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Naseeruddin Shah On Dancing With Mithun, Acting In Bad Films And Finding Hope In Times Of Modi

The actor, who hasn't shied away from critiquing the present dispensation, talks about finding meaning through art and what bad films taught him about acting.
Naseeruddin Shah has been a vocal critic of the present dispensation and often finds himself in the middle of a maelstrom.
STR via Getty Images
Naseeruddin Shah has been a vocal critic of the present dispensation and often finds himself in the middle of a maelstrom.

Naseeruddin Shah made his Hindi cinema debut with Shyam Benegal’s Nishant and went on to act in several Benegal films—Manthan, Bhumika, Junoon, Mandi. Appearing on Farooq Shaikh’s talk show, Jeena Isi Ka Naam Hai, Shah once recalled watching Benegal’s debut film, Ankur, in a theatre in Kanpur and feeling encouraged by the idea that the film industry was moving away from casting conventionally good-looking people, like Shaikh himself.

From FTII in Pune, Shah landed at Benegal’s Tardeo office on hearing that post-Ankur, the director was looking to cast his next movie, Nishant. He was anxious and tense and waited patiently at Benegal’s office, oblivious to the fact that the director was watching him throughout. After a few minutes, Benegal walked up to Shah and said that he had the role.

“The most difficult thing for an actor to do is be withdrawn and yet be noticeable,” Benegal would later recall. “He had that quality.” Ever since his debut, Shah’s career has grown with India’s parallel cinema movement of the 70s and the early 80s, with the actor being part of era-defining films such as Shekhar Kapoor’s Masoom, Sai Paranjpye’s Sparsh, Saeed Mirza’s Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyoon Aata Hai, Kundan Shah’s Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro and Gulzar’s Ijaazat, to pick a few from an enviable list of films.

Over the past few years, along with delivering stellar performances in films both good and bad, Shah has been a vocal critic of the present dispensation and often finds himself in the middle of a maelstrom. In an interview to The Wire earlier this year, Shah said, “I suppose people who don’t know what it’s like to be a student or people who’ve never had any intellectual pursuits would consider students and intellectuals to be pests. It is not surprising that the prime minister has no empathy or any compassion for the students, he’s never been a student.”

In this interview, the actor talks about the politics of acting as an art form, his own evolution as an artiste and what, in times such as now, gives him hope:

Do you feel the current moment has made you more productive as an artist? Or has the lockdown had the opposite effect?

I’m not unaccustomed to spending weeks at home. There was a phase in my life where I was shooting around the clock and I must say I didn’t enjoy it. Even then, I would take time off and either do a play, go on a vacation or just lie around at home with my children. These 5 months have not been traumatic for me. What it has helped us all to do, except those who are prone to get depressed about it, is that it has challenged our faculties. There have been so many young people who have come out with some of the most beautiful short films concerning the lockdown. They’ve been pushed into a corner where their creativity has really sparked up and I think that’s a good thing.

I’m sure the same thing must be happening to people who paint or write poetry. My son, Imaad, is a musician. He composes a lot of stuff and he’s found these 5 months very stimulating. As for ourselves, we’ve been keeping busy by performing online with story readings and poetry recitals.

Just the other day, I was a part of Roshan Abbas’ Mehfil where I recited a story. We’ve been doing this on and off and it has helped me find a tangible way to come back to boredom. When the world was normal and you found yourself two hours ahead of you and nothing to do, you’d wonder what to do, that problem hasn’t occurred yet. For the first time I’m living a regulated life and going according to the programme. I’m reading a lot of stuff. I’ve been taking singing classes as well. I’ve been trying to improve my Urdu handwriting and reading too. So, quite a lot has been achieved, personally speaking.

The way we engage with reality has fundamentally changed. Do you, as an artist, see this collective isolation manifesting into art that we will subsequently make?

