An incensed Sunny Deol, Javed Akhtar’s personal approval: How Akhtar Calling Akhtar radio gag made it on the air | Bollywood News

Mimicry art, radio  jockey, voiceover art and actor Kettan Singh recalled coming up with a humorous bit on radio in which he mimicked Javed Akhtar and Farhan Akhtar having a conversation with each other. The bit was called Akhtar Calling Akhtar, and ran for over a decade. But the radio station was hesitant about putting it on the air, as it had recently offended Sunny Deol and Dharmendra with a similar concept. Kettan recalled sitting on the idea for several months, before Javed himself gave his nod to it in his trademark tongue-in-cheek manner.
In an interview with The Lallantop, “My colleague Rochak Kohli came up with the idea. He said, ‘You know Kartik Calling Kartik? Let’s do Akhtar Calling Akhtar’. The idea was that Farhan would call his dad up with a doubt of some kind, and his dad would regale him with a song before addressing his doubt. Then, the time that Farhan would become frustrated, Javed sahab would give him the solution. We made a first cut, and tried to pitch it.”
Also read – Comedian whose mimicry offended Karan Johar revisits controversy: ‘My father worked at Dharma, held Karan as a ba’
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But, Kettan said, an unexpected problem arose. A couple of years ago, the same radio station ran a property called Sansani, where Sunny Deol and Dharmendra would have conversations that weren’t exactly portraying them in a positive light. “The bosses at the station said that we can’t get into another mess like it, as we’d just come out of the earlier one,” Kettan recalled, admitting that the earlier property was ‘demeaning’ to Sunny and his father.
“The Akhtar Calling Akhtar property was lying in the dumps for months. People at different levels of seniority liked it, but nobody put it on the air. Then, senior journal Bhawana Somaaya took the initiative to actually ask Javed saab if he’d be fine with it. Now, I’ve heard this second hand, but Javed saab lened to the bit, and his response was, ‘Acha hai, mujhe koi takleef nahi hai. Bas meri awaaz achi nahi hai, Farhan ki zyada achi hai (It’s good, I have no problem. The only thing is that my voice isn’t as good as Farhan’s).”
Kettan said that the property won numerous awards, and ran for 12 years. He left the station shortly afterwards, but it lead to him bagging jobs in the future.