Adventures of a Writer

  By Jaideep Sen        On 7th July, 2021, Dilip Kumar Saab was finally relieved from his suffering due to poor health of many years and gave lesser mortals like me to relive and rewind to the greatness of Dilip Saab.  Dignity is precisely what Dilip Saab brought not only to his performances but to the overall realm of Hindi Cinema.  A scene from Shakti My generation was brought up more on Salim Saab-Javed Saab’s Angry Young Man portrayed by Amitabh Bachchan Ji and uncannily it took the same haloed trio to introduce me to the greatness of Dilip Saab in Shakti . What a film, what crackling writing, what performances by both Dilip Saab and Amit Ji!  Dilip Saab was hitting the ball out of the park in every scene. Like a chameleon on top of its game -- because the character of Ashwini Kumar had such vast changing colours to cover. From a tough cop to loving husband to helpless father to ultimately shooting his only child dead.  Dilip Saab scored ...

On the occasion of Father’s Day Jaideep Sen pens a heartfelt piece for Salim Saab who is more than a father figure to him. Read on…   I don’t remember the context in which I made this particular call to Salim Saab one evening during the interval of a Film that I was watching at PVR Citi Mall, Mumbai. But as usual it was enriching because in the course of the conversation when I mentioned to him that in my understanding, a Love Story comprises of the relationship between a boy and girl, he stopped me and said that it’s a misconception that a Love Story is only between a boy and girl. Now that was a first for me and I immediately felt that some life altering knowledge was going to be imparted by the gifted Salim Saab. He said that a love story can be between a master and servant, between an animal and his master and mentioned Haathi Mere Saathi in that context.  In that very moment my already immense respect for Salim Saab shot up uncountable folds and went...

 Jaideep Sen continues his series dedicated to the writing of Salim Khan...     Writing Silence that speaks louder than words takes the skill of a genius. Let's take two such instances that can be found in Salim Saab's body of work -- Shakti for which he collaborated with his writing partner Javed Akhtar Saab and Naam , for which he was the independent writer .  An interesting side-note here: Shakti and Haathi Mere Saathi were both adapted from Tamil films by Salim and Javed Saab. However, the adaptations were so strikingly different from the original films that they were re-made in Tamil again.  Scene from Shakti: Silence that speaks louder than words Coming back to the scene in Shakti, there is a point in the story where Sheetal (Raakhe Gulzar) is shot dead. Her son Vijay (Amitabh Bachchan) is at loggerheads with his Father Ashwini Kumar (Dilip Kumar). She has been the lynchpin in their lives, a pillar of strength for both. When Vijay co...