How can it not? As soon as the lockdown eases, which it’s not showing any sign of, but whenever it does, we won’t even know that it’s gone. I just hope we don’t revert to our old lazy creativity and jump back to the kind of stuff we used to do. This event should carry some meaning for us which remains. It is the first national trauma that our country has been through. We’ve been through a couple of wars but they haven’t affected the entire country. This has affected the entire world. The kind of creativity that flowered in Europe post World War 2 was not a coincidence. The quality of writing, sculpting, painting, drama and cinema that emerged out of it proves that.

Thankfully, we have been spared the trauma of a war but this has been no less of a combat. It feels like living in a war zone, given the omnipresence of death. Time has been strange. Living in the heart of Bandra and not hearing a car go by is strange.

If you notice, whatever creativity has been triggered online is from the younger generation. That is very heartwarming. It creates great optimism in me. The younger people are coming forward and expressing themselves, finally, in a coherent way. I have always encouraged their attempts to write an original play, original films and so on but oftentimes I felt that they are abstruse. They work too hard to be considered geniuses instead of trying to simply make. But that is changing now. Now, they’re writing scripts which are really attempting to communicate. I hope that stays.

Naseerudin Shah in a still from 'Bandish Bandits'
Naseerudin Shah in a still from 'Bandish Bandits'

You recently appeared in Amazon Prime Video’s ‘Bandish Bandits’. At least for now, the streaming ecosystem looks like it is positioning itself as a counter-culture voice to the mainstream. Would it be overstating their significance if I ask you whether this reminds you of the late seventies or eighties when we saw the emergence of filmmakers such as Shyam Bengal, Mani Kaul, Govind Nihalani and Ketan Mehta, and there was a parallel art movement?

I’d say it would be premature to call it a wave or alternative just yet. One can always hope for the seventies movement or wave, whatever you would like to call it, to reoccur through streaming. I am certainly optimistic about its survival because funnily, yet not so strangely, audiences have taken to content-driven drama during this lockdown. How much of the blood-drenched and gut-wrenching revenge can you see?

Particularly when you are accompanied by a thousand other people who are clapping, whistling and driving your adrenaline levels up? How much fun is it going to be to see those in the solitude of your living room while you’re having dinner with your children and you’re watching somebody’s guts being spilled out with a hand pipe? I have a feeling, a section of the audience has had enough. They want to see stuff that taxes their minds a little bit and that’s a great sign. Most of the people who have spoken to me about Bandish Bandits say it’s so refreshing to not have an obscenity-laced revenge on your hands but a soothing, gentle drama. Suppose director Anand Tiwari had to make Bandish Bandits as a film, he would’ve limited it to two hours maybe.

He would’ve had to skip over many of the important parts. It reminds me of Mirza Ghalib, the immortal serial made by Gulzar Bhai, to make it as a movie first because, for some reason or the other, he couldn’t get the finance even though he had stars lined up to act in it. Then he got to make the serial and he was telling me, “I have to thank my stars that I did not make this as a movie. It would’ve been 2 or 2.5 hours long but here I got to make a 12 hour film! I can hold fort and explore areas which I wouldn’t have been able to explore with the producer sitting on my head and rejecting concepts.”

So, without the pressures of getting a star, putting in songs or fight sequences and appease to Indian sentiments, they are being allowed to make films they want and I wish them luck and a long life.

I think that’s the fear, the counter-narrative becoming exactly what it was running away from.

Absolutely and that happened right? That’s where our television missed a fantastic opportunity because it ended up becoming just like the movies, even worse. The purpose for making a television serial became the exact reason for making a stupid movie: something people will buy and watch. We lost a great opportunity to educate our country through television.

I’m sure you get tired of people telling you that you’ve had a very illustrious career. You’ve delivered memorable performances in some of the greatest films and ... you’ve done a bunch of very shitty films as well. I’m guessing you’re self-aware when you do those...

Boy, am I! (Laughs)

In those, it feels like you are quietly winking to the camera! But, at this stage in your career, what is your high as an actor? And has it changed and evolved since, say a Nishant, Manthan, Masoom and Sparsh?

