As the family kicks off three-day celebration to mark his 75th birthday, legendary writer-lyricist Javed Akhtar thrilled to have a photo exhibition dedicated to him
Sonil Dedhia (MID-DAY; January 14, 2020)

Shabana Azmi, who was stationed in Budapest over the past few weeks for the shoot of Steven Spielberg's web series, has returned to the bay in time for husband Javed Akhtar's big day. The noted writer-lyricist turns 75 on Friday, and a string of celebrations is in order for the milestone birthday.

mid-day has learnt that an exhibition of Akhtar's rare photographs, posters and paintings, titled The World Of Javed Akhtar, and curated by Pradeep Chandra and SMM Ausaja, will be held at the Nehru Centre in Worli. While Farhan and Zoya Akhtar will inaugurate the exhibition dedicated to their father tomorrow, it will be open to the public from January 17 to 20. Considering Akhtar has changed the vocabulary of Bollywood with his stories and songs, it is only fitting that the inaugural event tomorrow will mark the launch of a limited edition of The Javed Akhtar Pen — a creation of Abhishek Haritwal and Symmetry. Besides unveiling the signature pen, the celebrated writer will take to the stage to discuss his journey in the industry and his role in changing the narrative of Hindi cinema, with Nasreen Munni Kabir.

"I am nervous, especially about the exhibition because they are calling it The World of Javed Akhtar. I want to see how many people are interested in my life," jokes the legendary lyricist, adding that he was pleasantly surprised to see that the curators had sourced rare photographs from his heydays. "Some of the photographs go back to my school days. I am wondering where they sourced them from."

While Azmi plans to ring in Akhtar's birthday with an intimate '70s Bollywood-themed bash on Thursday, Zoya and Farhan will host a grand soiree on Friday at a suburban five-star that will see the who's who of the industry in attendance. "We want to salute the man that is Javed Akhtar — his indomitable will, tenacity, wisdom, intellect, and of course, his legendary sense of humour! Friends and family are trooping in from different parts of the world for the bash," says an ecstatic Azmi.


The customised Javed Akhtar Pen

Rarest of rare memorabilia includes a letter from the sitar maestro’s son Shubho to his mother Annapurna Devi, in which he complains about being neglected on his birthday by Ravi Shankar; Author SMM Ausaja was searching for vintage movie posters when he stumbled upon a suitcase stuffed with memorabilia; contents suggest they belonged to Ravi Shankar and his musician wife Annapurna’s son Shubho who died in 1992
Khalid Mohamed (MUMBAI MIRROR; September 23, 2019)

Musical notations composed by sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar, as well as letters written by him, photographs, press cuttings dating back to the 1960s, autographed brochures, and more have been recovered from a battered old leather suitcase which was dumped at a scrap dealer close to Mahim Railway Station. The suitcase made available for perusal to Mumbai Mirror, besides yielding a treasure trove of memorabilia, contains voluminous files of notes and notations by Bharat Ratna Ravi Shankar for some of his famed operas and ragas which were performed at shows the world over. That the material is authentic can be verified from the signature of Ravi Shankar on most of the rescued material.

A draft of a letter of complaint by the musician to the British organisers of a concert tour reveals that at the outset of his career, he would neither be paid nor given “a pat on the back” for his shows which had played to packed houses. In addition, notations for film scores have been discovered, albeit in a mottled condition which like the rest of the finds need to be restored digitally at the earliest.

There are photographs showing Ravi Shankar as a budding musician in his late teens, and snapshots of his first wife, the revered classical singer Annapurna Devi (born Roshanara Khan), daughter of Ustad Allauddin Khan, who laid the foundation for the modern Maihar Gharana.

Add to these, albums of sketches by their son, musician and graphic artist Shubhendra ‘Shubho’ Shankar, which have all been rescued in the nick of time before they were shredded, junked, or sold by their weight in kilos to re-cyclists of waste paper.

The suitcase was located by chance by SMM Ausaja, author of the book Bollywood in Posters. While scouring around for vintage movie posters, booklets and stills, the film scholar randomly picked out the suitcase and was startled by its content, retrieving it immediately. On being asked what he intends to do with it, he stated, “I’m a collector. I intend to preserve it for posterity.”

From all indications the suitcase belonged to the maestro’s son ‘Shubho’ aka Shubhendra Shankar, who passed away in California, at the age of 50, in 1992 after a bout of pneumonia. Towards the end years, he had withdrawn from the music scene and eked out a living for his wife and two children by working at a liquor store and drawing illustrations for telephone directories.

Ravi Shankar lived till the age of 92, succumbing to respiratory insufficiency in California in 2012. The mother of Shubho, the reclusive Annapurna Devi who resided in a Breach Candy highrise, passed away last year at the age of 91.

That the suitcase belonged to Shubho appears to be a given, since it contains his albums of drawings, including a striking pencil portrait of his father. Moreover, a greeting card designed as a gift to his father and signed by Ravi Shankar, could have been stored by the son as a remembrance. In a letter to Annapura Devi, he complains about being neglected on his birthday by his father.

Quite emotionally, the visiting card of the maestro mentioning his address in Pavlova building on Little Gibbs Road in Mumbai, and the apartment’s plastic door-sign have been preserved.

