and met Salma (Salim Khan’s wife) aunty and she gave her blessings, then Farhan and I went and met Salman and he came on board.”

Her father, Zoya said, was always open to the idea of a documentary provided his former writing partner was willing to participate.

“He was like, ‘Get back to me when it happens’,” she said, recalling how she wanted to make it in 2018, a ‘very hectic year’ for her when she was already working on “Gully Boy”, “Lust Stories” and the series “Made in Heaven”.