Oh, yes. At that time, my high was to outdo every actor in any movie I was in.

It was a very immature attitude but I was actually like that and I don’t ever run away from that fact. I’m not ashamed of it because that’s how I needed to be at the time. I needed to believe in the method acting dogmas for a while. I don’t believe in them any longer but believing in it at the time, did give me something.

In the same way theatre and television and more importantly, teaching has given me. In fact, over the last ten years I’ve been doing a lot of teaching. I’ve done it for a while over at the drama school and at FTII.

I’ve given up teaching at certain institutions because they just don’t agree with me, they have their own agendas. I’ve worked with young actors whom I know and not only those who are working in my place. To me, the greatest joy is to be able to get a young actor to perform at his potential. It’s better than doing it yourself. I’m very careful not to demonstrate things and to not infect them with my preferences. At the moment, I think I will continue to do so. There will come a time when I will be too old to be of use as an actor anymore but I think as a teacher, I will perhaps still be of use. What excites me as an actor today is to be a part of a project which I’m going to enjoy doing and which has a chance of being remembered regardless of the size of the role. That has been my feeling for quite a few years and some of the very lovely parts I’ve done have actually been cameos.

Naseeruddin Shah and Shabana Azmi in a still from 'Sparsh'
Naseeruddin Shah and Shabana Azmi in a still from 'Sparsh'

Would you say, in the early part of your career, there was a sense of aggression because more than to the audience, you are also trying to prove to yourself that you are good enough? And how did you unlearn that?

Had I let that feeling enlarge, it would’ve been self-destructive.

I don’t know how I managed to check it. Maybe the fact that I did not get any box-office success had something to do with it. I began to realise that all my attempts at busting the box office were laughable (Laughs). You may have heard or seen some of them, but if you haven’t then don’t. I began to feel, “Hey! Even in this piece of junk which nobody came to see, I worked my butt off. So, how come my performance didn’t work?”

I looked wrong to myself when I saw myself in one of these singing-dancing movies, I thought, “What is this guy doing up there? This is not where he should be.”Gradually I began to realise it is the writing and direction that makes the performance. I worked as hard on Masoom ― which is one of my favourite films and probably the best one I’ve done ― as much as I did on a film called Dil... Akhir Dil Hai, which I’m sure you haven’t even heard of. Both were shot simultaneously.

I was playing the romantic lead in front of the gorgeous Rakhee and Parveen Babi. I sang songs and was in bed with both of these lovely ladies. I shot half of Dil... Akhir Dil Hai, went to Delhi and shot Masoom, came back and finished the former. It was a continuous journey. And yet you can see the difference in the quality of performance. I look like an absolute novice! Like a guy who does not know the first thing about acting in Dil... Akhir Dil Hai.

And yet, I am telling you, it was shot at the same time and there was no effort lacking, the difference lies in the writing and the guidance. This began to make me realise, “Hey, the actor is not the centre of things here’ and the ‘I want to be better than everyone’ is a shitty argument to carry around.”

Over the years I began to realise that your own part is secondary to the film. You are another aspect that the director is using to communicate an idea. You’re no more important than the other actor. Boman Irani once told me that he always believed that the other actor in a scene is more important than him. It makes a hell lot of sense, even if you’re playing Hamlet and the other actor is playing the messenger. In that scene, the messenger is more important than you. One learns acting by osmosis. You meet people, they say things, you watch their performances and internalise that. You grow like a tree.

As you evolve as an actor, you also start trusting your methods more. Given your sensibilities, you must have found yourself in conflict with the Bollywood formula? How did you negotiate that line?

Not with the greatest success. I tried, but I think I’m just not cut out for those movies. Either that or it’s got something to do with the germ in my own head. I’ve had no great affection for these movies. I have seldom been taken in by Hindi movies. I was taken in by the early Dilip Kumar films. That was mainly because of his performances.

