Naseeruddin Shah: the actor in my head

Like his breathtaking performances, Naseeruddin Shah's entertaining memoir leaves a lasting impression on the reader

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The words flow like they would, out of an actor’s microphone. “Baba was an Anglophile,” he says and one can sense the pause as he looks up and catches the audience’s eye and continues, “He never left home, even in a one-tractor town like Sardhana, without his hat.” He draws the reader, like the audience in his plays, into his finely woven web with his choice of words and memories.

Baba and Sardhana are recurring themes in the book. Baba, in the tradition of the pater familias, was dominating, stoic and non-communicative with his family and rigid about his views and principles. His is the spirit that infuses Shah’s narrative. And Sardhana is the backdrop against which his story is told; a remote dusty village in north India where colourful, mysterious and magical characters reside.

The book begins with his first memories of childhood, which are delightfully fanciful and exaggerated. His descriptions of his uncles, their attire and demeanour and his ties with his mother and father, with whom he goes on to share an extremely troubled relationship, are endearing. There is a tale in almost every corner he turns. How he escaped his professor’s wrath; his first exposure to theatre and his meeting with Geoffrey Kendall who he considers his first guru; the return of his brother from Sardhana and such others — the stories cook up a delectable feast.

Almost every memory he pens down is imbued with his deep love for theatre. The first time that he staged a play for a school competition, he surprised himself by leading a group of four clueless boys to enact scenes from The Merchant of Venice. “And amazingly for me, I seemed instinctively to know what I should do,” he says. Shah seems to have hung on to this conviction for life. He not only loved acting but felt good doing it. And such was the strength of his belief, he writes, that he felt that nothing appeared to be too daunting — not even having to share his love for acting with his father. It was lucky, for Shah and for us, the public, that he discovered his passion early. It has allowed for a range of unforgettable performances in cinema and theatre.

Like actors all over the world, he appears both self-assured and insecure, two conflicting characteristics, but they rest amiably within him.

As much as he is immersed in his craft and surprised by his natural abilities, he is also continuously angered by the flaws he detects in his acting. This is why, perhaps, he quickly dissociates himself with his movies soon after they are released. It does not matter that some of the movies that he has been a part of have hit the sweet spot with critics and audiences. Shah, it seems, is never satisfied. Thus he says of the two roles that brought him fame and critical acclaim — in Manthan and in Junoon: “Despite generating more  work for me and bringing me continued acclaim, are not among my personal favourites”.

We are never really sure whether Shah does have a personal favourite but that could just be his self-deprecatory demeanour. And therein lies one of the problems with the book. It makes for a great performance: the memories are well strung together, the associations made between the characters that appear in his life are interesting and his growth as an actor is fascinating. The book seems to be crying out for applause, but as a memoir, it falls short.

The actor is too careful with his emotions. When he talks about the abandonment of his daughter and his subsequent remorse and their reunion, when he takes us to the dark corners of the swamps in which he has been, he does not appear to have bared it all. Or when he tells us about his running battle with Jaspal, a former friend from Film and Television Institute of India, his incomprehension comes through but not the pain or anger at falling apart with someone who was almost an alter ego. Also surprisingly, and disappointingly, his wife, whom he calls, “the queen of her species”, gets very little page space in this book.   

There is no disguise, however, in his disgust and contempt for some of his contemporaries and colleagues. He is not afraid to name people and bring out their most annoying traits. His sarcasm is delightful when he tells us about a trying car ride with “motormouth” Vidhu Vinod Chopra or the big producers who expect every actor, struggling and otherwise, to jump at their command. Shah is entertaining and insightful and his book must be read by all who believe they have an actor inside them.

Book Details

AND THEN ONE DAY

Author: Naseeruddin Shah
Publisher: Hamish Hamilton/ Penguin Books
Pages: 316
Price: Rs 699