It is half a century since Shyam Benegal’s Nishant in 1975 where Shah made his debut proper. (He had a walk-on part in the 1967 film Aman, that featured philosopher Bertrand Russell in a cameo.) In the years since, Shah has acted in an astounding 274 films listed on IMDb, with at least one film releasing every calendar year across this half century. In celebration, a fan lists her favourite Naseer films, with the aid of Bharata’s rasa theory
Screenshots from Nishant, taken off YouTube
The opening credits of the Hindi film Nishant, released in 1975, lists the following register of debuts: “Introducing Smita, Mohan Agashe, Kulbhushan Kharbhanda… And Naseeruddin Shah.” Arguably, no single Indian film across languages has launched this many actors with such storeyed careers. All four play significant characters with speaking parts in the film. Agashe and Kharbanda both enjoy household renown, at least in the Hindi speaking sphere, and have worked in every decade since their debuts. Patil, in spite of her unreasonably early departure, remains one of most unforgettable actors on the Indian screen.
The most successful of this overachieving quartet, to my mind, and the subject of this eulogy, is Naseeruddin Shah, who has appeared in at least one film, and more recently OTT project, every calendar year since Nishant 50 years ago according to IMDb. You know those longitudinal clinical studies conducted by wealthy western institutions where they follow a subject or set of subjects for decades? The Framingham Heart Study [s1] underway since 1948 to study the features of cardiovascular disease over three generations of a sample set. Shah would be a good candidate for one of those—so extensively has he been recorded by the camera in the course of his work. You could map how the human body changes with age watching his films by the year of release: how cheeks fill with age, eyes crinkle, hair greys, voice gathers grain, a handsome penumbra of laugh lines shades his smile. Shah has literally aged—or chosen to, unlike many actors who remain frozen at 30-something forever—before the camera.
Time milestones have lost their meaning in the age of the internet where social media can be weaponised to mark standard developments like a good weekend at the box office, or a successful outing at a well-sponsored litfest. Does 50 years of Naseeruddin Shah matter in a time when weekends are milestones? I’d argue it is an occasion to give thanks that such a corpus of riches has been created. Indeed, permitted to be carved out.
Would Shah have had this splendid, this extensive a career if he started in the 1960s when the work of Indian People’s Theatre Association was at an ebb and the Hindi New Wave was yet to be birthed? Arguably not. It was the momentum of the first graduating batches from FTII and NSD, the momentum of the New Wave film movement globally, and the ferment of the 1970s in India that made possible the age of Benegal, and Govind Nihalani, Kundan Shah, Ketan Mehta, Vinod Chopra, Goutam Ghose and so many more.
How many actors have worked for 50 years and more?
How many actors can you name who have been working for 50 years, and counting? Shah’s contemporary Shabana Azmi is one. She marked her half century in film last year in 2024, her debut the superb novelistic Ankur released in 1974, also the debut feature film of Shyam Benegal. Both Azmi and Shah owe at least something of their careers to the energy of the New Wave movement, and most of it to their staggering talent and stamina. There were natural actors even before this, of course, Balraj Sahni of IPTA being the most prominent in Hindi cinema. But the New Wave set up a pipeline of these performers. Both Azmi and Shah are good looking, by the conventional standards. As much as an Amitabh Bachchan, perceived as gangly early on in his career, or a Nargis, whom Sadat Hasan Manto (in)famously described as long-faced, and most Bengali Bhadra folk call horse-faced.
Then, there is Amitabh Bachchan, of course. He debuted in 1969 in a film called Saat Hindustani The same year, before this film, he did the superb voiceover for Mrinal Sen’s Bhuvan Shome, receiving an on-screen credit as Amitabh.
There is Soumitra Chatterjee, who worked solely in Bengali film 1959 to 2020, moving (much like Shah) from fresh-faced hero to poised middle-aged star to cheerful/sullen senior citizen on screen. Finally, I could think of Kamal Haasan, beginning as a child in the 1960s and still active as an actor, albeit selective, in his choice of acting commitments. In a couple of years, the Malayali actors Mohanlal and Mammooty will both complete their half-centuries.
The Fellowship of the Most Brilliant, Blessed and Beloved
Globally, I can think of a couple more names. Fellini’s muse Marcello Mastronianni landed his first major role in 1951 and had work releasing after his death in 1996. Akira Kurosawa’s favourite Toshiro Mifune debuted in 1947 and had his last film release in 1995. He was dead only two years later in 1997. Ingmar Bergman’s protégé Max van Sydow, immortalized in the scene of playing chess against death in The Seventh Seal, acted for 70 years! The great Isabelle Huppert had her first prominent film roles in French film in 1974 and works across European cinemas, sometimes even across the pond, in Hollywood today. Finally, of course, there are Shah’s 1970s Hollywood contemporaries—the quartet of Robert De Niro, Meryl Streep, Al Pacino and Dustin Hoffman although the last two began a bit earlier in the late 1960s.
