Veteran actor Shabana Azmi took to social media on Sunday to celebrate this day when 62 years ago her husband and veteran screenwriter, lyricist, and poet Javed Akhtar came to Mumbai. Akhtar left his home in Gwalior, Uttar Pradesh, took a train and landed at the Mumbai Central station on October 4, 1964.
Azmi shared a picture of a young Akhtar along with the caption, “4th Oct 1964. A young lad arrived at Bombay Central Station with 27 naye paise in his pocket but with big dreams in his eyes.
“Life gave him several hard knocks. He slept on the footpaths, at the railway stations, and in the compound of many a studio. A day came when he had nothing to eat for 3 days and the only clothes he had were the shreds on his body,” she added.
Recalling how Akhtar refused to give up despite those hardships, she wrote, “On the edge of despair, when he could have given up, he said to himself, ‘Main yunhi marne ke liye nahin paida nahin hua tha. Yeh din badlenge’ (I wasn’t born to die like just like that. These days will change), as they did. 4th October, 1964: a 19-year-old, almost penniless. 4th October, 2026, decades later: a life that has given India some of its most memorable words. This is the story of Javed Akhtar.”
Azmi ended the note with a message of hope and encouragement. “Some journeys begin with almost nothing. Except a dream. If he can do it, so can you. Never give up.”
Akhtar too has previously spoken about his initial struggling days in the city. In the 2024 Prime Video docuseries, he had said, “Some days, I’d walk all the way from Dadar to Bandra, because I didn’t have money for bus fare. Some days, it would strike me that I hadn’t eaten for two days. I would always think to myself that if one day, a biography were to be written about me, this would make for an incredible moment.”
