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Javed Akhtar (), (born 17 January 1945) is a
poet,
lyricist and
scriptwriter from
India. Some of his most successful work was done in the late 1970s and 1980s with
Salim Khan as half of the script-writing duo credited as
Salim-Javed. Akhtar continues to be a prominent figure in
Bollywood and is one of the most popular and sought-after lyricists.
Early life
He was born as
Jadoo Akhtar in
Gwalior State (now
Gwalior,
Madhya Pradesh) to
Jan Nisar Akhtar, a Bollywood film songwriter and Urdu poet, and singer Safia Akhtar, a teacher and writer. His original name was Jadoo, taken from a line in a poem written by his father:
"Lamba, lamba kisi jadoo ka fasana hoga". He was given an official name of Javed since it was the closest to the word
jadoo. His lineage can be traced back to seven generations of writers. The Urdu poet
Majaz was his maternal uncle and the works of his grandfather,
Muztar Khairabadi, are looked upon as a milestone in Urdu poetry. By him, he is also connected to
Maulana Fazl-e-Haq Khairabadi, the
philosopher,
poet,
religious scholar who was one of the main figures of the
Indian Rebellion of 1857, and who edited the first works of
Ghalib. Akhtar has one sibling; his younger brother is U.S.-based Indian psychoanalyst
Salman Akhtar.
After his birth, his parents moved to
Lucknow,
Uttar Pradesh, and later to
Aligarh. Young Javed Akhtar lost his mother at a young age and his...
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