Many believe that winning a National Acting Award and appearing in an Oscar-nominated film can significantly enhance an actor’s career. but that didn’t happen Shafiq Saeed. He was picked up from the streets of Mumbai by a casting agent and played a child actor in it. Mira Nair‘Salam Bombay! ‘. Nonetheless, his film career ended much earlier than he had hoped. With no more acting opportunities, Shafiq had to start driving an auto-rickshaw to earn a living.
Shafiq Saeed’s Mumbai Escape
According to The Indian Express, Shafiq left his home in Bangalore in the 1980s and traveled to Mumbai without buying a ticket, hoping to see if the city really lived up to its Bollywood image. He was living on the streets near Churchgate station when one day a woman approached him and offered him and other street children 20 rupees to attend an acting workshop. Most of the other children fled, suspecting it was a hoax, but Shafiq, driven by hunger, decided to follow. Among the many children in attendance, he was chosen to perform in Mira Nair’s Bombay! Salaam Bombay!, which went on to become a huge success and remains one of only three Indian films to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
Shafiq Saeed’s dream shattered
After the film became a hit, Shafiq considered acting as a career. be honored president of india Winning the National Film Award was the happiest moment of his life. But soon, he stopped acting. Feeling left out, he left Mumbai and returned to his hometown of Bangalore. After returning home, he stopped thinking about acting and instead became a rickshaw driver. He has five family members dependent on him and his daily income is only Rs 150.
Shafiq Syed on why it never feels like acting
In a 2010 interview with Open Magazine, Shafiq shared: “While filming, I felt like I didn’t need to ‘act’ at all. It was made up of words, stories and situations that I had already experienced. People call it “Salam Bombay”! An “art film”. But the truth is, that’s not the case. It’s like my own story. This is life on the streets of India. Life is no different than death, and I’ve experienced it too. What helped me were my co-stars Raghuvir Yadav, Nana Patekar, Anita Kanwar. I learned that acting means a character honestly “reacting” to a situation. The other person’s actions were a hint to me about what I had to do. I had to learn all these little things. Even just being myself in front of the camera was a live education for me. “He further added, “When I came back to Mumbai, Salaam Bombay! was printed in several newspapers. It kept getting nominated for some kind of award and won some international awards. No one asked me to go for these awards. The only time I went for something was when I won a National Award in Delhi. I swarmed in and out of countless film studios in Mumbai but didn’t get a job. I will include clippings where I am mentioned. More than once, a junior assistant director saw the cutout, saw my photo and asked, “Aaj khana khaya kya?”.
Shafiq Saeed talks about dreams that ended suddenly
Earlier he had told us in an interview, “We shot for 52 days and they agreed to pay me Rs 15,000. I was excited. After the shoot, I would go to the movies and taste the street food of Mumbai. The film was a hit and when the President and I took a photo, it was all a dream. But the dream came to an abrupt end. The crew dismissed. I roamed the streets of Mumbai knocking on the producer’s door for almost eight months, but luck did not smile.“
Shafiq Saeed’s last film
Following Salam Bombay! “After that, Shafiq Saeed starred in another movie, Goutam Gauss“Patang”, but he has not taken on any other acting projects since then.