If the nonpareil Saeed Jaffrey were alive today he would be a ripe juicy 94. He never held grudges, always liked his drinks, and hated doing Hindi commercial films. The one person Saeed would never forgive is David Dhawan. For what David did so defiantly and brazenly to Saeed’s best-known film and role in Sai Paranjpye’s Chashme Buddoor was an act of desecration.
When David remade the Saeed classic he turned Saeed’s jovial paanwallah’s character, Lalan Miya, into a Harley-Davidson riding wizened cool-dude played by Rishi Kapoor. It was a nightmare that Saeed was not alive to witness. Luckily David did not get his hands on Saeed’s most accomplished Hindi film Satyajit Ray’s Shatranj Ke Khiladi.
Saeed Jaffrey, the actor who worked with the broadest possible range of directors from Satyajit Ray (Shatranj ke Khiladi) to Kalpataru (Ghar Ho Toh Aisa) died at age 84. Sadly we were informed of this versatile actor’s death through a relative’s Facebook announcement. Bollywood had lost touch with, and interest in, Saeed after he left the industry in a huff.
The very talented actress Deepti Naval happened to work with Saeed in one of his last films. Deepti recalls his disillusionment. “I remember we were shooting for a film that neither of us was enjoying shooting. It was called Ghar Ho Toh Aisa. He was miserable shooting it. He had told me, ‘Enough. I am going back to London. Ab jo hoga wohi dekha jayega’(Whatever is to happen will happen there).”
Deepti and a lot of Saeed’s friends in Mumbai feel Bollywood couldn’t really find a place for him. For an actor who had worked in the best of international cinema, it must have been heartbreaking to do Bollywood potboilers.
“Look at his range of work. It was staggering. He worked with Satyajit Ray, Raj Kapoor, John Huston (The Man Who Would Be King), Sai Paranjpye, David Lean, Yash Chopra and Raj Kapoor. He enjoyed his work thoroughly, and it showed,” fellow-actor Om Puri once told me appreciatively.
Saeed who was born in Punjab was a natural-born actor. At an early age he started his own theatre group in Delhi and went on to flirt—some would say fornicate—with Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams and Christopher Fry. Inured in the classics of the theatre world, Saeed made his way into Bollywood in 1972 with a long-forgotten Rehana Sultan starrer Tanhai.
It was Vinod Pandey’s Ek Baar Phir that brought Saeed into the attention of Bollywood’s big filmmakers. From then onwards Saeed sold his soul to the highest bidders in Bollywood. He became a commercial worker.
Recalls Deepti Naval, “Ek Baar Phir was my first film. I was new to India and Indian cinema. So was Saeed. We hit it off instantaneously. He was very protective of me. Perhaps I came across as vulnerable, and he saw that. He had a fabulous role in Ek Baar Phir. He played an actor. A character actor.”
Playing a character actor was not hard to do for Saeed who made a career of it. It was as the incorrigibly goodhearted paan-seller Lalan Miyan in Sai Paranjpye’s Chashme Buddoor that Saeed obtained maximum recognition in India. It was an instantly likeable character and it connected with the audience better than any character that Saeed played in India, barring that of leading man Rajiv Kapoor’s do-gooder uncle Kunj Bihari in Raj Kapoor’s Ram Teri Ganga Maili.
With Raj Kapoor, Saeed hit it off immediately. Their drinking sessions together extended to another film Henna which was completed after Raj passed away. But it was Chashme Buddoor for which Saeed is best remembered.
Deepti Naval recalled Saeed’s enthusiasm for his part in Chashme Buddoor. “We were shooting in the Nizamuddin area of Mumbai where a paan shop had been set up for Saeed’s character. When Saaed arrived he looked around the crowded area, spotted a man walking by in a lungi (sarong) with the Taj Mahal printed on it. He made up his mind that his character Lalan Miyan would wear that lungi. He made the passerby take off that lungi and wore it for his character. That’s how I’d like to remember Saeed...vivacious and exuberant as an actor. When he wanted something he would get it anyhow.”
Andrew Robinson recalls in his fine book on Satyajit Ray The Inner Eye how Saeed accosted Ray at the Beirut airport to be part of his cinema. Ray who knew Saeed as the husband of cuisine queen Madhur Jaffrey told Saeed to be patient. The role happened sooner than expected. Saeed performance in Ray’s Shatranj Ke Khiladi is regarded by many including Saeed himself, as his finest ever.
Says Naseruddin Shah appreciatively, “Zia Mohyuddin and Saeed Jaffrey were the first sub-continental actors to make a mark on the British stage.”
Fellow-OBE recipient Gurinder Chadha has said to me, “Saeed is very much a British Asian institution. He was one of the few actors who managed to shine in both British movies like Gandhi and Hindi movies like Chashme Buddoor. The ease with which he performed both roles to perfection is indicative of his breadth of talent.”
Saeed performance in Ray’s Shatranj Ke Khiladi is regarded by many including Saeed himself, as his finest ever. Satyajit Ray wanted only Sanjeev Kumar and Saeed Mirza for the role of the two chess players. For the foreign-trained Mirza adjusting to Manikda’s immaculate timings and schedules was a moonwalk. For the clock-hostile Haribhai(Sanjeev Kumar) it was a nightmare. Habituated to reaching film sets 4-5 hours late the brilliant but notoriously unpunctual actor had to un-learn his work methods. Had to learn to wake up with the roosters and reach the sets at a time when he would normally be stumbling home after a booze session. Saeed would be ready with his lines in impeccable Urdu.
Veteran actor Victor Bannerjee who played a pivotal part in Shatranj Ke Khiladi remembers how Saeed’s fluency in Urdu was envied by everyone on the sets of Shatranj Ke Khiladi, including of course Ray himself who couldn’t find his way through elementary Hindi, let alone Urdu.
Saeed’s laughter preceded his presence wherever he went. It is for that laughter vivacity and the joie de vivre that we would like to remember Saeed Jaffrey. I am sure he is up there entertaining the angels with his anecdotes about all the actors and directors he worked with in Bollywood and Hollywood. At every Bollywood party, he would be the last to leave, in the wee hours. I am sure he’s having a ball up there
Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha.
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