In the early ’80s, he started writing lyrics to accompany movies, and soon after, the duo split in 1982. They are considered to be among the most prolific scriptwriters in history and the first to achieve their level of stardom in Indian filmmaking. Javed has won close to a dozen Filmfare Awards and was honored with the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2013, the second-highest achievement given in India, for “Lava”, a collection of poems. Akhtar was married to his wife, Honey Irani, until their divorce after it was rumored he was involved with his now-second wife, Shabana Azmi. Akhtar and Irani had two children together.