A Shah among actors

So I went for the movie and came back totally wowedby Naseer’s performance. Thereafter, I watched Albert Pinto Ko Gussa KyunAata Hai, Katha, Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron, Pestonjee, Ijaazat, Masoom... Hisperformances made an impact on me but I don’t think I had the aukaat toanalyse them back then. Today, I can safely say Naseer is one of the greatestIndian actors ever. But back then, with my serious devotion to a career incricket, I didn’t think too much about anything else. WhenTridev was released, I remember my friends from the NSD (particularly AshishVidyarthi) were very chuffed about Naseer’s opening lines before the OyeOye song. I wasn’t. In fact, I was at a stage when I had stopped likingthe so-called ‘commercial’ cinema when Naseer was in his phase of‘zinda jala ke raakh kar doonga’ movies. When I moved toMumbai, I discovered a group of filmwallahs who were keen cricketers and calledthemselves the Match Cut Club (‘match cut’ is an editing term). Itwas at the nets in Mumbai’s Khar Gymkhana that I was first formallyintroduced to Naseer, also an MCC member. The club had restricted entry, but Iwas a good player and was accepted immediately. Soon after, I became the captainand Naseer played under me. He was a good team player. Other members includedTom Alter, Jalal Agha, Abhinav Chaturvedi, Afzal Khan... My initial meetingswith Naseer were spent discussing cricket and more cricket. Of course, we alldid occasionally bitch about the film world too. In cricket — as in life— Naseer’s always been a sport. I remember once when I was bowling areally fast ball and Naseer was keeping, the ball hit him smack in the middle ofhis face, leaving him bloody and semi-conscious. I felt really awful but he washis usual self with me the next day. By that time, I was exploring direction andit had become my dream to direct Naseer in a film. People said he was arrogantand rude, but I realised he was just brutally honest. I offered him a part inMakdee, but he slipped out of it, possibly because he didn’t want to takea chance with me as a director. When I wrote Maqbool, I gave him the script andtold him to pick the role, the dates and the money and gave him no room to sayno. I said he had to tell me that the script was worthless if he wanted out.Naseer read the script and loved it — he told me he had never read abetter adaptation of Macbeth and that he would do Abbaji’s part(eventually played by Pankaj Kapur). Somewhere down the line, he came to me andsaid he liked the character of the witches more and also felt that Iwouldn’t be able to get good actors to play those roles.“I’ll speak to Om Puri, tell him, he and I are the perfect witches, and make sure he does the role. Also, you should ask Pankaj Kapur to do Abbaji’s part, he’s perfect for it,” Naseer reassured me. I panicked and thought he was trying to give me the slip again but thankfully not. Om Puri and Naseer are actually one character in two different actors. Their camaraderie with each other creates magic, on the sets and on the screen. Before Maqbool went on the floor, Naseer held a workshop for all the actors. This has now become tradition with us. I remember before Omkara, Kareena, Ajay and Vivek were petrified of going to attend Naseer’s workshop and took 20 minutes to gather their guts and step in. But they had nothing to fear. Naseer is the best co-actor one can have. He knows he’s good, but is humble about it and believes one actor cannot steal a scene from another. When Maqbool released, Naseer told me how he hated mytreatment of the second half and totally didn’t agree with the last scene.“Sirf writing kar ke director nahi bante, acting bhi aani chahiye,”he told me at the special screening.I took his criticism veryseriously and called him the next day, saying I wanted to join his MotleyTheatre group. Embarrassed, he said I didn’t need to learn to act butcould sit in on his rehearsals — and also help him with music for hisplays. From then on, we’ve had an unwritten deal: I score the music forall Motley productions and he makes himself available to me for all my films. Itwas when I watched Naseer and his group rehearse that I realised acting isactually about reacting. Today, if people watch my films and say that I get myactors to be ‘different’ on screen, all credit goes to what I learntas an acting observer at Naseer’s rehearsals. As a director,Naseer has failed. I watched Yun Hota Toh Kya Hota from a filmmaker’sperspective. And I believe his talent for direction is nowhere close to hiscraft as an actor. But I think he will make another film.Naseer and Om Puri were at NSD together.“Naseer is a very dear friend. Whenever one of us does a stupid film, theother has a blast ribbing him about it,” says Puri. “But I mustadmit, we’re misfits in this industry. The kind of movies that Bollywoodmakes are not for us. They’re aimed at a young audience interested only influff. It’s tough for us to get character roles,” he adds. Is thatwhy both Naseer and he compromised on the kind of roles they chose? “Wehad to survive,” Puri admits. “But we will be remembered for ourgood work, not for the roles we took up as acts of desperation.” Puri alsobelieves he and Naseer have not been lucky on the job. “Some people arestars by sheer luck,” he says. “But look at us... We’re bothdrama school graduates but just not lucky.” Many say Naseer moved to so-called ‘commercial’ cinema because he was disillusioned with parallel cinema. Puri doesn't agree. "The disillusionment was not with the form of cinema — in fact those movies were what made him — but with certain makers. He was angry with people like Ketan Mehta and Vinod Chopra, who worked with him when they were nobodies, but dropped him in favour of stars after they tasted success.” —BHARATIDUBEY I’ve heard a lotof criticism of Naseer’s fall to the depths of bad cinema. I thinkhe’s always made it very clear that he did certain movies for the moneyalone. Who hasn’t? Why is it okay for Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khanto do the very things that we pull Naseer down for? The man wanted to makemovies that ensured him the basic comforts in life. And why not? Having saidthat, after doing the worst of the worst cinema, I think he’s come back towhat the world calls ‘respectable’ roles. Personally, Ifeel Naseer should quit the movies now. His heart is in theatre — on stage— and I can see that. When he’s on the sets, it’s like dealingwith a temperamental child. He’s impatient because he’s aspontaneous actor — retakes are not his thing at all. WhileMCC still exists, it’s not as easy to round up the gang today as it wasback then. Both of us still enjoy the occasional game of cricket but have movedon to tennis on a regular basis. The game may have changed, but the man is stilla sport, off the courts and on it. • —   Nobodywho saw the film would ever forget his passionate defence of liberal Islam. Astirring performance that becomes the movie's soul   Theactor finds the exact shade to the complex role of a ghazal singer who doublesas a Pakistani agent. The scene where he chops off the ear of a young goatchills   Singing‘Oye oye, tircchi topiwale’ the actor proved he was equally at homein inane Bollywood masala   Inone of the finest television serials ever made, the actor lives and breathes thepart of the colourful 19th century Urdu poet. Perhaps his greatest role ever   Asan introvert Parsee who loses out in love, Naseer is precise and heartfelt inthis Vijaya Mehtadirected classic   AtVenice, where he got the best actor award, the audience wondered if the artisteswere real-life labourers. Can you get a higher accolade?   As acute word-spinner, Farooque Sheikh had the more showy part. But Naseer makeseverybody empathise with the heart-achingly simple and gentle clerk   Tillthen, he had excelled in jholawala roles. The audience wasn't used to watchinghim play a clean-shaven yuppie   DirectorRabindra Dharmaraj's rough and realistic urban chawl drama had Naseer playing aflamboyant petty crook who falls on hard times. Unforgettable   Fewactors have played the blind with such certitude. And it wasn’t just thephysical movements but also the psychological intensity that Naseer brought outwith such dignity   Playinga conscientious lawyer investigating the death of a tribal woman, the actor gavethe role everything it needed: integrity, honesty and the look of a man whoknows he is fighting ruthless people   In amuch-talked about role, the actor effectively portrayed the edginess and theangst of a Mumbai motor mechanic.