(Clockwise from top left) Max von Sydow in The Exorcist,1973. Debuted in 1949 | Meryl Streep with her supporting actor Oscar in 1980 for Kramer vs Kramer. Debuted in 1972 | Isabelle Huppert in a still from Madame Bovary, debut in 1971-72 | Toshiro Mifune in Grand Prix, 1966. Debuted in 1947 | Al Pacino in The Godfather Part II, 1974. Debuted in 1969 | Robert de Niro in Raging Bull, 1980. Debuted in 1963 |
Marcello Mastrioianni in Ginger and Fred,1986. Debuted in 1951
Perhaps the list is not as exhaustive as I hope; I may have missed out on a name or two. Add them please. My argument is: this will still be a tiny, select group. A band of chosen knights anointed for the round table, the fellowship of the most brilliant, blessed and beloved.
Shah is part of this most exalted fellowship. When I asked him to speak about the roles he remembers the most, he refused, saying it would be boring. I was disappointed, of course, but it was not said in arrogance, I realised. He is too intelligent not to recognize that it is as much his work and his choices, as it was the opportunities that he received. Indeed, in recent years, Shah has mentioned how precarious the first two decades of his career felt, how he would often believe that his career in film was over. Then one or two films would defy the odds, and make it possible for him to survive a few more years. For every beloved film like Masoom (1983), he did many, many films that that he does want to remember himself, he said mischievously. Indeed, it is a surprise to see how many mainstream films he has done right from the beginning—in 1979, four years after Nishant, he was a lead in a Rajshri productions film, known for their middle-class family films.
At least since the ’90s—meaning the last 30 years of his career—Shah has been regarded as a legend, named one of the three greatest actors on the Hindi film screen alongside Dilip Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan. Some would add Balraj Sahni to this list. Bengalis would add Utpal Dutt and Soumitra Chatterjee (and call it greatest Indian actors on the screen).
Perhaps it is “boring” to be spoken of in superlatives and raptures. Finding yourself in countless ‘best of the best’ lists. Asked about a beloved character a hundred or thousand times. I wouldn’t know. But why must I deny myself the pleasure of going over my favourites in Naseer’s 50-year body of work? Of savouring again the rasa of his finest?
The Lens of Rasa Theory
In the Natyashastra, Bharata presents the rasa theory which posits a magnetic field between performer and consumer—meaning, only the ‘rasavant’ (a viewer/listener full of rasa can appreciate the rasa(s) of a performance. Rasa translates broadly to flavour or essence. This is a theory that empowers the audience with artistic sensibility, arguing that those who enjoy a work of art possess the palate required to discern its flavours. That only a solid batsman can appreciate the craft of a fine bowler, a sharp fielder the timing of a stylish batsman. Arguably, rasa theory is the sweetest tool in the arsenal of professional critics in India. What qualifies me, a non-actor, to write on Shah’s performances? The palate of human rasas.
There are nine rasas—eight listed in the Natyashastra, a ninth added later. These are shringara rasa (the erotic), hasya (the comic), karuna (the sorrowful), vira (the heroic), raudra (the furious), bhayanaka (the fearful), vibhatsa (the odious), adbhuta (the marvellous) and shanta (the peaceful).
Rasa theory is a solid framework for ‘best of’ lists. Lists are necessarily subjective projects—they speak of the list-maker as much as they do of the listed. Naseer’s filmography, as I read it, plays mainly on the hasya (comic) and shringara (erotic) rasas, a bit of karuna (sorrowful), and occasionally–in his memorable villainous turns–on raudra (fury) and vibhatsa (disgusting) rasa. The adjective that I have heard describing his work most often is “powerful”, which suggests a career full of vira rasa. But surprisingly, and happily so, I see mostly laughter and love.
Naturally, this speaks of my inclinations—I love a good laugh, I like a light touch even in romance (and most of Naseer’s romances are delightfully unexpected), and I am thrilled by the terrible. A terrifying villain is deeply satisfying because of their imperviousness to social expectations. They underline how easily the powerful violate social norms with little consequence.
