Why Naseeruddin Shah abandoned first wife and married Ratna Pathak?
Naseeruddin Shah is an actor and an artist in true sense. He is known for portraying some of the most memorable and impactful characters – both on-screen and on-stage – in a career that has spanned over four decades. He fell in love with fellow stage actress Ratna Pathak; Naseeruddin Shah’s marriage to Ratna Pathak has been fun. But it wasn’t his first tryst with matrimony. In fact, he already had a daughter from his first marriage when he tied the knot with his fellow stage actress Ratna Pathak in the year 1982. Let’s take a closer look at Naseeruddin Shah’s marriage and the love life of this truly prolific actor.
Naseeruddin Shah was born on 20th July, 1949, at Barabanki in Uttar Pradesh. He was one among the three sons of his parents. His father’s name was Aley Mohammed Shah and mother’s name was Farrukh Sultan. Growing up, Shah had most of his education from Nainital and eventually graduated from Aligarh Muslim University which is where he fell in love with theatre. After graduating in the Arts stream, Shah decided to pursue a diploma in acting from the prestigious National School of Drama (NSD), in New Delhi, a decision which was opposed by his family members. Soon after the completion of his diploma course, Shah moved base to Mumbai, where he began his initial career working in low budget plays. His first big screen role came with Shyam Benegal’s critically acclaimed film Nishant in the year 1975. Since his debut, he has worked in more than 100 films and countless plays, and is known to be an exceptionally distinguished stage and film actor even today.
It was somewhere around the year 1969 when Shah was a 20 year old graduate student in Aligarh Muslim University that he happened to meet Parveen Murad, a 34-year old medical intern, who was studying from the same university. Parveen, a.k.a. Manara Sikri, was the sister of actress Surekha Sikri. She came into Shah’s life at a stage when he was facing resistance from his family on his decision to take up acting as a profession. Shah found a staunch supporter of his career choice in his friend and confidante Parveen, who’s sister was already a successful actress. But Parveen was a divorcee with children from a previous marriage, living with her family in Iran. These factors caused his family to be very much against a marriage with her. While on Parveen’s side, the 14-year age difference was pointed out as a main bone of contention, w
... keep reading on reddit ➡Whenever someone mentions the name of filmmaker Kundan Shah, Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro is the first movie that immediately comes to mind. The movie and its maker share a bond akin to a person’s maiden romantic relationship — tumultuous, loving and deeply affecting. As Vidhu Vinod Chopra had once revealed, the original cut of Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron was 7-8 hours long. It took a lot out of Shah to make the movie happen. And when it finally did get released (August 12, 1983), it was screened only in four theatres! In fact, the budget for the movie was so meagre that even the cast were not handed out free tickets.
Close to four decades later, Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro is now considered a cult classic. But that was not what it looked like for the team upon its release. It failed to make its mark as a commercial success.
https://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/opinion-entertainment/kundan-shah-jaane-bhi-do-yaaro-hilarious-why-naseeruddin-shah-called-it-stupidest-film-7578602/
Published: January 06, 2017
Editor's note: When Nandita C Puri wrote her husband's biography - ***'Unlikely Hero: Om Puri'***, published by Roli Books, Naseeruddin Shah provided this note as an introduction. Titled 'In Appreciation' it detailed his decades-long association with Om Puri, first as classmates at the National School of Drama, as friends, rivals ('for roles, not girls', as Naseer writes), and colleagues who held each other in great esteem - and affection. Looking back, this note now seems like the perfect tribute to Puri, from one acting legend, to another.
Extracted from 'Unlikely Hero' with permission of Roli Books:
In the fledgling days of his movie career, Om Prakash Puri, Padmashree, OBE (to use his full name and honorifics), was struck by severe doubts over whether he would be confused with and perhaps lose his identity to Om Shivpuri, former theatre doyen and unremarkable character actor in countless Hindi films. So our Om considered adopting a pseudonym! My two suggestions, ‘Vinamra Kumar’ and ‘Antim Khanna’ were rather impatiently turned down.
Then the time came for the hard decision. ‘Prakash’ was out for obvious reasons. Despite good old Amrish still being very much around, the ‘Puri’ could possibly pass. And so Om sweet Om had to change. Trivia addicts will be delighted to learn that in one or two of his first films he was actually billed as ‘Vilom Puri’ and ‘Azdak Puri’, both names he considered and then wisely discarded, finally deciding that the one his parents thought up was indeed the best. And damn, he was right.
This anecdote cries out for a punch line and here it is. True in every detail. Shortly after Om had been accumulating the success and regard that had long been his due, Mrinal Sen shooting at a studio in Mumbai received a call from ‘Om’ asking to meet. A request Mr Sen happily granted until embarrassingly, Mr Shivpuri showed up instead! Om Puri and Om Shivpuri - only time will decide which one of them posterity will remember. But I think it is a foregone conclusion.
Om and I are similar in that we are not, either of us, ‘gifted performers’. Being entertaining does not come easily and since we both have had to slog to make things work for ourselves, I think, at the risk of sounding more pompous, acting has acquired a slightly higher purpose than mere entertainment.
Our relationship started as students in 1970 and then went on to becoming that of rivals (for roles, not girls), it then progressed to co
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In ‘Irrfan Khan: The Man, The Dreamer, The Star’, Aseem Chhabra writes about how Khan was born to play Maqbool, and Vishal Bhardwaj casting him was both a risk and a masterstroke.
After the moderate success of Makdee (2002), a children’s film, with Shabana Azmi playing a witch, Vishal Bhardwaj wanted to make a gangster film set in Bombay. He was searching for the story, and quite by chance, on a train ride from Dehradun to Delhi with his godson, Vishal asked the kid if he had anything to read. The kid handed Vishal Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb. The book contained 20 stories, adapted from William Shakespeare’s plays. Vishal had not read or heard any of Shakespeare’s plays.
‘The first story I read was, Macbeth,’ Vishal told Seema Chisti at the Express Adda in Delhi. ‘And it was so good. Mere hosh udd gaye. Ki yeh kis tarah ki kahaani hai (I lost my sense of being. What kind of a story was this)?’ Until then Vishal thought literature was boring. In fact, while promoting Maqbool, he admitted that he was not acquainted with English literature at all.
Macbeth’s plot intrigued Vishal so much that he then got the play, read it again, and asked his Makdee co-writer Abbas Tyrewala to write a screenplay, transforming Macbeth into Maqbool. Shakespeare’s Scottish countryside transitioned into the inner city of Bombay from where a Don Corleone-like underworld king Jahangir Khan, aka Abbaji (Pankaj Kapur), rules his empire of illegal businesses and interests in the city’s Hindi film industry. He is well-served by his trusted lieutenant Maqbool (Irrfan Khan) who is having an affair with his boss’s mistress Nimmi (Tabu playing the character of Lady Macbeth). Vishal would later say that he was always fascinated by love triangles and the complications that arose from those plotlines, and so he decided his Lady Macbeth and Macbeth would not be married.
#Casting
Initially, Vishal Bhardwaj offered Maqbool’s role to Kay Kay Menon, but he turned it down for a war drama with Amitabh Bachchan - Deewaar: Let’s Bring Our Heroes Home (2004). That film vanished, and surely Kay Kay must have regretted his decision.
Unclear about whom to cast as Maqbool, Vishal even talked to Kamal Haasan for that role. Naseeruddin Shah was already supposed to play one of the characters in the film. So Vishal told Naseer that he had talked to Kamal for the role of Maqbool. Naseer was livid. ‘I said, “Look, if you are talking to him, then I am out,” he sa
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