From Agneepath to Pushto translation

Kader Khan, the dialogue writer of the original movie, is now a teacher and translator

MUMBAI ~ The man who wrote the dialogues of the original Agneepath sits surrounded by Urdu texts in his Santa Cruz office, and answers questions with the resigned air of someone who just doesn’t understand the film industry anymore. “All the people I worked with are no more. I felt orphaned. Also, the way of working has changed drastically. I realised a few years ago that I won’t be able to last here, and then I just couldn’t be here anymore,” says Kader Khan.

That’s when the actor-writer went back to teaching. Before joining films, he used to be a civil engineer who taught at a college in Byculla. When he couldn’t find work in Bollywood a few years ago, Khan left India for Dubai and started teaching NRIs Urdu, Arabic and Islamic culture. He also visits Canada for the same purpose. “Everyone there wants to learn Urdu as they want to keep in touch with their culture.” He is also working on a Pushto-to-English dictionary and a Persian-to-English dictionary. Now back in Mumbai, he is translating some of Ghalib’s works into Hindi, and says that’s enough writing to keep him satisfied. And all this at the age of 77.

As far as Bollywood is concerned, nostalgia is all he grants himself. He still remembers that instead of writing for Agneepath, he had plans of making his own movie called Jaahil with Amitabh Bachchan, which got shelved. “But the character in mine was even more sadist,” he smiles.

Khan hasn’t watched the new Agneepath, but he remembers the emotion with which he wrote the iconic ‘Vijay Dinanath Chauhan ko marna hoga’ dialogue. “It needed to have that aag (fire). It was a dialogue for a fiery aadmi (man) and needed that sting. It needed sadism,” he says. But he can’t understand why it made it to the remake, and says modestly, “People make anything powerful. It’s a simple dialogue.”

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