Apart from him, my favourites were Shammi Kapoor and Dara Singh films. There was nothing in Hindi cinema which drew me otherwise. I did see them all, I saw Raj Kapoor and Dev Anand who also gave me a lot of joy but there was so much mediocrity all over that I never got quite hooked. And yet, at the same time, I dreamed of becoming a part of this community, I have to admit. I didn’t become an actor to serve theatre or to act in serious films, I became one because I wanted to be famous and the only way to do that was to be in Hindi movies. I dreamt of ending up there, I didn’t know in what capacity. I would end up there but I knew that acting was what I really wanted to do.

When I was at FTII I was exposed to a lot of international cinema which I hadn’t seen before; Italian, French, Swedish, Russian, Czechoslovakian, Japanese, Bulgarian, Romanian. I didn’t even know these countries made movies. My mind was totally blown. The Godfather had just come out and I was blown away by these guys. I wanted to be an actor of that kind. I wanted to be like Al Pacino.

What happened as a result was that I did not prepare myself to be an actor in Hindi commercial cinema. I prepared myself to be an actor in the kind of cinema I thought would accommodate me. Ankur had been made, it had succeeded, Shabana had become a star. Saara Aakash, Bhuvan Shome, all these movies had done really well.

Merchant Ivory had started making films around then...

Yes, Shakespeare Wallah, The Householder... these were the films I saw when I was at NSD and Aligarh. I thought these were the kind of movies I’m going to get work in and I prepared myself for that. So that’s what I did, I don’t know if that was a gain or a loss that rendered me inactive in the song and dance cinema. Also I didn’t practice enough for it because I never thought I would have to do too much of it. When I actually had to, believe me it was (Laughs) harrowing! The first time I had to dance was next to Mithun Chakraborty, yeah (Laughs). Enough said!

Tell me more about how that went! I’d have killed to be on that set.

I never felt at home! It was the first time I became aware of a split personality. My scene was totally different. I’d usually be on a shoot with Shyam (Benegal), Dinesh, Ketan (Mehta), Vidhu (Vinod Chopra), Saeed (Mirza) and Kundan (Shah). We were all friends and it was always a relaxed atmosphere in which we shot those films. I had not been with all of these mainstream guys. I never felt that way while on the sets of a film with 50 dancers and 500 extras and everybody tittering when you do a step wrong. While I was frantically rehearsing this step before Mithun appeared on the show and tripping myself up, one of the extra girls very sympathetically came up to me and said, “Poor boy! This is your first film, isn’t it?” So I said, “Yeah, I’m sorry I’m holding you all up.” and she said, “No, never mind! Carry on!” She was sweet, yeah, but it sank my spirits further. It was a film called Khwab made by Shakti Samanta. You’ll find the dance number somewhere, I’m playing a mandolin and trying to dance with Mithun.

And you won’t believe—I shot for Khwaab just before going to Delhi to shoot for Sparsh. Just before! In fact the money I made from Khwab helped me buy a car (Laughs). So I drove to Delhi in that car and did Sparsh.

The learning here really was the fact that an actor’s abilities are just not enough. It’s ironic that an actor depends on so many inputs from others. This was the bingo moment for me.

Things like lighting can ruin your performance. Or heighten it. The editing can do the same. The writing can obviously destroy or elevate your act. That is why I’m really not being modest when I say that people give me a lot of blessings and a lot of good wishes for Mirza Ghalib and Masoom but more than half the credit goes to the writers and the directors. As far as Ghalib is concerned, the entire credit goes to Gulzar Bhai.

With ‘Bandish’, what was the most memorable moment?

It made me aware that I needed some reminding. A musician, a vocalist, an instrumentalist, a dancer, a mime, all of them have to work a hundred thousand times harder than any actor.

Actors feel entitled to perform. No vocalist or instrumentalist would dare perform without cleaning his instrument, practicing on it or without paying reverence to it. I have always believed this but, of course, I do not believe in displaying it. I detest actors who come and touch their heads to the stage, they only do it when someone is watching.

