10 cinematic masterpieces of Farooque Shaikh

The actor plays Dr Tareek Sheikh, a neurosurgeon who shifts to Mumbai from Pune after going into acute depression following his son’s death in 'Club 60'. He falls in love with life again, albeit reluctantly, after he meets five quirky characters in their 60s who live life to the fullest.

He plays Rishikant Thapar in 'Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani', the father of Kabir “Bunny” Thapar (Ranbir Kapoor), who meets Naina (Deepika Padukone) during a hiking trip and grows close to her, only to separate for eight years. They meet again later and the rest is history... 

In 'Biwi Ho To Aisi', he plays the soft-spoken and romantic Suraj Bhandari, who meets bubbly village girl Shalu (Rekha), falls in love and marries her. But on returning home to his dominating mother (Bindu), he is forced to give his consent to marry another girl. But Shalu turns up ahead of the wedding, welcomes herself into the house and gets busy putting things right.

In 'Gharwali Baharwali', Sunil Khanna (Farooque Shaikh) is a youth whose middle-class family arranges his marriage to a friend’s daughter, Kala (Anuradha Patel). He, however, is in love with another attractive woman, Beena (Kim), and gives in reluctantly. After marriage, he decides to continue his affair with Beena, but things are never as easy as they appear, are they?

He plays a simple man with high moral values, Avinash in 'Saath Saath'. His policy is to earn while you learn and wants to change the world with truth and simplicity.

In 'Katha', he plays the fast-talking friend, Basudev, of the protagonist, Rajaram P. Joshi (Naseeruddin Shah) — a middle-class clerk living in a chawl in Mumbai. He visits Rajaram, makes himself at home and has an affair with his friend’s neighbour and secret crush, Sandhya Karnik (Deepti Naval), only to ditch her when they are about to get married. 

The actor plays Nawab Sultan, the protagonist, Umrao Jaan’s (Rekha) lover, who is later forced to marry another woman.

In 'Chasme Buddoor', he plays the Siddharth Parashar, the shy roommate of two womanizing slackers — Omi (Rakesh Bedi) and Jai (Ravi Baswani). However, he succeeds in wooing the new girl in the neighbourhood, Neha (Dipti Naval).

In 'Noorie', the actor plays Yusuf, the lover of a simple valley girl, Noorie (Poonam Dhillon), who ends up committing suicide after being raped by a village goon.

He plays a citizen, Aqeel, in Satyajit Ray masterpiece 'Shatranj Ke Khiladi' that centres around two slightly eccentric noblemen (Sanjeev Kumar and Saeed Jaffrey), who while away their time playing chess, while the British override the royal forces and capture Lucknow.
-Compiled by Upam Buzarbaruah