Javed Akhtar Birthday: When the writer brought an entire flower shop for wife Shabana Azmi
Renowned lyricist, poet and writer, Javed Akhtar celebrates his 77th birthday on Monday, January 17. On his birthday, here is a look at the love story of him and actor Shabana Azmi.
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Renowned lyricist, writer and poet of Bollywood, Javed Akhtar has turned 77. As he celebrates his birthday, we bring you a tale that shows that he is not a romantic with just his choice of words but also at heart.
Javed Akhtar was born in Gwalior (present-day Madhya Pradesh) in the year 1945. Similar to his father Jan Nisar Khan and grandfather Muzhtar Khairabadi, Javed Akhtar also grew up to follow in their footsteps.
Both his father and grandfather were renowned poets in their times. And so is Javed Akhtar, who is known for the beautiful weaves of words he presents in every poetry or song he writes.
Javed Akhtar’s famous partnership with Salman Khan’s father Salim Khan has given many gems to the industry. Their ‘Jodi’ rightfully went on to become one of the best writer-duos of all time. From films such as ‘Adhikaar’ and ‘Andaaz’ to the cult classic ‘Sholay’, the Salim-Javed pair went on to become the best screenplay writers of the industry and to also achieve star status.
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Javed Akhtar has been donned with several accolades including five National Film Awards, eight Filmfare Awards, the prestigious Padma Shri, Padma Bhushan and Sahitya Akademi Award.
It was in the year 1972 when Javed Akhtar married his first wife Honey Irani. He has two children with him – Zoya Akhtar and Farhan Akhtar. Javed and Honey’s marriage was a love story that began at the sets of 'Seeta Aur Geeta' where Honey Irani appeared as a supporting actor.
But Javed Akhtar’s love marriage was rather short-lived as while Honey Irani was taking care of home and Javed was busy with his work, rumours about the latter’s love interest in his colleague, Shabana Azmi, started doing rounds.
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Soon, the talks about their affair were out with Shabana Azmi’s family having objections with Javed Akhtar being a married man. According to reports, when Honey Irani found out about their relationship, she asked him to leave and be with Azmi, while they both made sure that their fights were kept away from their two children, reportedly. It was after six years of their separation that Javed and Honey got their divorce.
And soon after his divorce from Honey Irani, Javed Akhtar got married to Shabana Azmi. In one of the old interviews, Azmi had once spoken about how Javed Akhtar landed up buying an entire shop of a florist for her. It happened so that once when they were travelling together, Azmi came across a flower shop and said how he loved the flowers in there. The next thing that Akhtar did was to buy all the flowers kept inside the florist’s shop and stuffed their flat with those as a present to Azmi.
This one incident shows that Javed Akhtar has not been a romantic only with the dialogues and poetry that he has penned over all these years, but he proved o be a romantic in real life too.
