Javed Akhtar had to step in to explain Gulzar’s lyrics so Farah Khan could choreograph Dil Se song: ‘Yeh kya likha hai?’ | Bollywood News
3 min readChennaiMar 21, 2026 10:40 AM IST Mani Ratnam’s film Dil Se was iconic in every way. Apart from its hard-hitting story, the film’s songs were also legendary, with fans still swooning to those tunes composed by AR Rahman. Amid all this, it was Farah Khan who choreographed some of the film’s most iconic tracks, including “Satrangi Re”, which was picturised on Shah Rukh Khan and Manisha Koirala. Farah had the task of taking Mani Ratnam’s vision forward in the choreography of the song, but she faced a challenge – understanding the lyrics penned by Gulzar. In a recent interaction with Ranveer Allahbadia, Farah recalled that they were shooting for the song in Ladakh, but to conceptualise it, she had to understand the song’s lyrics. For this, she reached out to her uncle and Hindi cinema’s legendary writer Javed Akhtar. She said, “I did not understand the meaning of this song because Gulzar sahab had written some difficult words in it. You will not believe that I had to call Javed Akhtar to ask …
