Farhan Akhtar

Farhan Akhtar was born in Mumbai, the second child of screenwriters Javed Akhtar and Honey Irani. He has one elder sister, the writer–director Zoya Akhtar. He was very young when his parents divorced; his father married actress Shabana Azmi in 1984. His mother retained the family home in Bandra Bandstand and raised her children there. Akhtar studied at Maneckji Cooper School in Mumbai and then pursued a law degree at HR College, also in Mumbai. Akhtar's father, a Muslim by birth and culture, is a socialist and has described himself as an atheist; Akhtar's mother, born into an Irani Zoroastrian family in India, is indifferent to religion, and was content to let her children grow up with no religion. Akhtar has stated that he is an atheist. Akhtar's family hails from Khairabad in the Avadh region of present-day Uttar Pradesh, and he comes from a long lineage of Urdu poets. He is the grandson of Urdu poet Jan Nisar Akhtar and great-grandson of Urdu poet Muztar Khairabadi. On his mother's side, Akhtar is the nephew of the child actress Daisy Irani and the first cousin of choreographer Farah Khan and Sajid Khan. Akhtar married Adhuna Bhabani in 2000, after being in a relationship with her for 3 years. They first met during the filming of his directorial debut Dil Chahta Hai, which also marked Bhabani's debut as a Bollywood hairstylist. The couple has two daughters named Shakya and Akira. On 21 January 2016, they announced their separation after 16 years of marriage. Their divorce was finalised on 24 April 2017, with Bhabani having custody of their children. Akhtar started dating VJ Shibani Dandekar in 2018. On 19 February 2022, they got married in a non-religious ceremony at his Khandala farmhouse. Akhtar worked as an apprentice in film distribution and direction for Yash Chopra's Lamhe (1991) when he was 17 years old and later moved to an advertisement production house named "Script Shop" to spend an approximate 3 years there. He also assisted Pankaj Parashar as a director in Himalay Putra (1997) before launching himself into direction and writing.