One of the most well-known lyricists in the business is Javed Akhtar, who wrote the lyrics to classic songs like Sandese Aate Hain, Main Agar Kahoon, Do Pal, and many others. The lyricist recently disclosed at an event that he wrote one really hit song in nine minutes, and he then recalled the incident that led to it.
Javed Akhtar recently spoke about how he is certain that he wrote a hugely hit song inside 10 minutes at the FICCI event in Kolkata.
He had mentioned in an event, “I have written a handful of songs in under 10 minutes. After Silsila, Yash Chopra’s fourth assistant came to me and requested that I write the songs for his film. Of course, he didn’t have any money, but I agreed. I wrote the songs, but because I was working for free, one remained incomplete. That poor guy would come over every evening and ask for the song, and in those days, I used to drink…”
Javed further explained the incident and described how he put off writing the song till the very last minute. He further added. “Every evening, we’d drink and chit-chat and by 2 am, we’d decided that we would finish the song tomorrow. I kept delaying it, then one day, the poor guy asked again. This was past midnight, after the eighth or ninth peg, I asked for a piece of paper and a pen, and decided to get it over with. The reason why I know for sure that I wrote that song in nine minutes is because he had to catch the last train, so kept looking at his watch. I finished it in nine minutes and handed it over to him. Jagjit Singh sang the song, it was ‘Tum Ko Dekha To Yeh Khayal Aaya’. It was written at perhaps 12:30 in the night, after eight or nine pegs, in nine minutes…”
The use of English lines like “Check that, like that” in Tumse Milke Dil Ka from the movie Main Hoon Na caused Javed Akhtar to leave a songwriting session, according to anecdotal information provided by Anu Malik to ANI during a recent podcast.
