Not months, weeks, days, Javed Akhtar cracked Dard-E-Disco in just..., Farah Khan recalls brief she gave to lyricst for Om Shanti Om: 'Gulzar sahab jaisa...'

It’s been 17 years since Om Shanti Om was released, but Shah Rukh Khan’s chiselled abs and the catchy beats of Dard-E-Disco are still part of pop culture. Recently, director Farah Khan shared a funny story about how the song was written — and how lyricist Javed Akhtar came up with its famously quirky words in just five minutes after she gave him an unusual brief: “Write like Gulzar sahab.” The song, where Shah Rukh showed off his six-pack for the first time, became an unforgettable mix of qawwali, disco, and total madness.

Speaking on the Take 2 podcast, Farah said Javed Akhtar didn’t take long once he heard her idea. “When we were making Dard-E-Disco, I told him, ‘Just write like Gulzar sahab.’ And within five minutes, he wrote it! He said, ‘Oh, you want something like Gulzar sahab? I’ll do it right now.’ If you listen carefully, the lyrics do sound like Gulzar’s poetic style,” she laughed.

Farah also joked about how Javed Akhtar usually takes his time to write songs. “We would often wait days for him to give us just two lines. Javed uncle loves to chat about everything but doing his homework,” she said with a smile.

Interestingly, Javed Akhtar himself once talked about Dard-E-Disco on the Cyrus Says podcast. He revealed that Farah had asked for a song that “made no sense” because the movie scene was already so absurd. He laughed, saying, “I realised for the first time that writing nonsense is actually very hard. But I think I did a good job — it turned out nicely meaningless.”

In Om Shanti Om, Dard-E-Disco plays during a scene where Om Kapoor (Shah Rukh Khan) insists on adding a dream sequence to his movie — even though his character is in a wheelchair. It’s meant as a parody of the over-the-top logic often seen in Bollywood films.

Farah also recalled another funny moment from Dil Se.., when she struggled to understand Gulzar’s poetic Urdu lyrics in “Satrangi Re.” She said, “We couldn’t figure out what he had written, so I used to call Javed uncle and ask, ‘Please explain this to me!’”