When Lyricist Anand Bakshi Almost Quit Bollywood Without Even Writing One Song

This is not a wikipedia type of post, so we will definitely not be going into the details of Anand Bakshi’s career. But its interesting to know about the struggle he went through, and how he almost quit Bollywood without even writing one song. But persistence, and a bit of luck, saw him through, and Anand Bakshi went on to become one of the most successful lyricist in Bollywood, with a career that spanned several decades.

1. Anand Bakshi was fond of writing and was fascinated by films right from a young age. However, life had other plans for him, and he had to join the army. However, deep inside he always felt that he should go to Mumbai to try his luck, and so he left the army and landed in Mumbai
2. He struggled a lot but nothing happened. Disheartened, he left Mumbai and vowed never to come back. He also got married as he felt it would stop him from thinking about coming to Mumbai again.
   However, a few years later, again he started feeling aimless in life and started thinking about Mumbai. Guess what, Anand Bakshi landed again in Mumbai
3. However, even this time, he was unable to get that break. Four months passed and he had exhausted all his money, and was ready to leave Mumbai forever. But he didn’t even have the money to buy a train ticket to go back to Delhi.
4. Anand Bakshi spoke to a TC (ticket collector) at Dadar station, told him his story, and asked him if he could give him a train ticket to Delhi. Guess what, the TC asked Anand Bakshi to stay back in Mumbai and not to give up; he even offered Anand to stay at his house (those were the days).
5. Anand Bakshi stayed back and started meeting producers and directors. One day he went to Bhagwan Dada’s office, where Bhagwan dada was looking stressed because his lyricist had not turned up for few days and his film schedule was getting affected. And that is when Anand Bakshi got an opportunity to write. Mr Bakshi wrote four songs on the spot, and Bhagwan dada liked them all, and that is how Anand Bakshi got his first break.
6. Although his first movie didn’t do well, Anand Bakshi got the opportunity to write for a few more films, and finally hit gold with ‘Jab Jab Phool khile’. From there it was no looking back for Anand Bakshi.

Anand Bakshi was nominated 40 times for Filmfare awards (that tells you how long his career spanned in Bollywood), but won only 4 times (including one for DDLJ).
Anand Bakshi was also instrumental in shaping up Kishore Kumar’s career, and also had a hand in Rajesh Khanna’s stardom as most of the popular songs of Rajesh Khanna (sung by Kishore Kumar), were actually written by Anand Bakshi.