The man who wrote Bollywood's biggest dreams — Salim Khan's legacy is bigger than any box office number

The news of Salim Khan being hospitalised has left the film industry and his millions of fans genuinely worried. At 90, the man who co-wrote some of the most iconic films in Indian cinema history is now resting and recovering, and the whole country is praying for him. But while we wait for good news, it feels like the right time to sit back and talk about what this man actually did for Hindi cinema, because honestly, most people today do not even fully realise how much of what they love about Bollywood was shaped by Salim Khan and his writing partner Javed Akhtar.

Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar met in the film industry when both were struggling to find their footing. Salim was trying his luck as an actor, and Javed was a young writer with big dreams and very little money. They became friends, started talking about films and stories, and somewhere in those conversations, they realised they saw cinema the same way. So they decided to write together. What followed was nothing short of a revolution.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Zanjeer introduced India to a completely new kind of hero. He was not soft. He was not romantic in the traditional sense. He was angry, he was frustrated, he had been wronged by the system, and he was not going to take it anymore. Audiences went absolutely crazy for it. They had never seen anything like this before on screen. And that character, that angry young man — became the template for an entire era of Hindi cinema. Salim-Javed did not just write a hit film. They created an icon.

But when Sholay first released, it did not set the box office on fire immediately. The initial response was mixed. Some critics were not sure what to make of it. The film was a big, expensive production and there were real fears that it might not work.

And then something happened. People started going back. Then they went again. Then they took their friends and family. Word spread from one person to another and slowly Sholay became the biggest phenomenon Indian cinema had ever seen. It ran in some theatres for years. Not weeks, not months, but years.

Here is something most people do not know, the original ending of Sholay was different. In the version that was first planned, Thakur actually kills Gabbar Singh himself. But the censors at the time had strict rules about a character taking the law into their own hands, so the climax had to be changed. In the final version that audiences saw, the police arrive and arrest Gabbar. Many people felt the original ending was more powerful, and over the years, it has become one of the most talked about what-ifs in Indian film history. The changed climax did not stop Sholay from becoming a cult classic but it is a fascinating piece of behind-the-scenes trivia that shows how even the greatest films go through last-minute changes.

After Zanjeer, they wrote Deewaar in 1975, the same year as Sholay. In Deewaar, Amitabh played a man pushed to a life of crime by circumstances beyond his control. The film had one of the most emotionally powerful screenplays ever written in Hindi cinema. The scene where Amitabh's character tells his police officer brother "Mere paas buildings hain, property hai, bank balance hai — tumhare paas kya hai?" and the brother replies "Mere paas maa hai" is one of those moments that makes you understand why cinema matters. That dialogue was written by Salim-Javed and it hit the audience like a punch to the chest.

Then came Trishul, Don, Shakti — film after film where they gave Amitabh characters that were complex, flawed, real, and completely magnetic. They understood something very important — that audiences in the 1970s were frustrated. The country was going through a difficult time politically and economically. People were angry. And here was this tall, intense actor playing characters who voiced that anger. Salim-Javed gave that frustration a language and Amitabh gave it a face.

Without Salim-Javed, the angry young man image may never have existed. And without that image, Amitabh Bachchan's journey to becoming the biggest superstar in Indian film history might have looked very different.

Javed Akhtar went on to become one of the greatest lyricists India has ever produced. Salim Khan continued writing and stayed connected to the industry through his family — his son Salman Khan became one of the biggest stars the country has ever seen.

Today, as Salim Khan recovers in the hospital, it is worth remembering that this is a man who changed the way stories were told in India. He fought for writers to be given proper credit at a time when that was not even a conversation. He proved that the pen was just as powerful as the camera. And he gave us characters and dialogues that will honestly never get old. The industry owes him more than it can ever repay. Get well soon, Salim Saab. We need more of your stories.