Javed Akhtar recently opened up about his marriage to his first wife Honey Irani, and his battle with alcoholism in an interview. Akhtar and Irani were married for 11 years before they parted ways in 1985. During the interview, Akhtar revealed how his alcohol addiction strained their relationship.
Speaking on Mojo Story, Akhtar advocated for a Uniform Civil Code in India, citing his own adherence to such principles in his personal life. He said, “I am living in uniform civil code. I was married to a lady, after 11 years of marriage we got divorced. According to Muslim personal law, I was only responsible to give her alimony for four months but I didn’t think that. She was my responsibility. It is also her choice whether she wants my support or not, but whenever she wanted and whenever she will, or she may not as she is very self respecting person, but I’m available for help. I walked out of the house with some books and some clothes. That’s all. And now we are best of friends because of this relationship and this understanding.”
Sharing how alcoholism took a toll on his first marriage, he said, “I started drinking at the age of 20-21 and left when I was 42 years old. I could afford a bottle and used to drink almost a bottle every night. It’s very common for Urdu poetics to become big drunkards because they believe that if they are poets and artistes, they should be carefree and you should drink. I think I had those wrong values.”
He added, “On the other side, all the tehzeeb that I learned in Lucknow didn’t allow me to use foul language, so all the bitterness was compressed inside me. But when I used to drink all those barriers will break and I would become a very nasty man and would use foul language. I used to become another person. It was unhealthy, irrational and causing problem to many people. It impacted my marriage with Honey. If I was a sober and responsible person, the story would have been different.”
Javed AKhtar also revealed that his second wife and veteran actor Shabana Azmi ‘somehow managed’ his alcoholism for the first ’10 years of their marriage’. However, at the age of 42, Akhtar himself realised that he might ‘die soon’ if he keeps on drinking the same way.
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