In a recent interview, veteran lyricist and screenwriter Javed Akhtar did not hold back when discussing the portrayal of modern Indian women in cinema. During an episode of Be A Man, Yaar!, Akhtar highlighted a specific dialogue from Yash Chopra’s Jab Tak Hai Jaan to illustrate his point.
Javed Akhtar pointed out a dialogue from Jab Tak Hai Jaan that he found problematic. He recounted, “There was a Yash Chopra film named Jab Tak Hai Jaan, in which there is a dialogue where one of the heroines says that I will marry you after I sleep with one man from all the nationalities. But why would you do so much hard work? Are you empowered and modern and cool? We agree so you let go of that hard work. There are a lot of nationalities.”
Akhtar’s critique underscores his confusion about why a character would go to such lengths to prove empowerment. He further elaborated, “Ab ye kya hain? Is dialogue ka kya matlab hain? Kahan aa rahi hain? Yash Chopra ki film mein! Because they want to fake that this is an empowered girl. They are not very clear what is an empowered girl so they are exaggerating.”
Javed Akhtar believes that filmmakers today are still struggling to accurately represent the modern Indian woman. He argues that the portrayal often veers into exaggeration because of a lack of clear understanding. This, he suggests, leads to the inclusion of unrealistic dialogues and scenarios in films that are meant to depict empowered women.
For the unversed, Jab Tak Hai Jaan was Yash Chora’s last directorial project, which stars Shah Rukh Khan, Katrina Kaif, and Anushka Sharma. The film was released in 2012.
Coming to Javed’s professional front, his last movie as a lyricist was Kho Gaye Hum Kahan, which was directly streamed on Netflix.
