Bollywood Lyricist and Screenwriter Javed Akhtar Born poets Jan Nisar Akhtar and Safiya Siraj-ul Haq. But his mother died when he was very young, and he didn’t have a good relationship with his stepmother, so he didn’t live with his father. In a recent interview with the BBC, Javed Akhtar spoke about his troubled relationship with his late father.
He said that while his father was a great poet, he failed at parenting. He said: “Sometimes, children complain about their father. But one person can’t be everything. He was a poet, and generally a man of his stature becomes irresponsible in other areas of life. So, that’s about him. He’s a good poet, but he fails in other roles.”
The veteran lyricist only spent 2-3 years of his childhood with his parents and siblings. After his mother died, he was raised by his maternal grandparents. Javid also shared that after his mother passed away, his father remarried. “A few years after my mother passed away, Akhtar saab (referring to his father) got married again, which was a matter of course because he was young and it was difficult to live alone,” he shared.
However, Javed’s relationship with his stepmother is not good. “I had a bad relationship with my stepmother, so we couldn’t live together. When I moved to Mumbai, even then I didn’t live with my father. I used to visit him at his house, like other visitors ,” the lyricist shared.
Javed Akhtar and his former writing partner Salim Khan created popular villains such as Gabal in “Shorai” and Mr. India in “Mr. Mogambo. Recently, he published a new book called “Talking About Life”. The lyricist is married to actor Shabana Azmi and is the father of filmmakers Farhan Akhtar and Zoya Akhtar.