Here, then, is my list of ten favourite Shah performances (from film):
Nishant, 1975 | Karuna, vibhatsa and hasya rasas
The first time we register Shah on screen, he is sulking in bed without sleep in the early hours of the morning, turned away from his wife played by Smita Patil. With a glorious bob of curls and pencil thin moustache on his thin, tremulous face, Shah looks like an idiot—both pathetic and comic. He is the lovelorn, timid Vishwam, the youngest brother of the tyrannical landlord family in the village, headed by an imperious Amrish Puri. The young man who doesn’t drink or smoke or prey on women like his cackling, cartoon character villain brothers is at first a sweet little poor thing, ragged by his brothers. And then, as he covets and falls for the village schoolmaster’s wife, he grows increasingly creepy (vibhatsa). Yet, unlike his brothers who see women as sex objects and helpfully kidnap Sushila (played by Shabana Azmi), Shah speaks up for her when she demands her own kitchen in the kidnappers’ household. “Isn’t she a human being too, doesn’t she have a heart?” he tells his incredulous wife Rukmini (Smita Patil), whose heart clearly doesn’t mean anything to him. It is a farcical situation, and Shah dials up the indignation, underlining the self-centred Vishwam’s tone deafness.
In a piece he wrote for The Indian Express in 2024, Shah described the character as a “namby-pamby”. It’s a complex character steeped in the karuna (sorrowful) and vibhatsa (disgusting) rasas—as selfish and cruel as much as he is a victim of his cruel family—and Shah plays him with undertones of lightness (hasya), possibly on Benegal’s instruction, that make him seem ridiculous, a namby-pamby. You feel sorry for the young man, for the waste of a human life that could have amounted to so much more
Screenshot of Shah’s delightful nose-digging characteristic in Manthan, taken off YouTube.
Manthan, 1976 | Vira and karuna rasa
In Manthan, the film he did directly after Nishant, Shah is the polar opposite. He is the hot-head Bhola, a Bharwadi–a pastoral community in Gujarat—suspicious of the veterinarian Dr Manohar Rao (Girish Karnad) posted to their village to set up a dairy co-operative, proud of his background. His defining characteristic for me is that he picks his nose, correction digs his nose, with terrific unselfconsciousness. Shah, the individual, if of course aware of the censure that attends the habit of nose picking. Indeed, it is likely the knowledge of this that makes him perform the act with such relish.
It’s a gesture that he performs several times in the film with great elan, conveying both a beautiful artlessness about social niceties, and a nice disregard for urban babus. Like everyone else in the village, he too calls the co-operative society “sisauti”—a lovely inversion, but it is the intense nose picking that marks him apart as someone who clearly doesn’t feel the need to impress the babus. Besides, it adds a marvellous levity (hasya) to an intense character reminiscent of Karna in the Mahabharat, conceived chiefly in the vira (heroic) register with undertones of karuna (the sorrowful).
Screenshots of the delectable mirror sequence from Albert Pinto ko Gussa Kyon Aata Hai
Albert Pinto ko Gussa Kyon Aata Hai, 1980 | Hasya rasa
Shah is the title character who is frequently always cross with everyone. Why? Because he finds his mother (Sulbha Deshpande), his sister Joan (Smita Patil), his girlfriend Stella (Shabana Azmi) his brother Dominic (Dilip Dawan) and everyone, really, too stupid for him. A car mechanic, he likes the wealthy, well-dressed people whose vehicles he spends his days attending to, who exchange a couple of words and laughs with him. Why can’t everyone understand that rich people are the good, deserving people?
His father, on the other hand, speaks about the rights of workers, and the need to strike work for these rights. His sister Joan, who has a prominent limp and faces sexual harassment in her job as a saleswoman, shares an instinctive understanding with their father. Albert’s brother Dominic is a goonda who gets packed off to jail frequently, earning Albert’s scorn. His girlfriend Stella (Shabana Azmi), isn’t as devoted to her secretarial job, where she is sexually harassed by her boss, as he would have been, he tells her.
This smugness is magnificently realized in a wordless sequence before the mirror as Shah dresses for Sunday lunch at his girlfriend’s, where he pulls off a range of faces from the scornful to the superior to the all-knowing—all of them idiotic in varying measures. Albert Pinto is a buffoon, who will know better by film’s end of course, and Shah plays him with a command of the hasya rasa that makes this idiot unforgettable.
