How This National Award Winning Actor Of Oscar-Nominated Indian Film Became An Auto Driver

In over 100 years of Indian cinema, so far, only three Indian films have made it to the final five nominations in the Best International Feature category.

The first one was Mehboob Khan's Mother India (1957)starring Nargis, Sunil Dutt, Rajendra Kumar, Raaj Kumar and Kanhaiyalal, and the latest one was Ashutosh Gowariker’s Lagaan (2001) starring Aamir Khan, Gracy Singh, Rachel Shelley and Paul Blackthorne.

In between there was also Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay (1988) starring Raghubir Yadav, Anita Kanwar and Nana Patekar among others.

While Salaam Bombay featured some terrific and powerful performers, it majorly revolved around the character of Krishna aka Chaipau played by a debutant child actor Shafiq Syed, who was 12 years old at that time.

© NFDC

After the film released, Shafiq received several accolades including the National Film Award for Best Child Artist and went on to feature in 1993 film Patang.

However, his acting career failed to take off after that and Shafiq returned to his hometown and over the years became an auto rickshaw driver to earn a living.

In a 2010 interview recalling the hysteria around Salaam Bombay, Shafiq told Open Magazine, “Salaam Bombay released and I don’t need to tell you how it was received. After the shooting, I went back home to Bangalore. My parents were relieved to see me. I’d spent several months away from home. They saw pictures of the shooting and some of us turned out in good clothes for a get-together. They were impressed. So I went back to Bombay. I told them I was not interested in studies. I took them to the cinema to show them the film. They were proud. This time I left home with their blessings. I thought I knew how the film world works. I assumed I would get more roles.”

He added, “As I came back to Bombay, news of Salaam Bombay was in several newspapers. It kept getting nominated for some prize or the other, and got some international awards. No one called me for those awards. The only time I went for something was when I was called for the National Award in Delhi.”

© Open Magazine

He then talked about his struggle to find more work despite winning a national award for his work in an Oscar-nominated film, “I trooped in and out of innumerable film studios in Bombay, but got no work. I would go with newspaper cuttings where I was mentioned. On more than one occasion, a junior assistant director saw the paper clippings, saw my photo and asked: ‘Aaj khana khaya kya?’”

He rued, “Some directors said I could join them as a technician. But nothing clicked. I went down on luck big time. I had so many hopes of becoming something, landing some role. Life didn’t change one bit. I was back to square one.”

After driving an auto rickshaw on the roads of Bengaluru for years, Shafiq finally landed a job as an assistant in production companies making Kannada television soaps.

© Facebook/Shafiq Syed

In a 2012 interview, Shafiq had revealed that he has written a 180-page about his own life story and wishes that one day a film is made on it, “I have written my story and titled it ‘After Salaam Bombay. Hope someone will take it up for production.”

Shafiq Syed lives in Bengaluru with his aged mother, wife and four children — three sons and a daughter.