Javed Akhtar

Javed Akhtar, born 17 January 1945 in Gwalior, is one of the most celebrated Urdu poets, lyricists and screenwriters in India. He comes from a distinguished literary family: his father Jan Nisar Akhtar and grandfather Muztar Khairabadi were both noted poets. He was honoured with the Padma Shri in 1999 and the Padma Bhushan in 2007, and has won five National Film Awards.

Akhtar first rose to fame as one half of the screenwriting duo Salim-Javed, whose films Zanjeer, Deewaar and Sholay reshaped Hindi cinema and created its 'angry young man'. He then became one of its most acclaimed lyricists, with more than a thousand songs, and a leading contemporary Urdu poet, publishing collections including Tarkash and the Sahitya-Akademi-winning Lava. He remains a headline presence at mushairas and literary festivals, from the Shankar-Shad Mushaira to Jashn-e-Rekhta.

Akhtar writes in a clear, muscular Urdu with a strong social conscience, equally at home in the intimate ghazal and the rousing nazm. On the mushaira stage he is a commanding reciter whose couplets on justice, reason and love are widely quoted. As half of the Salim-Javed screenwriting partnership he reshaped Hindi cinema's storytelling, and as a lyricist he brought literary craft and plain-spoken emotion to hundreds of songs, always insisting that popular writing could carry genuine poetic and moral weight.