Ravi Shankar and Annapurna Devi had separated in 1962 after 11 years of marriage. Both had remarried. The maestro became an internationally-lauded artiste of mythical proportions, collaborating with greats such as Yehudi Menuhin and George Harrison of the Beatles. However, Annapurna Devi chose never to perform again, it is believed, because she had felt slighted when Ravi Shankar couldn’t quite accept a section of classical music aficionados that she was a superior artiste.

Quite oddly, a short poem written on a Viennese hotel’s letterhead and signed by the master filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak was also in the suitcase. Written in Bengali, the poem’s opening lines, translated into English read, “Where and when were my days of yore lost/ How they were lost, my heart doesn’t know…”

A close-up portrait of Ustad Allauddin Khan – whom Ravi Shankar acknowledged as his guru --is mouldering amidst the material, demanding professional restoration.

The Ravi Shankar Foundation, based in California, has sought to continue the legacy of the superstar sitarist’s music forward both in India and abroad. Meanwhile, the retrieved suitcase is a pointer towards a heart-touching story – of how a son clung on to a bagful of mementoes of his father -- a bag which eventually landed up with a scrap dealer.

Film historian SMM Ausaja’s coffee-table book, The Bachchans, features candid pictures and unheard-of stories about three generations of the family
Kusumita Das (MID-DAY; September 11, 2016)

The first thing you notice as you step inside film historian SMM Ausaja’s home, is a wall covered from one end to another, with framed pictures of Hindi film posters dating back to the early 70s. Then you spot stacks of lobby card placards, original first prints of some of Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan’s least known works from the same period. This is clearly a collector’s den. “Welcome to my obsession,” Ausaja says, greeting us with a smile. For over 30 years, he has been collecting film memorabilia, a treasure trove he excavated through to put together his upcoming book, The Bachchans, which is slated to release at the end of this year. “It’s not a biography,” the author clarifies right away.

“It’s a coffee-table book which is a career chronicle, the first of its kind, that covers the five most famous of the Bachchan family — Dr Harivansh Rai, Amitabh, Jaya and Abhishek and Aishwarya. It’s a collection of stories told both in pictures and words that revolve around their work, filmi and non-filmi. There are first-print posters, photographs, LP/EP covers, song booklets and several nuggets that you have never seen or heard of before,” Ausaja says.

The Bachchans never got directly involved in the making of the book, although Ausaja did share the idea with Amitabh. “He is aware and they have no issues, obviously, because I am not peeping into anyone’s bedroom. This is strictly about their work, hardly ground for conspiracy,” Ausaja says. He has known Amitabh since the time he was working on his last book, Bollywood in Posters. “He is a man of very few words. And if he says something, you better listen, even though he poses it as a suggestion,” recalling his meeting with the man in Pratiksha when the actor had asked to see the dummy. Turned out, he was impressed enough to pen the foreword and has told Ausaja that he is looking forward to the new one.

Given Big B’s volume of work, he, quite effortlessly, ends up occupying a large chunk of the book. But the question remains — what can one say about the Bachchans, especially Amitabh, and still manage to break new ground? “I am the only author that didn’t need him to write this book. This book does not chronicle his perspective through an interview. It stems from my own research over decades as a film historian,” Ausaja says as he delicately rolls out a very brittle, but stunning first-print poster of Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Namak Haraam. As we take in the hand-painted artwork, the film historian rattles off release dates and trivia as he continues to tell us about the book. “It was not Mr Bachchan who told me that his first film, Saat Hindustani, did not even find a release in Mumbai, even though it is counted as his debut. His first film that released here was Anand.” And to get to this fact, he poured through reams of trade magazines that released between 1969-70.

The book takes off from Harivanshrai Bachchan’s life and talks about his close proximity with Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and how the latter pushed for the poet to be recognised. Among the many nuggets Ausaja has shared, is one about how Harivanshrai’s debut as a lyricist was not in Amitabh’s Alaap (1977), as is commonly believed. It happened in a film titled Badnam Basti (1971), where he even recorded a song in his own voice. “The song was called Mele Mein Koi Gujariya. I have a picture from that recording that I have included in the book,” Ausaja says, adding, “The only way to understand Amitabh’s life is to understand his father’s.”

For every film included in the book, Ausaja has inserted review excerpts. “I have collected them from the monthly trade magazines of that era. What did the critics say when Sholay or Zanjeer released? None of that is available on the internet. Baburao Patel called Sholay ‘disgraceful and anti-national’!”


Ausaja’s collection of posters and memorabilia may be accidental stumbles, but there is a method to the madness. “There are multiple ways of acquiring memorabilia. An obvious way is to approach producers but most of them don’t have anything. And if they do, they won’t easily part with it. So, then, you barter. Exchange one rare poster for another. In my case, producers have come to me asking for posters of their own films,” he says, adding that he has gifted posters of films like Natwarlal and Yarana to its maker Rakesh Kumar, who didn’t have them. He also approaches distributors, most of whose offices are shut now. “They could have a treasure in their godowns, but most of them have found their way to chor bazaar through raddiwalas. But even there, chances of finding an original first print is negligible.” The cream of his collection is courtesy Feroze Rangoonwalla. “He was the most admired collector of his time; he passed away recently. In the last 12 years, I met him almost every month, and a large chunk of my salary would go to him, but it was totally worth it.”

It has taken Ausaja eight years to put together this book, that’s a commissioned project by Om Books International. “This book is the fruit of my painless research and I want to it to be reference material for the Bachchans for the future generation,” he says.