Tribute to the Legend

"I have never been commercially viable: People recognise me, smile and wave at me —but I have never received marriage proposals written in blood. In his heyday, when Rajesh Khanna drove down a street, the traffic stopped —I don't mind not receiving this kind of adulation. But I do miss not having been able to command the kind of work I wanted. I miss not being 100 per cent commercially viable."

-       Farooq Sheikh

Many a times we face the crisis of having to write about something or someone but not knowing how to go about it. This article started out just like that. An article about the famous Farooq Sheikh, who well to be completely honest I had not much knowledge about. Yes, I can be judged upon but it’s always better to write an honest piece of writing than cook up one.

When you don’t know much about a topic, you are left with no choice but research. And that’s what I precisely did, and found the quote you read above. The quote represented something blatantly honest, real and simple to me. It explained a lot about the kind of actor Mr.Sheikh was and how he was perceived differently from many other actors of his time.

Farooq Sheikh could be described as a very average looking man who was far from the description of a perfect bollywood hero. This is precisely why he was not considered “commercially viable” but also exactly the reason he blended in successfully in the roles he potrayed and left a mark in people’s minds. He looked like a common man that people could relate to but had immense on-screen presence and acting abilities. He did not have the qualities to look great running across gardens in Switzerland, his height didn’t make women weak in their knees and his voice surely did not make men insecure; however what he could do was be remembered as a studious Delhi university boy in Chashme Badoor, a sly sweet talker in Katha and a simple man with high morals in Saath Saath. He could be what a common man is, he could be exactly like someone you were likely to meet in real life and that’s where his true talent hid. His talent was to be effortlessly normal and relatable in terms of the characters he potrayed.

The only people to whom letters in blood are written to are people everyone subconsciously knows are too good to be true, exactly like an illusion. They are characters who are potrayed through acting in it’s truest form with nothing completely relatable in them.

The people who represent real life and play roles that remind you of the world as it is in its good and bad moments shouldn’t need haemoglobin dripping paper. A “smile and a wave” from one human to another is perfectly good enough!