Farooq Shaikh Death Anniversary | On Warm Memories And Difficult Goodbyes

It was the fag end of 2013. Christmas was over, but the festive spirit was high as everyone got ready to ring in the new year. On December 13, Farooq Shaikh anchored an Asha Bhosle musical concert at the Dubai World Trade Centre, after which he flew back to India for a performance of Tumhari Amrita the following day in front of the Taj Mahal. This was the only time in over two decades, since it opened in Mumbai’s Prithvi Theatre on February 27, 1992, that the play was staged outdoors. And despite the winter chill, an audience of 5,000-plus in Agra watched, mesmerised, as Shabana Azmi and Shaikh read out letters Amrita Pritam and Zulfikar Haidar had exchanged over 35 years. 

After the curtains came down on a hugely successful show, Shabana turned to her Zulfi and told him lightly that it was time to hand the baton over to younger actors. The suggestion was immediately refuted, with Shaikh insisting that they would be doing Tumhari Amrita even when they were in their wheelchairs. Two weeks later, on December 28, the actress was woken up around 3 am by a frantic call from his wife Rupa. Shaikh, who had since returned to Dubai, this time for a family vacation, with plans to visit his sister in Abu Dhabi, had complained of chest pain after retiring to his hotel room. He was rushed to Rashid Hospital, but it was too late. The 65-year-old actor succumbed to a fatal heart attack. 

I was still half-asleep when my husband conveyed the news to me, and even though it was my weekly off, I rushed to work knowing that I had to write this obituary. He would have wanted it. I spent the day speaking to Shaikh’s colleagues, from Chasme Budoor’s Miss Chamko, Deepti Naval, to Noorie’s leading lady, Poonam Dhillon and his Club 60 co-star, Sarika, who remembered him with warm affection and an aching sense of loss. I had to wait till late evening for Azmi, since she was busy making arrangements for his body to be flown back home. All day, there had been no time for tears, but as she spoke to me about that last performance of Tumhari Amrita, she finally broke down. So did I, leaving my colleagues bewildered.

“Did you know Farooq Shaikh well?” one of them asked. I don’t know if I, or anyone apart from a select few, really knew him well. But in the little time that we interacted, he had become more than just another actor.We connected when I was editing a trade weekly and reached out to him for a feature tracing his journey through his films. He agreed readily, even after I hesitatingly told him that since it was a B2B magazine, his interview would probably not reach too many people. “You will read it, na?” he laughed. 

After it was published, since the magazine was not available on the stands, I sent him a copy. A couple of days later, he called to ask how he could subscribe to it. “I enjoyed the other articles and like the way you write,” he told me simply. Given how well-read and well-spoken he was, it remains one of my most cherished compliments.

Shaikh was born on March 25, 1948, in the village of Amroli, in the Vadodara district of Gujarat, into a wealthy zamindar family. His father, Mustafa Shaikh, was a successful lawyer, and he himself was a final year law student at Mumbai’s Siddharth College, when director MS Sathyu, who had seen him on stage, offered him the role of Sikander Mirza in his 1973 feature film debut, Garam Hava. 

Shaikh accepted the film because, as he pointed out, “it had something important to say”. Also, he craved the pleasure of interacting closely with his idol, Balraj Sahni, who plays his father, Salim Mirza, in the film, having worked with him in IPTA plays earlier. During the two-month shoot in Agra, he ensured that he got a room next to the senior actor, and enjoyed many erudite conversations with him on cinema and the craft.

Garam Hava was India’s official entry to the Oscars in the ‘Best Foreign Language Film’ category. It was nominated for the Palme d’ Or at the Cannes International Film Festival in the ‘Competition’ section. The Partition drama also bagged two National honours, including the Nargis Dutt Award for ‘Best Feature Film on National Integration’, belying the Censor Board’s fears that it would fan communal unrest, along with the National Film Award for ‘Best Story’. Three decades later, in 2010, Shaikh himself won a National Award, ‘Best Supporting Actor’ for the sports drama Lahore. Talking about him, the film’s leading man, Aanaahad Singh Katkar has shared the sound advice that he had been given in my book, Matinee Men: A Journey Through Bollywood. “You don’t need diction classes or any kind of special training really, all you have to do is feel from within,” Shaikh had asserted. This explained how he lived every character he played.

Even though Garam Hava was a success, Shaikh, already a qualified lawyer, was not in any rush to make a career in the movies. He only accepted Satyajit Ray’s 1977 period drama, Shatranj Ke Khiladi and the legendary filmmaker waited a month for him to return from a vacation in Canada to start shooting.

Thereafter, he hosted a popular quiz contest on radio and admitted that a weekly show on Doordarshan made him “moderately popular”. But it was Yash Chopra’s Romeo Juliet love story Noorie, in 1979 that made Shaikh a star and he was flooded with offers. But he turned down more than 50 films over two years because all the roles were “boringly similar” to that of Yusuf Fakir Mohammad—his character in Noorie—and he did not want to repeat himself.

It was Sai Paranjpye’s Chasme Baddoor that finally lured him back and even that almost slipped by him. Shaikh, who had signed Garam Hava for Rs150—his total remuneration was a paltry Rs 750—refused to compromise on the price this time, pointing out to the producer Gul Anand that he only did a couple of films a year. Anand may well have cast another actor had the director not insisted on Shaikh. Today, it’s hard to imagine anyone but Deepti and Shaikh as Neha and Sidharth. 

The film made them the nation’s crush and the much-loved jodi went on to do several other films together. Katha charmed me, Rang Birangi made me laugh, Saath Saath still makes me croon, “Yeh tera ghar yeh mera ghar”and when his failing memory in Listen…Amaya cuts short a twilight romance, I left the theatre in tears.

Had death not come calling, there would have been more films even though the duo, so perfectly matched on screen, were a mismatch when it came to meals off it. Listen…Amaya, which reunited them after 28 years, was mostly shot at the producer’s own bungalow in Sundar Nagar, which is close to many of Delhi’s famous restaurants and Shaikh was bitterly disappointed that his co-star did not share his love for Mughlai and obdurately stuck to her salads. “But we had promised each other that we would work together again, and there were many films in the pipeline, but it was not to be,” Nawal had sighed after his premature demise. For almost a year, I too could not bring myself to delete his number from my phone list, hoping that one day he would call again, and I would hear that familiar voice ask, “Mohtarrama, kahan the, kaise hain aap?”