Naseeruddin Shah

By Ruchika Das

Whenever Naseeruddin Shah is asked about his childhood, he invariably brings up the fact that he wasn’t good at anything as a child until he discovered his love for creative arts like drama. And, based on his contributions over the years, it appears that the actor was born to act.

The actor has played everything from the angry Albert Pinto in the midst of his identity crisis to the complicated Gulfam Hassan who turns his pains into evil. There have also been roles in which the actor delivered outstanding performances but received little acclaim at the time or even afterwards.

Naseeruddin Shah turns 72! On the occasion of Naseeruddin Shah’s birthday, here is a look at his award-winning movies which you should definitely watch today. 

The Tashkent Files

Directed by: Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri

Produced by: Haresh Patel, Pranay Chokshi

Starring: Mithun Chakraborty, Naseeruddin Shah, Shweta Basu Prasad, Pankaj Tripathi

Cinematography: Udaysingh Mohite

Vivek Agnihotri’s The Tashkent Files begins with a dedication to “all honest journalists of India”, and thus begins, quite early on, the filmmaker’s not-so-discreet jibes at all the institutions and ideologies, he believes, have wrecked the nation. Through his characters, he classifies them —NGOs are “social terrorists”, Supreme Court judges are “judicial terrorists”, writers and historians are “intellectual terrorists” and the media, of course, is “TRP terrorists”. The ones who are not a terrorist, it appears, is Lal Bahadur Shastri, around whose death the film is centred, and the ones who fought against Indira Gandhi’s Emergency. India, he insists, became a colony again ten years after Shastri died.

A Wednesday

Directed by: Neeraj Pandey

Produced by:  Ronnie Screwvala, Shital Bhatia, Anjum Rizvi

Starring: Naseeruddin Shah, Anupam Kher, Jimmy Sheirgill

Cinematography: Fuwad Khan

The Police Commissioner, Prakash Rathod, gets an anonymous call. The caller demands that he release militants in exchange for information about the many bombs planted across Mumbai city. The caller is obviously serious as the police find a bomb planted very close the their headquarters. Prakash Rathod is torn between releasing militants who had been responsible for killing innocent people and stopping bomb blasts around the city. What will he do? Or does he have a choice at all?

Ishqiya

Directed by: Abhishek Chaubey

Produced by: Raman Maroo, Vishal Bhardwaj

Starring: Vidya Balan, Naseeruddin Shah, Arshad Warsi

Cinematography: Mohana Krishna

Ishqiya is a story about love arising in characters, portrayed uniquely according to their own personal traits. The situations in the plot lead the characters to experience the emotion creeping into their lives in the most unexpected manner

Arshad Warsi plays Naseeruddin’s nephew. Both of them are criminals who intend to retire. On of their travels, they meet a femme fatale widow, played by Vidya Balan. She tricks both of them into falling in love with her. When the duo realizes that she is two-timing them, they want to kill her but they cannot.

Waiting

Directed by: Anu Menon

Produced by: Priti Gupta, Manish Mundra

Starring: Naseeruddin Shah, Kalki Koechlin, Rajat Kapoor

Cinematography: Neha Parti Matiyani

‘Waiting’, is a story of Shiv (Naseeruddin Shah) whose wife Pankaja (Suhasini Maniratnam) is in coma. Shiv’s life has been revolving around the doctors and the waiting room. Out there he meets Tara (Kalki Koechlin), whose newly married husband Rajat (Arjun Mathur) is in critical condition after a dreadful accident. Tara is trying to cope up with this sudden crisis in her life, while Shiv is dealing this, calmly. Together, they develop a unique friendship while sharing their part of grief.

Maqbool

Directed by: Vishal Bhardwaj

Produced by: Bobby Bedi

Starring: Irrfan,Tabu, Murli Sharma, Pankaj Kapur, Om Puri, Naseeruddin Shah

Cinematography: Hemant Chaturvedi

In Mumbai’s criminal underworld, the lord of all lords is Jahangir Khan (Pankaj Kapoor). Those loyal to him include Maqbool (Irfan Khan), his chief. But Maqbool is in love with Nimmi (Tabu), Jahangir’s mistress, who convinces him to be ambitious and take over the empire. After maneuvering potential rivals out of the way, Maqbool betrays Jahangir, murdering him in his own bed. However, it isn’t long before both Maqbool and Nimmi are haunted by the ghosts of their treacherous deeds.

When it comes to performance based films, Naseeruddin Shah has inspired many people associated with filmmaking. He began his acting career in 1975 with Shyam Benegal’s feature film Nishant, in which he co-starred with Smita Patil, Shabana Azmi, and Amrish Puri. The film is regarded as a watershed moment in Indian parallel cinema. Naseeruddin Shah has received numerous awards during his four-decade career, including three National Awards.