The recently released three-episode documentary series 'The Angry Young Men' on Amazon Prime Video hides one thing very cleverly: why Hindi cinema's most successful writer couple broke up? Starting from the film 'Haathi Mere Saathi', Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar gave many superhit films to Hindi cinema. It is said that whenever this pair, who presented the ideas of other films with a new spin, tried to write something original, their films failed like 'Imaan Dharam'.

The series tells that Salim-Javed wrote a total of 24 films and 22 of them were superhits. In counting the flop films of both, only 'Imaan Dharam' and 'Shaan' are talked about. According to Amar Ujala, a senior film critic Dilip Thakur says that the film 'Sauda' written by both of them is never mentioned in their flop films and neither do they themselves mention it. This film starring Vinod Khanna and Yogita Bali in lead roles was released in 1979. The main show of the film took place at Roxy Cinema Hall in Mumbai. And, the film 'Imaan Dharam' is considered to be the film from where the friendship between Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar begins.

As per Amar Ujala, a senior film critic Inder Mohan Pannu tells another interesting story of the breakup of the friendship of Salim-Javed, the most successful pair of Hindi cinema. He says, 'The biggest reason for the break in the friendship between these two is the casting of the heroine in the film 'Main Azaad Hoon'. As it is a famous saying that there are only three reasons for enmity, Jar, Joru and Zameen i.e. wealth, woman and property, here Shabana Azmi and Helen became the reason for the break of their friendship.

On probing further about this, Pannu says, 'In those days, Salim-Javed used to decide the casting of the films written by them. Both of them together wrote the film ‘Main Azaad Hoon’. Both of them together narrated the story to a producer and Javed Akhtar suggested Shabana Azmi's name as the heroine along with Amitabh Bachchan. On this, Salim Khan lodged an objection saying that Shabana's image is that of the heroine of art films and Parveen Babi or Zeenat Aman would be right for this film. When the producer saw this look of both of them, he gave up the idea of making a film.' After the breakup of the pair, Javed Akhtar made the film 'Main Azaad Hoon' with director Tinu Anand and the heroine was of his choice, Shabana Azmi.

It is not that Javed Akhtar's girlfriend Shabana was the reason for the rift between the two. At the same time when Salim Khan had fallen in love with actress Helen, who gained immense fame in Hindi cinema due to her cabaret dance numbers, 'Imaan Dharam' was also being made. Inder Mohan Pannu says, "When it came to Amitabh to choose a heroine for the film 'Imaan Dharam', he immediately put forward Helen's name. Javed Akhtar had objected to this. But then Salim Khan's dominance showed its effect and Helen came into the film. Javed Akhtar remained very angry in his mind regarding this matter.

The story of the day their friendship broke was also very strange. It is said that Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar were returning after completing the story of a film. Salim Khan was driving the car and he dropped Javed to his house. When Javed got down from the car, he said to Salim Khan, 'This journey ends here.' It is said that by then Javed Akhtar had talked to producer-director Yash Chopra to write the songs for Amitabh Bachchan's film 'Silsila'.