The late director Yash Chopra was often hailed as a visionary who redefined romance on the silver screen. Some of his most iconic films—‘Kabhie Kabhie,’ ‘Noorie,’ and ‘Chandni’—are still regarded as odes to romantic love and passion on celluloid. However, while the auteur provided the vision behind these evergreen films, it was writer Sagar Sarhadi who penned the memorable dialogues and screenplay for these movies.
According to film historians, Sarhadi not only wrote screenplays and dialogues for several Chopra films but also penned the lines for Shah Rukh Khan’s debut, Deewana, and Hrithik Roshan’s launch vehicle, Kaho Naa Pyar Hai. Despite shaping some of Hindi cinema’s defining works, Sarhadi lived away from the limelight, leading a life marked by
loneliness and eventually passing away quietly in his Mumbai apartment.
Early Life and Roots in Partitioned India
Born as Ganga Sagar Talwar in the small village of Baffa near Abbottabad—then part of undivided India—he grew up against the backdrop of social and political turmoil. He adopted the pen name “Sarhadi,” inspired by filmmaker Zia Sarhadi, whose socially conscious movies like Footpath and Hum Log left a lasting impact on him. The choice also reflected his own origins from the frontier region. His early years were spent in Abbottabad, Pakistan, before relocating to Delhi at the age of twelve due to Partition.
Eventually, he moved to Bombay (now Mumbai) to live with his elder brother.
Education and Struggles in Bombay
Sarhadi completed his English degree at St. Xavier’s College and worked briefly as an Urdu translator for a British firm. His true passion, however, lay in writing, and he soon abandoned the steady job to pursue a creative career. Like many newcomers to the city, he faced severe hardships. He attempted various odd jobs—from trying his hand at driving a taxi (an effort that ended disastrously on the first day) to seeking employment at a typing institute, which never materialized.
He summed up his taxi driving career to Scroll in a chat in 2017, “But on the very first day, I hit a pole while reversing.”
At one point, while managing his brother’s textile shop, he became so engrossed in a book that a customer walked away with an entire bundle of fabric.