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Poets Javed Akhtar, Irshad Kamil wow audience at Chitkara Lit Fest
Akhtar also spoke about the book ‘Jadunama’, written on his life, saying it had gone into a second edition in a month
It was the day of the poets at the Chitkara Lit Fest, with Javed Akhtar holding forth on his long and splendid career as a multi-talented writer deft at scripting, dialogues, lyrics and poetry of course. In a lively discussion, he talked about his memorable dialogues in the blockbuster ‘Sholay’ made some 48 years ago.
On his hit song ‘Ek ladki ko dekha toh aisa laga’, Akhtar said he couldn’t quite think of a song, but with music director RD Burman pressing on a deadline, he gave it the first line and then just added similes. “This worked and the song proved to be a huge success”.
Akhtar also spoke about the book ‘Jadunama’, written on his life, saying it had gone into a second edition in a month.
Irshad Kamil, the Malerkotla boy who studied in the department of Hindi at Panjab University, meanwhile, spoke about his journey and the art of writing lyrics. A special mention was made of the song for which he took a line from Punjabi poet Shiv Kumar Batalvi’s ‘Ajj din charhea tere rang varga’ after taking permission from the poet’s wife.
Another star attraction was the celebrated singer Usha Uthup who held the audience in splits while speaking of breaking stereotypes. Sudip Sen also held a poetry reading session at the event.
During a session on conflict literature, Khushwant Singh spoke of his novel ‘The Opium Toffee to Laxmi Dhaul’, stressing on the need to not write such novels too close to the events, but with the perspective of time.
