Farooque Shaikh is now into the middle of his fourth decade as an actor. He has been many things to many viewers, at many times. The romantic hero of Noorie, the irrepressible cad in Katha and the brooding Nawab of Umrao Jaan - Shaikh has played each role to perfection but yet has never been included in the same breath as his contemporaries Naseer or Om. Today's viewers are more familiar with his genial, cherubic TV host persona of Jeena Isi Ke Naam, gently coaxing and nudging eminent actors into remembering their past.
In Bangalore for a theatre performance of Aapki Soniya, Farooque settles down to sharing his own long and eventful past with us. His first film role came in '72, when he was just out of college, and a member of the IPTA (Indian People's Theatre Association) which spearheaded a theatre movement that was particularly vibrant in the 70s.
M. S. Sathyu, a director at IPTA, was setting out to make his masterpiece Garam Hawa and didn't look too far with casting. “We were more his victims than his discoveries,” remarks Shaikh, “and he made full use of the cheap and available in house talent available for his first film!”
In fact Shaikh has had the privilege of being directed by all the top names of the 70s – Muzaffar Ali, Sai Paranjpai, Satyajit Ray among many others - but strangely, never with Shyam Benegal. All his contemporaries and co-stars have been consistently repeated in Benegal's films, but Shaikh has been a glaring exception. The thought puzzles and saddens him even now, but, almost to console himself, he quickly recollects that Benegal had actually offered him Ananth Nag's role in Ankur, but later retracted, as he felt Farooque looked younger than Shabana! That was the closest he got to a Benegal film but Shaikh is grateful that he was so much a part of the emerging and exciting art film movement of the 70s.
He especially treasures his role in Ray's Shatranj ke Khilari, where he played the married Farida Jalal's lover, who takes advantage of her husband's obsession with chess to keep sneaking into her chambers. About Ray, he remembers, “Manikda was mathematical in his approach to film-making. He would work it all out like an equation, step by step, mentally, and then put the great QED flourish.”
Right now Farooque has no film or TV arrangements in hand, and even his play Aap ki Soniya is going into cold storage for a while as his co-star Sonali Bendre is to have a baby soon.
With the re-emergence of alternate cinema in the new multiplex culture, I ask Farooque if he sees roles for himself now. Films like Maqbool and Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi are reminiscent of the 70s film movement, but while Farooque says he would love to work with a Sudhir Mishra or Shaad Ali, he is being very choosy and selective and continues with just reading scripts. “The problem is that I am doing what I don't want to do, and not doing what I want to do!”
A natural code to all serious actors' careers would be to take up direction, but Farooque dismisses the suggestion with a “No bheja”, pointing to his brains and implying a lack of it. When I look at him disbelievingly, he reiterates candidly, “Honestly, no bheja.”
Not the right word. He has straddled the three worlds of theatre, cinema and TV with equal felicity and totally effortless grace, but always with an air of being on a limited engagement. It isn't brain that's lacking, more the electric, concentrated passion of lesser actors who have achieved more. He comes across as relaxed, almost laid back. Throughout the interview, he has been attentive, courteous and patient. The innate decency and niceness of the man comes through in every gesture and word. As I stood up to leave, he said, “I like your kurta, it's very nice,” and he clearly means it.
What's a nice man like you doing in films, Mr. Shaikh?
SANDHYA IYENGAR (hosted here)
