Last Updated on 27/07/2024 by Ankita Jain
Bollywood’s senior screenwriter Javed Akhtar has a different status in the industry. He is well liked for his writing. Along with being successful in his career, Javed has also faced alcohol addiction in his life. Javed Akhtar became addicted to alcohol while he was at the peak of his career. Now in his new interview, the lyricist has said that if he could go back in time, he would tell his younger version to stay away from alcohol.
Javed said this on his addiction to alcohol
In an interview with the chat show Be a Man Yaar, Javed Akhtar was asked if he was drinking alcohol because he was suppressing his emotions. To this, Javed said that it could be so. He also told that after drinking alcohol, he used to turn into a devil in the intoxicated state. Akhtar said, ‘Maybe I had suppressed emotions, anger, bitterness. That is why after drinking, I used to become very abusive, which I am not normally and never was. This never happens when I am sober. But after drinking, some other devil used to come out.’
Javed Akhtar further said, ‘Quitting alcohol is one of the good things I have done in my life. 31st July 1991 was the last day I drank alcohol. I never had a sip of champagne after that. Not even while cheering during celebrations.’ After this, the chat show host asked Javed what he would like to say to his younger version. In response to this, the 79-year-old lyricist said, ‘I would tell him that he drank alcohol for 20-25 years, he should not do this.’
ruined 10 years of my life
The lyricist said that if he had stayed away from the bottle, he could have used his time properly. Javed said, ‘A lot of time was wasted in that. I feel that I have wasted at least a decade of my life because of this, whereas I could have done something better in that time. I could have done a lot. I could have learned to play an instrument, learned a language like French or Persian. I had both the time and the convenience, but I wasted time, which is not good. I had to learn something else.’
Earlier, Javed Akhtar’s wife and actress Shabana Azmi had talked about the lyricist’s alcohol addiction in an interview. In Arbaaz Khan’s chat show ‘The invincible‘ Shabana had described Javed’s alcohol addiction phase as ‘difficult’.