Man with the Punch Lines

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The name Kader Khan was a fixture in almost all the successful Hindi movies of the 80s and 90s. In some, he was credited as a story or dialogue writer, in others as an actor. In several movies, he used to be credited for both. It was incredible that Khan was sought after by competitors Prakash Mehra and Manmohan Desai as the writer of movies that were intense, and thrived on high drama in the 70s. After he made his debut as a dialogue writer for the 1972-film Jawani Diwani, he worked on Khoon Pasina (1977) and Muqaddar Ka Sikandar (1978) with Mehra, while for Desai he wrote Parvarish (1977) and Amar Akbar Anthony (1977) among others. In the following decades, he was widely acknowledged as the writer of some of the greatest money-spinning comedies as well as essaying characters with unmatched comic timing and talent.

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“In his time, Kader Khan ruled the world of commercial cinema. He wrote for a whole range of directors — from Desai, Mehra and Narendra Bedi to NT Rama Rao in the south. Everyone was happy with him as he was a brilliant writer who came from a theatre background,” says Robin Bhatt, veteran writer and president of the Screenwriters Association. Calling him “a storehouse of talent”, Bhatt recalls that Khan used to famously record on cassettes the scenes and dialogues he had written for many stars, including Amitabh Bachchan, who used to listen to the recordings and deliver the lines in the same fashion.

Even though Khan reportedly had a fallout with Bachchan, he continued to write for movies featuring top actors such as Govinda, Jeetendra and Mithun Chakraborty. After collaborating with a series of successful comedies with Govinda and David Dhawan such as Hero No 1 and Coolie No 1, Khan became a household name in the 90s. Bhatt, however, says: “His brilliance as an actor is undervalued as it is overshadowed by his writing.”

Most attribute his versatile talent in writing and acting to his early association with theatre. “He was an all-rounder. He even produced a movie titled Shama (1981). His achievement in cinema is unmatched,” says writer-director Anees Bazmee, who worked with Khan in several movies including Aankhen, Raja Babu, Shola Our Shabnam, Bol Radha Bol and Mujhse Shaadi Karogi.

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Bazmee remembers Khan as a “jovial, quick-witted and great human being”. “He acted in Hulchul, the first movie that I directed. I admired him immensely because very few people could write as fast as him. When he used to be on the sets to act, he used to keep writing during breaks. A scene, which any other person would take three-four hours to write, he would write in 20 minutes. He was a learned man and a voracious reader,” says Bazmee. He also found Khans discipline remarkable. “He used to sit down to write by 9 am and then used to take a break for lunch at 1 pm. He used to start writing again around 4 pm and go on till 9 pm. One would never hear him say, mood nahin ho raha hai. Thats why he was so prolific,” recalls Bazmee. During his career spanning 45 years, Khan wrote dialogues for 250 movies and acted in 300 films.

Veteran comedian Viju Khote was fascinated with Khans skill of improvising on the sets. “He used to come up with the best punch lines on the sets,” says Khote, Khans co-actor. Writer Hardik Mehta, who is set to make his feature film debut with Kaamyaab, a movie inspired by the life of supporting actors in Bollywood, singles out “Hum jahan khade hote hain line wahin se shuru hoti hai” from Kaalia (1981) as one of the greatest dialogues written by Khan. The line is first used by Bob Christo and then Bachchan. “It was so amazing that Kader sahab didnt make a difference between a dialogue being spoken by the lead of the film or the supporting actor. A good dialogue is remembered forever,” says Mehta, adding that “the best part is Kader sahab would keep the best lines for himself”. Khan could pack more punch with his dialogues than the heroes of the day.

Original Article