KARACHI: It seems that Indian theatre and film actor Naseeruddin Shah has taken a shine to his Pakistani admirers. Not too long ago, in fact last year, he was in Karachi to perform at the Napa theatre festival, and this time round he is in Pakistan in connection with the launch of his book And Then One Day — A Memoir, for which he first attended the Lahore Literature Festival, and on Monday evening launched the book at the Oxford University Press head office.

Answering the first question put to him by the moderator, Meenu Gaur, who appeared to be in awe of the actor, about his early days, Naseer said when he was 16 years old, like every teenager, he wanted to get into films. He landed in Bombay and stayed at a friend’s place. Soon his friend got fed up with his joblessness and asked him to get a job or vacate his place.

He then moved into a warehouse and got a chance to work as an extra in two films (Amn and Sapnon ka saudagar) but couldn’t make it big. The legendary Dilip Kumar’s family knew Naseer’s father. They told his parents that acting was not meant for boys with good family backgrounds. He cheekily added: “I’d like to ask Dilip Sahib what kind of family background he came from.”

On whether acting could be taught, Naseer said acting should be taken as a profession, not as an impossible dream. Teaching acting was more nebulous than helping someone learn mathematics. Teaching an actor meant handling a human being.

He told the moderator that when the young ones came to him to learn the art, he’d say to them that complete your studies first. He pointed out that there was no conception of the amount of labour a singer or a dancer put into their work. Similarly, teaching acting was getting involved in making someone’s personality, “it involves being a shrink”, he remarked.

About those from whom he had learnt his art, Naseer took some names but stressed that “life is the greatest teacher” and “acting can’t be learnt from books”.

When asked about the role of the Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib that he did in a drama serial, Naseer said it had fallen into his lap. He then went down memory lane: when he was at the Film Institute, it was rumoured that Gulzar intended to make a film on Ghalib and had an actor, the late Sanjeev Kumar, in mind to play the poet’s part.

He wrote a letter to Gulzar sahib suggesting that Kumar would destroy the character because he didn’t speak Urdu well and he (Naseer) was perfect for the role, although he was only 23 at the time. However, that letter never reached Gulzar and he never got to make the film owing to shortage of funds. As for his success in the TV drama, he said he couldn’t take full credit for it because “the writing was so good”. At that point Ms Gaur requested Naseer to read out a couple of excerpts from his book.

He read out two pieces, one of which was to do with his meeting with a famous writing duo of the Indian film industry, and the other related to the arrival of film actor Pran at his flat requesting him to play an actors’ cricket match. During the former, Naseer touched upon the hubris with which the writing pair treated him because at the time he hadn’t become a name to reckon with and was in the midst of completing the film Albert Pinto ko ghussa kuon aata hai.

When asked whether he lamented not being a ‘star’, Naseer said he wanted to be a star. “We become actors because we want to be seen and liked and be famous. I did popular movies to be known to a larger audience. It didn’t happen and I had to live with it.” Gradually he came to terms with it because what he got in return was more than what he could get as a star, he said.

On the quality of films being made in India, Naseer said Hollywood too made rubbish movies but there they also kept churning out films like The Imitation Game and The Theory of Everything.

“If today the whole world is watching Bollywood films is because the ‘spice’ they offer,” he said and added that he didn’t think that the world’s fascination with Bollywood would last.

On the issue of undeserved success, Naseer said he had been praised more than he deserved. In India if they made even a slightly above average film, it’s acknowledged as brilliant. He pointed out that there’s no one criterion for judging acting.

“If the performance connects with you, it’s good,” he said, because there’s no yardstick to judge acting. Naseer said Sparsh and Masoom were two of his favourite films (that he worked in). Script-wise, Masoom was far beyond the average Hindi film, he claimed.

When the floor was opened for the audience to ask questions, the first query was about the actor’s current aspirations. He said he felt he hadn’t met his potential yet and wanted “best use of my sunset year”.

He confessed that he found it inspiring that the young directors found the need for him.

Earlier, Ameena Saiyid and Naz Ikramullah spoke on the actor’s life and work.

Published in Dawn, February 24th, 2015

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