Sallu still 'akhdu' with Akhtar!

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Kavita Gupta

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Posted: 18 years ago

Sallu still 'akhdu' with Akhtar!
By: Vickey Lalwani
January 6, 2007

Salman Khan

Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar were the brilliant writer duo that dazzled in the '70s and later parted ways at the peak of their careers.

While they may be cordial to each other in public today, old wounds still haven't healed.

Even though Javed's son Farhan extended the olive branch by personally inviting Salim to the premiere of Don (originally scripted by Salim-Javed), Salim's son Salman still nurses a grudge against Javed.

Recently, Salman refused to shoot for a promotional video to be aired at IFFI called Bharat ke cinema ki jayjaykaar, only because Javed Akhtar had penned its lyrics.

Line 'maro'ing

Salman arrived at the shoot at Filmalaya Studios in Andheri but immediately called for pack-up when he learnt about Akhtar's involvement.

When production officials reasoned with him and coaxed him to oblige, Salman said that he found the lyrics "very funny".

Javed Akhtar

Raman Raheja of the Delhi-based Brilliant Entertainment (the man behind the video) says, "When we approached Salman for the video, he agreed and even came for the shoot but left without letting the cameras roll.

His problem was that Javed Akhtar had written the lyrics. He later voiced his disapproval about the lyrics too. We think the lyrics were beautiful."

Raheja denies that Salman was kept in the dark about Javed Akhtar's involvement. "We were very clear from day one that Javed had written the song.

We were coordinating with Ajay Chhabria and Sohail Khan, who were part of the invitation video at IFFI (which was shot earlier). We had even given a brief to Salman's secretary. We don't know why it wasn't conveyed to him or exactly what transpired at Salman's end."

In the crossfire

Our well-informed source says that despite their public faade, there is no reconciliation between the Khans and Akhtars. "I was there at the Eid party at Salman's house and Farhan was also present.

It was good to see Farhan mingling with the Khan family. One thought that the Khans and Akhtars had finally dissolved their differences."

But that seems far from the truth as is evident from Salman's behaviour. The video also features Dia Mirza, Ritesh Deshmukh and Priyanka Chopra, among many others.

One hears that initially Salman was unhappy that Bipasha Basu would also be part of the video. The actress seems to have been caught in the crossfire in the ongoing war between Salman and her boyfriend John Abraham.

But he didn't make an issue of it after the makers informed him that Bipasha didn't have the dates for the shoot.

Says Raheja, "We had approached Bipasha but she expressed helplessness since she was busy on the dates when we wanted her.

Salman had even asked for a list of all the stars that were doing the video, so he definitely knew that Bipasha was not doing it. Salman had only one problem — Javed Akhtar."

We tried contacting Akhtar, but he was unavailable for comment.

Salim-Javed in Baghban!

The last time Salim and Javed joined hands was for Boney Kapoor's Mr India — a script originally written for the Big B.

More recently, the two writers came together, albeit unwittingly, to give their respective contributions to Ravi Chopra's Baghban.

Though Javed wasn't the writer of the film, he was specially called in to pen Amitabh Bachchan's emotional speech in the climax.

When Salman heard about this, he too made papa Salim write his part of the poignant monologue that was crucial to the climax.

Now this is what we call competition!