Mandi, 1983 | Karuna and hasya rasa
In Shyam Benegal’s Mandi, a delicious farce set in a brothel with a delectable ensemble cast of Shabana Azmi, Smita Patil, Om Puri, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Pankaj Kapoor, Amrish Puri and many more, Shah plays a mostly-mute imbecile-like character. He is Tungrus, the all-purpose live-in errand boy at the chaotic, high-spirited brothel ruled by Shabana’s loving, and overbearing hand. Much of the film is delightfully choregraphed comic chaos—there is much shouting and excitement, and someone or the other is shouting for Tungrus in every scene. The one time we hear him speak is near the beginning when he is drunk and cries his heart out. Until Shabana scolds him for making a noise and he trots off quietly. No back story is offered, but most of us have a sense of Tungrus anyway: a special needs child likely abandoned on the street, who finds shelter in the brothel. It’s a character steeped in karuna rasa, and Shah plays him with tenderness underlined with playfulness—a little touch of hasya rasa. After Forrest Gump, Hindi film superstars have revealed a fondness for playing special needs individuals (Aamir Khan in so many films, Shah Rukh Khan in My Name is Khan, Salman Khan in Tubelight, Hrithik Roshan in Koi Mil Gaya) but only Nasser’s Tungrus has the innocence that matches Tom Hanks’ Forrest Gump that came a decade later.
Screenshots from Mandi, where Naseer is Tungrus, a mostly-mute, imbecile-like Man Friday in the brothel
Screenshots from Masoom
Masoom, 1983 | Karuna rasa
On IMDb, Masoom is listed as having released the same year as Mandi—if Tungrus was the Masoom (innocent) there, here Shah’s DK Malhotra is the guilty party.
In his moving memoir And Then One Day, Shah writes that his first-born child Heeba, with whom he had no relationship for the first twelve years of her life, returned to his life to live with him and wife Ratna not long after Masoom. Was he drawing on his distance from Heeba for his outstanding turn in Masoom—the guilt-laden father who meets the son born of an extramarital fling? A once happy-go-lucky householder who lives in a nice house and clearly does well enough at his livelihood, Shah spends most of the film looking stoic or smiling sadly, skulking around in the shadows. He carries a stillness in his performance that bespeaks a grief that has wrapped itself over everything, all the more evident after his energetic clowning around in the happy ghazal Huzoor Iss Qadr Bhi Naa Itraa Ke Chaliye. A performance almost entirely in the karuna rasa.
All of us who carry grievances against our parents (and that really is all of us, isn’t it?) have wished they would reveal the palpable guilt that Naseer wrapped himself in, in Masoom. Indeed, his Masoom act is such a benchmark that it is its own Hindi film trope–Farah Khan cast him as Shah Rukh Khan’s truant father in Main Hoon Naa, and Zoya Akhtar as Farhan Akhtar’s AWOL father in Zindagi Milegi Na Dobaara.
Gehraiyan, 2022 | Karuna rasa
In Gehraiyyan (spoilers ahead), Shah’s character riffs on the trope of the irresponsible father he established in Masoom, to deliver a revelation that raises the film several notches above its mostly mediocre (although beautiful looking) proceedings. Yes, he was emotionally unavailable when his daughter needed him as a child, but he was hurting himself. His presence itself adds a poignance to the slick Instagram-register of the film—he looks haggard and hoary with white stubble, he walks slowly, as if he has been carrying the guilt of Masoom for 40 years. He has only the one substantial scene with dialogue, and a screen time of well below ten minutes. But that much is enough to move me to tears. The second choice on my list which is entirely in the karuna rasa.
A still from Gehraiyaan, taken from IMDb
Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa, 1994 | Hasya rasa
Kundan Shah’s Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa (1994) is another performance with minimal screen time. Here, Shah is a delightful, omnipresent ‘father’ of the Christian cleric variety, ever waylaying our protagonists and asking for a lift. “But we are going to the other side,” says Shah Rukh Khan or Deepak Tijori or whoever it is he has accosted. “Sab raasta God kaa paas jaata hai (All roads lead to God),” Nasser’s Father Braganza responds cheerfully, clambering on to the back of the bike or the front of the car. It’s a beautiful bit of writing and even the memory of Shah’s rendering of it makes me smile. The film has many things going for it—the plump-lipped charisma of a fresh-faced Shah Rukh Khan, a warm love story, a set of hummable songs, the thwarting of a deeply-felt love and the promise of successful repairs in a beloved ending. Indeed, in the end, the film echoes Father Braganza’a philosophy: All roads lead to love (and God). A lovely dip in the hasya rasa.