In Bandish, I had to learn a little about classical music. I have to say I am not an avid follower of Indian classical vocal music. I know what it sounds like so I can appreciate a great thumri sung by a great singer but I don’t understand. I am unable to appreciate the complexities of it.

Doing this part helped me understand that a little bit better. I was privileged to meet Pandit Ajoy Chakrabarty who has sung for me. He’s a great singer. I met him and he was extremely respectable. That’s the great thing about these people, from the amount of respect they pay to others and their craft to the way they compose themselves and sit when they’re performing.

Even clearing their throat is an act of etiquette. I asked him something which had always bothered me. I dislike actors who always move their hands around and feel that they need to make a gesture with every word they say. They get scared when they don’t move their hands. I asked him, when I see classical singers go for it, I notice they use a lot of hand gestures and I forbid my actors to do that unless they’re making a point.

To which he said, it’s different. He said, you love Shammi Kapoor and what is special about him? When he sings a song, he won’t ever point to himself when he talks about himself or point to the sky when he talks about the sky. He will make a completely abstract gesture which has perhaps nothing to do with the words being sung. Because he isn’t responding to the words at all, he’s responding to the rhythm, the music which is driving him to make those gesture. It’s the same thing with us, we see the notes and we try to paint them. It’s the most beautiful description He said another thing: when you breathe in while playing music, it’s oxygen and when you breathe out, it’s not carbon dioxide, it is beauty.

Naseeruddin Shah in Masoom
HuffPost India
Naseeruddin Shah in Masoom

You mentioned how Masoom left a deep imprint on your consciousness. Among the movies that you have done in the late 2000s, are there any characters that you find yourself going back to?

I don’t think I’ve done any role that has fundamentally changed me. Some have stayed with me and some have taught me some things. Movies like Masoom, Bhavni Bhavai, Nishant, Mirch Masala and Manthan, taught me a great deal.

But none of these roles have stayed with me in a way that changed my life except perhaps Sparsh which opened my eyes to the fact that no matter how good my performance may have been, I can never be able to imagine what a person, who’s actually sightless, goes through.

No matter how hard I try, I cannot. It was summed up in an incident with Mr. Mittal, the principal of the school. He was blind and he was the one teaching me how to learn Braille. He told me to give up because I would never learn. I learned the formation of the alphabets but I could never read it with my fingertips. He said I could never be able to because my fingertips didn’t have that need. To be with these people, they’re completely self-conscious, they have no idea what they look like so they’re not concerned about looking good. They smile readily and they’re always ready to extend a hand. It was quite something. My attitude towards the differently-abled, I must say, evolved as I was sensitised in a way that otherwise would have been impossible. That’s the only film which I can say has affected me in that way.

At a time such as this, where we see majoritarian politics chipping away and systematically destroying all institutions that were imagined to remain free, what gives you hope?

That it can’t last. It has to crumble and it will crumble on its own. I’m also optimistic. I go back to the example of RK Laxman who kept producing a cartoon every day even during the Emergency. So there will always be ways. Our voices will not be stilled. We must go on. It may have no impact in our lifetimes. It will take generations. But it eventually will. The tradition of protest must stay alive. If we stop, then we might as well roll over and die.

We also see the State co-opting the soft power of Hindi cinema. Through both overt and covert ways, there’s conscious messaging dispelled through hyper-jingoistic and nationalistic cinema. As someone who values the influence of art on mindsets, does that strike you as dangerous?

Sure, it’s dangerous but it’s up to the creative strength of the people involved to combat it. This is nothing new though, but yes, I agree that it’s becoming much more invidious now. There was a time in Congress days when Kissa Kursi Ka was taken away and burnt so no one would see it. It was a badly made film which probably no one would’ve seen if it had it not been banned. But it has to continue and we are going to face forces trying to still our voices but we can’t let that happen.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.