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javed
siddiqui
This writer is a rare treasure
Writing just comes to some. Some call it inspiration, some call
it God’s special gift granted to just a few men and women.
Some can just write, some can write with that rare touch of genius,
that rare touch of class. Some can write to make the world a better
place, a world where human beings still exist with the best values,
all the great human values which have made the world what it is.
Writers like Javed Siddiqui, amazingly gifted, gifted abundantly,
gifted to give the ordinary the most extraordinary, gifted to gift
mankind with the kind of light that can dispel the forces of darkness
that tries to threaten the world. I am sure Javed Siddiqui is one
of those gifted writers, writers who know what good writing is,
writers who know what good writing can do, writers who know that
writing comes to him as something very precious which he alone can
write and no one can dare to, easily.
Javed, originally from Rampur in UP "saw" writing coming
to him when he was a very little boy. Things like essays, poems
and little plays just came to him in a state of consistent inspiration
while other boys his age played with kites, balloons and tops. He
was a writer who was also a very ardent reader, which is something
he still feels is something that made him a "reasonably good
writer" (he is being too modest, I feel).
Javed got his first job in Mumbai in an Urdu newspaper, a big-time
paper which ironically could hardly pay its staffers, most of them
talented, the kind of salary they should have received. But Javed
had to make a living. He had a family. He had to look after them.
He kept going, punching his pen till one day something unexpected
happened. Satyajit Ray decided to make his first film in Hindi,
Shatranj Ke Khiladi. He desperately needed a writer who could help
him in his Hindi. Ray consulted a writer-friend Shama Zaidi, who
was too busy and had to miss an opportunity to work for a man like
Ray, the internationally known genius of an Indian filmmaker known
all over the world. Shama, however, had something more important
to write on and so thought of her friend Javed Siddiqui. She talked
to him. She knew his treasure of literature. She inspired him, till
she almost forced him to join Ray in his writing department. Javed
knew it was not going to be a very easy job working with a colossus
like Ray but something within him told him to take up the challenge
because a challenge like this came but just once in a way. He started
work with Ray and within no time Ray found him to be exactly what
Shama told him, good, versatile. He was a good writer, a writer
with ideas, a writer with a powerful command over the language and
above all a writer who knew all about the history of life. Javed
gave Ray just the quality he required to bring a story, a very intense
and inspiring story from history, alive.
Javed’s writing in Shatranj Ke Khiladi, his dialogue, soon
made its mark all over. Filmmaker FC Mehra and his sons Umesh and
Rajiv were the first to ask him to come and join him as a writer.
His talent spread still more further and soon Javed Akhtar was known
as one of the most wanted writers and within no time the writer
who wrote for a paltry salary in a dingy newspaper office was writing
big films for big filmmakers like Yash Chopra, Subhash Ghai and
a number of other middle-of-the-road order filmmakers. He made money.
He bought an apartment. He had cars. He lived a life to be envied.
These were things that he had never expected when he was a writer
in that dingy newspaper office. Javed’s command over writing
was appreciated, applauded, awarded. He could write for anyone from
Mehmood to Satyajit Ray.
"I don’t remember how and when I developed the art of
writing. I didn’t even know that writing could give you a good
living. I used to write in a room in a Housing Board colony once.
I now write in my own airconditioned office and have my own staff,"
Javed says. The industry has now accepted Javed as one of the most
industrious, inspired and intense writers and is in demand to write
more films that he can handle, or mishandle.
Talking about Javed’s talent reminds me of his outstanding
talent as a playwright. He has done several plays in the past but
the four plays that he has written in the last three years, Tumhari
Amrita with Farouque Shaikh and Shabana Azmi, Salgirah with Anupam
Kher and Kiron Kher, Sham Rang with Sachin Khedekar and Swaroop
Sampat and the latest, Begum Jaan, with Nadira Babbar and her daughter
Juhi Babbar playing key roles have been outstanding. And, naturally,
most of the credit goes to the brilliant writing of Javed Siddiqui.
The days on which these plays are shown at any theatre in Mumbai
or in theatres outside Mumbai speak volumes for his talent, I repeat
the rare talent of this writer who I have the privilege of knowing
very closely in thoughts, words and deeds.
Ali
Peter John
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