Veteran Indian actor
Naseeruddin Shah gave a delightful surprise to the participants at the 13th edition of the
Karachi Literature Festival
when he joined them for an online interaction. Since there was no mention of the Mumbai-based actor being part of the three-day literature festival, which ended Tuesday, the audience was amazed to see him appear virtually at one of the interactive debate sessions on cinema and art.
According to the reports,
Shah
shared personal stories from his life and career in the online session on Monday.
Oxford University Press Marketing Director
Raheela Baqai
, who organises the festival, said they had only been able to get Shah for the online session on Monday night.
"When we heard late last night about Naseeruddin Shah's availability we acted fast to ensure he could be a part of the festival," Baqai said.
Shah, whose career spans over 45 years across cinema, television, and now streamers, said his craft is influenced by Hollywood films which he got a chance to watch "unsupervised" in his childhood.
"I would end up comparing Uran Khatola to The Wizard of Oz, a film like Azaad to The Prisoner of Zenda. I could clearly see the problems with Hindi films from back then," the actor, whose latest film release was 'Gehraiyaan', recalled.
"But I also knew that if I wanted to be an actor, I'll have to work with similar problems. In the early 70s, Hindi cinema had also started churning out serious films and I made a mission to find a way to work in them," Shah, known for films like 'Nishant', 'Mandi', 'Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro', and 'A Wednesday', said.
Regarded as a stalwart in Indian cinema, the 71-year-old said he started out as a commercial actor "despite not having the looks of a hero".
"I never fit in either but I suppose it was my mother's prayers that got me here," Shah, who has worked in potboiler films like 'Vishwatma', 'Mohra', and 'Tridev', added.
"I've done a lot of underwhelming films. But it was always actors like Anthony Quinn that kept me going. They weren't great looking either but they kept getting work because of their capability to deliver," the celebrated actor added.
Shahzaad Sharjeel
, who hosted the session, told Shah about the popularity of his TV series '
Mirza Ghalib
' (1988) in Pakistan, to which he replied that his paternal aunt and uncle owned the house in the same street where the great Urdu-Persian poet Ghalib resided.
"We'd always see this beautiful haveli that was in shambles and everyone would tell us that a 'poet named Mirza Ghalib used to live here'," he recounted.
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