Starting with ‘Kabhi Kabhie,’ it was Sarhadi’s writing that was at the heart of Yash Chopra’s romantic turn in the mid-70s and 80s
When Amitabh Bachchan looks deep into the eyes of Rakhee in Yash Chopra’s Kabhi Kabhie and says, “Have you ever looked at your eyes? Wherever they look, they establish a relationship,” it is the magic of Sagar Sarhadi’s writing that is at work. The writer-director completed his relationship with the world on Monday at his Mumbai residence at the age of 87 because of age-related problems.
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Starting with Kabhi Kabhie, followed by Noorie (that Chopra presented), Silsila and Chandni, it was Sarhadi’s writing that was at the heart of Yash Chopra’s romantic turn in the mid-70s and 80s. Like Khwaja Ahmed Abbas lent heft to Raj Kapoor’s vision, Sarhadi gave voice to Chopra’s charming visuals.
Interestingly, like Abbas, Sarhadi was also a committed Marxist and a leading light in Progressive Writers’ Movement who wrote stirring plays like Bhagat Singh Ki Wapsi, Khyal Ki Dustak, and Raj Durbar. Jeev Janawar, a collection of his short stories continues to evoke interest.
His nephew Ramesh Talwar was the chief assistant of Yash Chopra. One day, he invited Chopra to watch Sarhadi’s one-act Urdu play Mirza Sahiban. Impressed, Chopra offered him the opportunity to write Kabhi Kabhie and thus started a decade-long relationship of mutual respect.
Born as Ganga Sagar Talwar in Baffa village in North West Frontier Province, Sarhadi was uprooted by Partition and carried the pain and anguish of a refugee all through his life.
He changed his name to carry an identity of his province with him and also to reflect his appreciation for the work of Zia Sarhadi, known for social commentaries like Hum Log and Footpath, who also hailed from NWFP.
Having lived the life of a refugee in Delhi, before shifting to Bombay with his brother for better education, his writings explored what are those forces that uproot a man from his home. With Gulzar as his senior in Khalsa College, Sarhadi drowned himself in books and emerged with a unique voice. Initially, the distributors found his dialogues bookish but as Kabhi Kabhie’s popularity swelled and Sarhadi won two Filmfare awards for the film, the naysayers had to chew their criticism.
In most of his works, the characters, particularly, the female ones were just metaphors for his sufferings during the Partition, when the fate of more than a million people was decided by somebody else.
Manmohan Krishna’s Noorie (1979), based on his short story “Raakha”, was inspired from his experiences in his village Baffa, whose meadows and springs he was forced to leave and had to develop a sense of belonging in an urban jungle.
The writer of some of the best romantic films, Sarhadi, in his interviews, always described himself as a man who was angry with the world. Over the years, he cultivated that anger to create a lasting impression. When he felt, he was getting drawn to commercial cinema, he decided to direct Bazaar that had a social commitment.
Inspired by a true story that he came across in a newspaper about a family selling off their daughter to an Arab in Hyderabad, Sarhadi researched the subject and came up with a powerful script on human relations where again the fate of a girl was decided against her wishes. Yash Chopra offered to produce it but Sarhadi wanted complete control. He only asked Chopra to arrange raw stock for him.
Supriya Pathak, who won the Filmfare Award for best supporting actress for the film, once told this journalist, that Sarhadi shot the film like life as it is. “We sat on the terrace, sang, and conversed. There was no point where you could arre ye director ne kiya hai (this is director’s doing) Without any frills, he realises the essence of the story,” she said.
Though he never got married, Sarhadi always stood for his female characters. He maintained that he had had a number of romantic dalliances that made him understand women, but none could fructify into a lasting relationship. Having studied Freud in detail, Sarhadi had a grasp over human psychology, and it reflected in his characters.
Unfortunately, he could not build on the success of Bazaar because of some jinxed projects. He remained in demand in the commercial circuit as he wrote dialogues for Shah Rukh Khan’s debut Deewana and collaborated with Rakesh Roshan on Kaho Na Pyaar Hai that launched Hrithik Roshan. But creatively, he felt his worth remained unutilised.
In his last days, he was bitter about the changing mores of a mobile phone-run society that doesn’t give literature as much importance as it should. His last film Chausar, starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Amruta Subhash, a contemporary tale that draws from Pandav’s losing Draupadi, in a game of ludo in Mahabharat, remains unreleased.
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