A still from Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa, taken off IMDb
Sarfarosh, 1999 | Vibhatsa and shanta rasa
The first time I remember really noticing Shah was as a teenager, watching Sarfarosh in the theatre. That evening, he struck ice in my heart when he bit off the ear of an adorable baby goat who wanders into his riyaaz room and topples over some of his family heirlooms. He is Gulfaam Hassan, an elegant, charming, elderly ghazal singer from Pakistan who becomes a father figure to the film’s hero Aamir Khan, and by extension, us in the audience. He delivers a gorgeous ghazal in Jagjit Singh’s voice near the start of the film, and until that horrific ear biting episode, was the sort of distinguished presence that I assume a successful man of his stature would be. A performance in the shanta rasa which turns abruptly to the vibhatsa (terrifying) rasa. The stuff of nightmares.
Stills from Sarfarosh, taken off IMDb
Ishqiya, 2010 | Shringara and hasya rasa
Nothing prepared me for the opening strains of the glorious ‘Dil Toh Bachcha Hai Ji’ and Shah’s sheepish, delighted blushing in a bus full of women teasing him for dozing off on the shoulders of a bright-eyed, slender young woman. Who knew that the great Naseeruddin Shah could do lovestruck so tenderly, like a besotted lamb? Frankly, it was a shock. Because Shah is the god of the New Wave cinema movement and romance is the domain of masala mainstream Hindi cinema. The New Wave was supposed to the less frivolous, the more meaningful. And here he was, blushing through his hennaed beard, eyes gleaming like beetles, outgunning the 90s superstar loverboys Shah Rukh, Salman and Aamir at their top form. Better in fact, because unlike their hero avatars, Shah’s bearing here is that of a fool—a paunch, a transparently head-over-heels situation with a much-younger woman, a career graph as a disreputable thief. An exquisite rendering in the shringara and hasya rasas.
A screenshot from Ishqiya, taken off Youtube
Katha, 1980 | Hasya and shringara rasa
Another love story, one that I discovered only now when I was going through Shah’s filmography for this tribute. Katha is the fable of the hare and tortoise, and the casting is marvellously counter-intuitive. Shah is the artless, decent tortoise, and the soulful Farooq Sheikh is the artful, flashy hare. Innocent Shah is smitten by his beautiful neighbour Deepti Naval, who in turn is smitten by the flamboyant Sheikh. It took me a while to get used to Sheikh twirling keys with his fingers and smoking showily, the last film of his that I had seen is Gaman where he moved mountains inside my heart with his quiet acceptance of the crush of city life as a migrant. Both Shah and Sheikh are wonderful performers, but I think innocence is harder to project than being a jerk. The latter has the advantage of being amusing, and the natural curiosity that the selfish arouse: how silly are they going to be this time? But innocence can easily slip into silliness—as we have seen with so many Hindi film superstars playing savants (My Name is Khan, Laal Singh Chaddha, Dhoom 3, Tubelight, Koi Mil Gaya, Main Aisa Hi Hoon, plus whatever I have missed).
When Shah plays innocent, he doesn’t seek to elicit ‘aww’—to be ‘adorable’. This, to me, seems to be the primary motivation in many of the previously-named superstar films. Katha’s Rajaram, who can never say no to a request, invokes our concern: will this good man’s goodness stay intact? Shah’s innocents—whether in Mandi or in Katha—are fundamentally decent, more than cute. We feel an admiration for them, even if we feel sorry for them. Like we do for Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump. Now think about My Name is Khan or Laal Singh Chaddha or Koi Mil Gaya, and the sentiment they evoke. Do they go beyond the cute?
Shah’s innocents—whether in Mandi or in Katha—are fundamentally decent, not only cute. We feel an admiration for them, even if we feel sorry for them. Like we do for Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump. Now think about My Name is Khan or Laal Singh Chaddha or Koi Mil Gaya, and the sentiment they evoke. Do they go beyond the cute?
What makes Katha special for me is a hilarious ‘dream sequence’ where Shah finds himself being pursued by the many women colleagues at his workplace who invite him to lunch. “Don’t you have brothers and fathers in your homes?” he asks, protecting his torn baniyan and modesty. It’s a neat subversion of the ‘don’t you have sisters and mothers’ rhetoric that is used to shame perverted, groping men in the subcontinent. The women are sweetly flirtatious and Shah is shell-shocked by their directness. Superb, sharp comedy. Hasya rasa, shanta rasa and a bit of shringar rasa.
Screenshots from the unforgettable Adam-teasing sequence in Sai Panranjpe’s Katha, taken off YouTube.
[s1]https://www.framinghamheartstudy.org/fhs-about/history/#:~:text=The%20Framingham%20Heart%20Study%20became,Blood%20Institute%20and%20Boston%20University.
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