Born and brought up in New Delhi, the award-winning screenwriter and songwriter Jaideep Sahni completed his education from Guru Nanak Engineering College, Bidar. After completing his degree in Computer Engineering, he landed his first job as an engineer with NIIT.

He started writing lyrics after jam sessions with singer Palash Sen. However, what really influenced him was the discovery of the screenplay for the film Gandhi (1982) in a New Delhi bookshop. At 27 years of age, this engineer was now inspired to become a screenwriter. Sahni’s debut film was Jungle (2000) directed by Ram Gopal Verma. He wrote the story, as well as the lyrics for the songs of the movie. The film opened to positive reviews and was critically acclaimed.

His second film Company (2002), was also commercially and critically appreciated, and finally brought this talented young screenwriter into the spotlight. It won him the Filmfare Awards for the Best Dialogue and the Best Story. After this, Sahni worked with renowned film director Dibakar Banerjee for the film Khosla Ka Ghosla (2006). Many aspects of the film were critically appreciated, in particular the characterisation. Once again, it won him the Filmfare Award for the Best Screenplay.

He worked with Yash Raj Films as a screenwriter for several popular films like Bunty Aur Babli (2005), which was an extremely high-grossing movie. The screenplay for the Shahrukh Khan-starrer Chak De! India (2007) script was also written by Sahni, and won him the International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) Awards for Best Story and Best Screenplay. However, his success was not consistent, as his next project Aaja Nachle (2007), which was also Madhuri dixit Nene’s comeback film, was not well received by critics and could not garner much at the box office.

His other works include Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year (2009) and Shuddh Desi Romance (2013), both of which got good reviews and were critically acclaimed. Yet, they did not fare as well in the box office.