Story, Screenplay and Dialogues by Salim-Javed. This was a prominent credit on the silver screen in the Hindi Film world that changed the fate of movie making. It was great to see a credit in Farhan Akhtar’s ‘Don’…Adapted from the original screenplay by Salim-Javed. It’s time to talk about this deadly-duo who re-wrote the art of storytelling in Hindi films. At many an occasion they were more powerful than the director. And they charged more money than the big stars of their films.

If a film poster carried the name Salim-Javed, it was assumed that the film is going to be a silver jubilee at least. In fact the practice of putting the name of the story writers on the posters was started by them. In an era of limited television appeal, a film’s poster was the biggest advertisement for a film in those days. Although they had a gap of ten years between them (Salim Khan is ten years elder to Javed Akhtar) their team is what the folklores are made of.

They started off with an obscure film ‘Sarhadi Lootera’ where Salim Khan acted while Javed wrote the dialogues. Once the team was formed, roles were well defined as well. While Salim Khan was good with carving plots of a story, Javed was excellent with dialogues. Their filmography during the 1970s reads the biggest hits of Hindi cinema like ‘Haathi Mera Saathi’, ‘Seeta Aur Geeta’, ‘Zanjeer’, ‘Sholay’, ‘Deewar’, ‘Trishul’ and ‘Don’ to name a few.

They parted ways in the early 1980s due to ego hassles and their individual attempts didn’t bear the same fruits. While Salim Khan achieved a degree of success with Sanjay Dutt’s ‘Naam’, Javed Akhtar struck gold with ‘Betaab’. But apart from that they couldn’t do much of recognition. Today, Javed Akhtar is a prominent lyricist and his son Farhan Akhtar is one of the most promising directors we have today. Salim Khan’s son Salman Khan is one of the biggest superstars of Indian cinema.

IndiaGlitz salutes the work done by Salim-Javed. Do let us know the state of Hindi cinema if these two greats decide to join hands once again today.