Veteran lyricist and screenwriter Javed Akhtar is an atheist, and he has always openly spoken about his thoughts on religion. In a recent interview, the ace filmmaker has spoken up about the time when a young Farhan came from school and asked him if they were Muslim, and revealed what he told his 8-year-old son.
The lyricist, while speaking in a recent chat, as quoted by The Indian Express, said, “They were areligious because by that time, perhaps some other father would have given them some religion. By the time you are 11 or 12, you get a religion. I did not give them any religion at all. I remember Farhan was perhaps seven or eight years old and one day he came back from the school and his bag was on his shoulder. He came running to me because that was so important
and he asked me, ‘Are we Muslims?’ So, I told him, ‘Listen, what happens is that when you are born, you are born in some city, Pune, Mumbai, Agra, Ahmedabad, London, New York, or wherever. You are born the same way. If you are born, you’ll be born in some community, but it is not important which city you were born in or which community, what is important is what you are. I mean, they are totally areligious.’”
Farhan Akhtar and Zoya Akhtar are Javed Akhtar’s kids from his first marriage with Honey Irani. Speaking about the two, the lyricist said, “Well, I am proud of them because not that they are successful, they are doing well, they are living well, but they have achieved all this strictly on their own. No thanks to the parents. They have done it on their own.”
“It’s not because of me. I have no contribution in their success, honestly, but at the same time, what makes me proud is that they have achieved success by doing good work and decent work. They have not been desperate to achieve success, name, fame, money at any cost. They have not made pictures that are crude and vulgar by any stretch of imagination. They have their dignity, and their dignity is in the work also. That makes me very happy,” Javed Akhtar further continued, andhe credited his first wife, Honey Irani, for raising their children well.
