Personal Profile About Javed Akhtar
Javed Akhtar is a famous Indian poet, lyricist, screenwriter and a public intellectual who molded the contemporary Hindi cinema with his impactful narrative and socially oriented writing. He was born on January 17, 1945, in Gwalior, and overcame poverty to be one of the most reputed creative voices in the world of Bollywood. The Javed Akhtar biography portrays a decades long career marked with highly regarded contribution in the film industry, poetry books, TV shows and social activism on the issues of culture, society and the freedom of expression.
Javed Akhtar Son
Javed Akhtar son is Farhan Akhtar, born from his first marriage to actress and screenwriter Honey Irani. Farhan is a Bollywood actor, director, producer, and singer known for films including Dil Chahta Hai, Lakshya, Rock On!!, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, and Bhaag Milkha Bhaag. Javed and Farhan have collaborated professionally on several films. Farhan has also been married twice.
Javed Akhtar Age
Javed Akhtar age is 81 Years old. He was born on 17 January 1945, in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh (then Gwalior State), India. His mother passed away when he was young, and his father frequently traveled between Lucknow and Bombay for work, leaving Javed to be raised largely by relatives. He arrived in Mumbai at age 21 with almost nothing.
Javed Akhtar Family
Javed Akhtar family includes his father, Jan Nisar Akhtar, a Bollywood songwriter and Urdu poet; mother, Safia Akhtar, a singer and writer; and younger brother, Salman Akhtar, a psychoanalyst. He has two children and granddaughters, Shakiya and Akira.
His maternal uncle, Asrarul Haq Majaz, was an Urdu poet; his aunt Hamida Salim, an economist; his paternal grandfather Muztar Khairabadi and elder brother Bismil Khairabadi were poets; and his great-great-grandfather Fazl-e-Haq Khairabadi was a religious scholar who played a role in India's first independence movement. His uncle Ansar Harvani was an MP in post-independence India.
Javed Akhtar Religion
Javed Akhtar religion is atheism. He was born into a Muslim family with a lineage of Islamic scholars and Urdu poets. He calls himself an "equal opportunity atheist" and a "cultural Muslim" and raised his children with similar secular values. He received the Richard Dawkins Award in 2020 for his advocacy of secularism, reason, and human rights.
Javed Akhtar Wife
Javed Akhtar wife is Shabana Azmi, an actress and daughter of Urdu poet Kaifi Azmi. Akhtar frequently visited Kaifi Azmi's home as an assistant and grew close to Shabana during that time. His first wife was Honey Irani, a Hindi film screenwriter. They married in 1972, had two children (Farhan and Zoya), separated in 1978, and officially divorced in 1985.
Javed Akhtar vs Mufti Shamail
The widespread popularity of the public exchange Javed Akhtar vs Mufti Shamail was rooted in the discussion of the belief systems and the question of the existence of God. The debate compared the atheistic perspective of Akhtar to the peaceful arguments by Mufti Shamail based on Islam theology. Social media audiences applauded the respectful nature of the discussion, which seemed to them as a model of civil discourse between opposing worldviews with no personal attacks and enmity.