Javed Akhtar has given India gems like “Tumko Dekha Toh Ye Khayaal Aaya” and “Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga”. Akhtar is often admired among the youth and liberal circles for his ‘modern” outlook to living, his alleged ‘rationale’ and for being a self-proclaimed ‘atheist’. However, people who know the better of him find him nothing more than an insidious and duplicitous man.
In 2017, TFI confronted Javed Akhtar on Twitter for his seemingly inane claims of poverty. Although TFI took it as a healthy debate between two diverse ideologies, Javed Akhtar thought it best to delete a major part of the thread. Today, we have been validated. Let me explain how.
In 2017, Akhtar had claimed that he came to the pompous city of Bombay in 1965, with just 27 paisa in his pocket. This was one of his final arguments in the spat with TFI. He claimed to have been a first-hand witness and victim of extreme poverty. However, he has now exposed himself for the abject liar that he is.
52 years ago I had come to Mumbai with 27 np in my pocket I know what is being homeless n how it feels on the 3rd of starvation
— Javed Akhtar (@Javedakhtarjadu) March 1, 2017
Hear-wrenching! So how could a man like you with firsthand exp. of real world belittle the achievements of our athletes?
— The Frustrated Indian (@FrustIndian) March 1, 2017
Today, Akhtar put out the following tweet:
1963 November14th. I was18 years old n fortunate enough to attend the birthday celebrations of Nehru ji at Teen Murti Bhawan Shook hands with him This was our 2nd hand . The first was when I was 12 n had taken his autograph I have recently found that autograph book after years
— Javed Akhtar (@Javedakhtarjadu) November 14, 2019
In the tweet, Akhtar claims to have met and celebrated Jawaharlal Nehru’s birthday at Teen Murti Bhawan on 14th November, 1963. Just to put things in context, the man, as he himself claimed, came to Bombay with a mere 27 paisa in his pocket. Would Javed Akhtar mind explaining how he was celebrating Nehru’s birthday two years before such ‘poverty’ hit him? This is not an insinuation on our part. We genuinely want answers to legitimate questions. How is it that in a span of two years, Javed Akhtar went from celebrating Nehru’s birthday at Teen Murti Bhawan to being completely broke?
It is a known fact that to have company with the sitting Prime Minister, especially like Pandit Nehru, one would require one to be affluent, influential and resourceful. How is it that Javed Akhtar found himself invited to such a celebration, if he was not well-to-do? Unless there is some drastic downfall which he experienced in the following three years, it makes no sense for him to claim that he had no money when he first came to Bombay. Therefore, out of curiosity, we would like to ask Javed Akhtar: What happened during those two years, from 1963 to 1965, that you went from being invited to the Prime Minister’s birthday celebrations, to being a man with no money and a struggling artist?
Javed Akhtar also claimed that he has met Nehru once before he shook hands with him at Teen Murti Bhawan. From their first meeting, Akhtar also claims to have found an autograph which he took from Nehru. I am unable to comprehend such a scenario. If Akhar does not respond to our questions, we would take him to be a duplicitous liar. If not both, at least one of these claims is bound to be false. Either him coming to Bombay with no money, or him celebrating Nehru’s birthday at Teen Murti Bhawan. Chances are, that the former is a lie. Usually, when one is confronted with irrefutable and air-tight arguments, like those which TFI confronted him with in 2017, it is a human tendency to play the victim card and garner sympathy to deviate attention from the issue at hand. Perhaps, Javed did the same. Having forgotten his 2017 claim, today, he revealed the Nehru episode, which completely contradicts his earlier claims.
Javed Akhtar is one of the most intolerant man one can come across. Although he claims to be a liberal and worshiper of debate and rationale, the slightest of tricky argument tends to trigger the guts out of him, following which he has an irreversible meltdown. I reiterate once again, we are genuinely concerned: what happened in those two years?
