Naseeruddin Shah is a national treasure but he never set out to be one. His ambitions differ from most actors who come into the industry fuelled by nepotism on steroids. When we talk about outsiders making it big on their own terms in Hindi cinema, let us please start the conversation with the likes of Naseer saab. But going back to what he came to the industry for. He came to act and to be every character he was given to play and that is what he has done in role after role, decade after decade.
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He calls out double standards and hypocrisy and mediocrity today without fear or ill-will and he has earned the right to say the things he does because he made it in an industry that did him no favours. On his birthday, I want to recall, some of my favourite Naseer moments to celebrate a talent that rises above the media management of fame and self-promotion. He is an actor at work. That is all he is. And it is only when you see his body of work that you understand just how few actors really “work” as actors.
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Insaniyat ke khilaf kaun sa jurm sangintar hai? Insaaf aur sacchai mein insaani dakhl se sangeentar jurm koi nahin hai shayad.” (What is a greater crime? To bomb unarmed civilians or throwing a grenade at the bullet proof car of a dictator? There is only one great crime. The interference with truth and justice.”)
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And the film where he had no great lines and yet his invisible Tungrus in Mandi got to chew the scenery whenever he got drunk. DK in Masoom. Vinod Chopra in Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro. Vishvam in Nishant. His Mirza Ghalib. His Pestonjee.
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The defining quality of his work is that when he delivers a moment, it is almost as if he has captured something invisible, shapeless and transient and given it a satisfying corporeality that can be touched and seen and communicated with. And nobody enjoys a well-crafted line better than him. I have many favourite Naseer memories. One of them is the drunken monologue in Bazaar where he is angry not just with those who facilitate the sexual exploitation of young, impoverished girls by much older men within the context of marriage but also with himself because all he can do is watch ineffectually.
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In a long outburst that has the poignancy of Sahir’s lament against the debasement of women (Ye koocche, ye neelamghar dilkashi ke, ye lutate hue kaarvan zindagi ke) in Pyaasa, his Salim walks the nightscape on the edge of Hussain Sagar reminding us that the transactions that once took place in darkened street corners are now happening in our homes. That the slave trade is alive and well within our conscience.
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There is an occasional bitter smile, the speech is slurred, the walk is wobbly but just about and the eyes flash fire. I don’t think there is any actor who can look as righteously angry as Naseer saab in Hindi cinema and so he screams, “Saheban boli shuru.. daam laga lo.” The clinching moment of the scene is when he smashes a glass to the ground and screams, “Boli Lagaao!” There is always that one moment in every Naseer performance where everything comes together and unifies the disparate moments into one, yes, that word again, satisfying whole.
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Like that moment in Sparsh where he is at a five star hotel and after a series of little missteps that remind him that the woman with him was once or perhaps still is in love with another man, he loses his poise and his cool and expends his frustration at the waiter who has dared to not place the bill before him.
Or Junoon, where his rage against the brutal suppression of the sepoy mutiny overflows into one cathartic cry of “Javed bhai, ham Dilli haar gaye hain!” But well, back to Bazaar. Even after that one big moment that leaves everyone shaken, he is not done yet. He mocks how a young, poor woman cannot be sold for free because, “Iss desh mein gareebi toh hai par itni bhi nahin!”
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And goes on to berate the man who is marrying a girl old enough to be his daughter with a final, debilitating punchline through gritted teeth, “Honth dekhiye..jism pe laga gosht dekhiye! Kya parakh hai! Leejiye Shabnam aapki hui.” And then he breaks down and cries into the arms of the woman he loves. In the morning, he is tousled and disorientated but still manages to confront the man who is marrying for lust and with delicious understatement, touches his lapels with a, “Mohtaram, aapne badtameezi abhi dekhi kahan hai!”
In a country drunk on the pyrotechnics of visible, physical anger in cinema, this moment is a hugely unsung example of what anger not just looks like but feels like when it has been internalised for a long time.
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Salim is a poet in Bazaar and a lot like Pyaasa’s Vijay, only far more frayed at the edges because he lives in a world which is far more brutal and far less apologetic about its naked suppression of love, innocence and integrity. Najma, the woman he loves, is a mix of Meena and Gulabo. The unattainable love of his life and the woman whose body has become a tool of emotional barter but whose soul is still searching for a home, for sunlight. Much before Aditya Chopra turned a train into an extended conversation between lovers, we had the climax of Bazaar where Najma runs alongside a train to unite with Salim. Not just in love but in guilt and shame.
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So, so many Naseer moments. Sparsh where his shoulders filled in for words that could not be spoken. And Iqbal where his eyes crinkle at the first hint of light in his life after years of darkness, almost as if he cannot bear it. Meeting Naseer saab is always an experience because you know you are not in the presence of fame but substance. A man who could not care less about whether or not you care about him but who softens imperceptibly when he sees that you know and respect his work. He loves, like we said, to work . Especially with a bare stage. That bare stage is in the end both within him and out there. That is where he begins with an outline and then fills in the emptiness with colour, smell, texture and minutiae that coalesce to burn into memory, characters that do not just perform a brief but live all the truth they are allowed within the expanse of a play or a film.
“khatarnaak yatra ke apne akarshan hai aur akarshak yatra ke apne khatre.” (A dangerous journey has its own charms and a charming journey has its own dangers.)He has always taken the not so safe routes to fulfilment and in doing so, he has done many generations of film lovers, a huge favour.