Javed Akhtar Wrote Famous Ghazal 'Tumko Dekha Toh Yeh Khayal Aaya' in 9 Minutes Under Influence

Mumbai. Behind every timeless song of Hindi cinema, there is a fascinating story. Bollywood's famous writer and lyricist Javed Akhtar has given many memorable songs, ghazals, films, and dialogues to the film industry.

However, the story of a famous ghazal written by him is quite surprising, which can surprise anyone upon knowing it. He wrote a timeless romantic ghazal of Bollywood in just 9 minutes.

We are talking about the famous song 'Tumko Dekha Toh Yeh Khayal Aaya' from the film 'Saath Saath' released in 1982. This ghazal was written by Javed Akhtar in an intoxicated state after drinking 8 pegs of alcohol.

Originally, this ghazal was sung by ghazal emperor Jagjit Singh and Chitra Singh, which has been used in the film in various ways. Javed Akhtar was given the responsibility of writing the lyrics for this song, and he created it in a state of intoxication. Javed Akhtar himself has also admitted this.

Javed Akhtar narrated this interesting anecdote at a FICCI program organized in Kolkata. According to him, after the film 'Silsila', the fourth assistant director of director Yash Chopra came to him and requested him to write a song for his film.

Although the assistant did not have much money, Javed agreed to write the song. He said, 'I used to drink a lot of alcohol in those days. That poor assistant used to come to me every day and ask for the song.'

Javed further narrated, 'Every day we used to sit and talk until 2 AM and drink alcohol. The matter of writing the song was always postponed. One day that poor fellow asked me about the song again. It was already 2 AM and I had already had 8 or 9 pegs. Then I asked for paper and pen and wrote the song in just 9 minutes and handed it over to him. Later, Jagjit Singh sang that song, the lyrics of which were 'Tumko Dekha Toh Yeh Khayal Aaya'.

Javed Akhtar also revealed the reason why he wrote the song in just 9 minutes. He said, 'I wrote that song in 9 minutes because that assistant had to catch his last train and he kept looking at his watch repeatedly. So I hurriedly wrote the song and gave it to him.'

This timeless ghazal was filmed on actress Deepti Naval and actor Farooq Sheikh in the film.