Shafiq Syed won a National Award and played the lead role in the film “Salaam Bombay” which was nominated for an Oscar. As a child, he was discovered on the streets of Mumbai. Despite early success and an encounter with the president, acting offers dried up. He returned to Bangalore, only later appearing in ‘Patang’, and eventually became an auto rickshaw driver to support his family.
Many people believe that winning a National Acting Award and being part of an Oscar-nominated film can greatly boost an actor’s career. But that did not happen to Shafiq Syed. He was picked from the streets of Mumbai by a casting agent and got the role of a child actor in Mira Nair’s film ‘Salaam Bombay’. However, his film career ended much sooner than he had hoped.
With no more acting offers coming, Shafiq had to start driving an auto rickshaw to earn a living.
The fugitive Shafiq Syed’s journey to Mumbai
According to a report by Indian Express, Shafiq left his home in Bangalore during the 1980s and traveled to Mumbai without purchasing a ticket, hoping to find out if the city really fit into Bollywood’s image. He was living on the streets near Churchgate station at the time, and one day a woman approached him and offered him and other street children 20 rupees to join an acting workshop.
Most of the other children ran away, suspecting a scam, but Squidward, driven by hunger, decided to move on.
Among the many children in attendance, he was chosen for the lead role in Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay, a huge hit that remains one of only three Indian films to be nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Foreign Language Film category.
Shafiq Syed’s dream that vanished
After the film became a huge success, Shafiq thought of making acting his career. Being honored by the President of India and winning the National Film Award was one of the happiest moments of his life.
But soon he stopped getting acting work. Feeling neglected, he left Mumbai and returned to his hometown, Bangalore. Once he returned home, he stopped thinking about acting and instead became a rickshaw driver. He had five family members depending on him, and he earned just Rs 150 a day.
Shafiq Syed explains why I never felt like acting
In a 2010 interview with Open Magazine, Shafiq said: “While filming, I felt like I didn’t have to ‘act’ at all. It consisted of language, stories and situations I had already lived.
People are calling peace Bombay! “Art film”. But the truth is that it wasn’t. It was like my own story. It was Indian life on the streets. Life was no different from death, and I lived it. My co-actors Raghuveer Yadav, Nana Patekar and Anita Kanwar helped me.
I learned that acting means that the character is genuinely “reacting” to the situation. The other person’s movements are a signal of what I should do. I had to learn all these little things.
Even just being myself in front of the camera was an education for me while filming.”He also added, “When I returned to Bombay, Salaam Bombay! was in many newspapers. He kept getting nominated for one award or the other, and won some international awards. No one approached me for those awards. The only time I went for something was when I was called for the National Award in Delhi. I went in and out of countless film studios in Bombay, but I never got any work.”
I will choose newspaper clippings in which you mentioned me.
On more than one occasion, a junior assistant director saw the scraps of paper, saw my picture and asked, “Aaj khana khya kya?”
Shafiq Syed about the dream that suddenly ended
While speaking to us earlier, he said, “We shot for 52 days and they agreed to pay me Rs 15,000. I was overjoyed. After the shoot, I would go to movies and enjoy food on the streets of Mumbai. The film was a huge hit and when the boss clicked with me, it was all a dream. But the dream ended suddenly. The film crew finished and dispersed. I roamed the streets of Mumbai, knocking on producers’ doors for nearly eight months, but luck did not smile.”
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Shafiq Sayed’s latest films
After “Salaam Bombay!”, Shafiq Syed continued to appear in other films,
Gautam Ghose
Patang, but he did not take up any other acting projects after that.