Farooq Sheikh – the decent romantic actor of bollywood.
Farooq Sheikh appeared in the 70s in bollywood films and brought a new dimension of refined commercial films. He mainly acted in films of Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Sai Paranchpe, who were involved with realistic films.
He acted in Saath-Saath, opposite Dipti Naval, and portrayed the complexity of life of middle-class person. After education is completed in many parts of India, it is not easy to get jobs, and when one gets any job, the slaray is not adequate to maintain a family. The songs in the film mainly sung by Jagjit Singh, including “tumko dekha to yeh khayal aya”, “yeh tera ghar yeh mera ghar”, etc., were well appreciated by critics and the mass.
In Katha, which was serio-comic film, he played the role of the friend of Naseer, who lived in a flat complex. His character was exactly opposite to the character of Naseer, who was honest, god-fearing and truthful. He went on telling lies one after the other and the resident in one of the neighbouring flats, Deepti Naval, believed them and married him on such belief. The film had many comedy instances like the time when Farooq Sheikh went to a neighbour’s house and praised her son to get a cup of tea, while Naseer, did fifty separate jobs in the room of old neighbour, just to get some milk which he used to make tea.
Farooq Sheikh was elegant in innocent characters as well, the character he played in Kisi Se Na Kehna, opposite Dipti Naval, where his father Utpal Dutt wanted to get him married to a village girl, who was simple and believed in traditional values. He took the help of Saeed Jaffry to falsely state that Deepti Naval, who was a doctor to be a village girl. Utpal Dutt agreed to solemnize the marriage and that belief and the intellectual comedy impressed all sections of audience.
Farooq Sheikh also portrayed the character of legendary writer Sarat Chandra Chatterji in TV channel in the episodes shown on Srikanto. He acted with Sujata Mehta in the respective episodes. His other successful films include Umrao Jaan, opposite Rekha. His way of asking questions was so impressive that the TV program Jeena isi ka naam hai, which was initially conducted by him where he brought various bollywood personalities, lost a number of audience from the time he left it. He is expected to make a comeback in bollywood films in character roles in future.
By: CR Chatterji.
