Latest news with #ShafiqSyed
Indian Express
31-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
National Award-winning actor became an auto rickshaw driver after film industry dreams shattered, was first spotted living on streets of Mumbai
Every day, it is said, thousands of aspiring actors land up in Mumbai hoping to be spotted by a filmmaker with the power to turn their lives around. Shafiq Syed was one of them. In fact, he is the rare example of someone who was actually spotted on the streets and given the role of a lifetime in an acclaimed film. But there are also thousands who leave the city of Mumbai every day with broken dreams. Shafiq belongs to this group, too. After the breakout success of his debut film, Salaam Bombay! he tried to give films a real shot. But when no work came his way, he left Mumbai and returned to his home in Bengaluru. There, he began working as an auto rickshaw driver, his illustrious past behind him. Once honoured by the President of India, and a winner of the prestigious National Film Award, he was barely eking out a living on Rs 150 per day and five mouths to feed at home. Shafiq even tried to kill himself, twice. This is his story. It was in the 1980s that Shafiq ran away from home and travelled without a ticket to Mumbai, 'just to see if what we saw in Hindi movies were right.' He lived on the streets near Churchgate station, and was approached by a lady who offered him and his fellow street kids Rs 20 if they came with her to an acting workshop. While the other kids ran away, suspecting a scam, Shafiq agreed, because he was hungry. He found himself among scores of other kids, and was eventually selected to play the lead role in Mira Nair's Salaam Bombay! The movie became a critical hit, and remains one of only three Indian movies to earn an Academy Award nomination in the Best Foreign Language Film category. Also read – Bollywood director lost entire life's savings after one flop; daughter was forced to dance, son performed for money at beach to repay debts He told Open Magazine in 2010, 'While filming, I felt I did not have to 'act' at all. It consisted of language, stories and situations that I had already lived through. People called Salaam Bombay! an 'art film'. But truth is, it wasn't. It was like my own story. It was the life of India on the streets. It was life that wasn't different from death, and I had lived it. Helping me out were co-actors Raghuvir Yadav, Nana Patekar, Anita Kanwar. I learnt that acting means a character honestly 'reacting' to a situation. The other person's moves are a cue to what I have to do. I had to learn all these small things. Even just being myself in front of the camera was an on-the-sets education for me.' But the dream ended abruptly for Shafiq. He told The Times of India, 'We shot for 52 days and they agreed to pay me Rs 15,000. I was thrilled. After the shooting, I'd go watch movies and relish Mumbai's street food. The movie was a huge hit and when the President took photographs with me, it was all a dream. But the dream ended abruptly. The film crew wound up and dispersed. I roamed the streets of Mumbai, knocked on the doors of producers for nearly eight months, but luck did not smile.' He told Open, '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. 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?' A post shared by shafiq syed (@ Read more – Legendary Bollywood music composer lived as paying guest in final years, banned family from attending funeral Shafiq appeared in one more film, Goutam Ghose's Patang. But he quit Mumbai for good in 1993 and returned to Bengaluru. He began working as an auto rickshaw driver, but not before moments that pushed him to the edge. He told Open, 'Sometimes Salaam Bombay! feels like a bad dream—and the movie itself is the bad dream that is real India. To be given fifteen minutes of fame and nothing thereafter is equal to a nightmare. Once the desire for recognition, money, success is stoked, it keeps on burrowing away inside you. I'd glimpsed the glitz of cinema. I saw it as a way out of the street life I had lived. That anxiety to break free of my conditions drove me insane. I think my desperation came in my way. Or, it's my kismat. By the early 1990s, I knew my time was up in Bombay. It hurt so much, I twice tried killing myself. I'm not ashamed to admit it. Once I tried jumping into the sea at Chowpatty beach in Bombay; the other time I tried consuming poison in Bangalore. In 1994, I came back to Bangalore, and by 1996, started driving an auto-rickshaw for a living.' Shafiq had four children by the mid-1990s. Two of them had dropped out of school like him when DNA interviewed him in 2013. 'I don't want my children to be like me. If I had studied, who knows, I might have even had a career as an actor. I could have been able to read the scripts at hand,' he said. Shafiq eventually quit driving autos, and took up odd jobs as a technician on Kannada soaps. 'What else can I do?' he asked. 'I have a family to take care of.' He added, 'That was it. My life just returned to where I left it when I took that train to Bombay. I keep a low profile and never talk about my films. Sometimes, I get to travel with film units whenever they shoot out of Bangalore.' Shafiq said that the producers of the film set up a Salaam Bombay trust for street kids like himself, but, ironically, he didn't qualify. Read more – Bollywood's biggest star of the 1950s became destitute, Amitabh Bachchan spotted him 'alone, unnoticed' at a bus stop: 'I drove on…' A post shared by shafiq syed (@ In a recent Facebook comment, a person who worked on Salaam Bombay! spoke about Shafiq's tragic story. Bishwadeep Dipak Chatterjee wrote, 'I remember Shafiq, our main child artist, as I was assisting in sound – yes, we were doing sync sound in '87. He was the saddest at the wrap party when reality hit him hard – 'What now?' They tried giving him a job at NFDC, he had even dropped in to the studio I was working in. The next I heard was that he shifted back to B'lore and is driving a rickshaw. One of his friends, Bernard, was luckier, the DOP adopted him and took him to LA. He's turned into a fine young man today. He has a lovely daughter who's grown too.' The cinematographer who adopted Bernard, Sandi Sissel, told Time magazine in 2009, 'He was tiny, and we all thought he was about five years old. He slept outside my guest-room door each night, and ultimately I invited him inside to bathe and sleep on a cot.' She thought that giving his mother money would help, but it didn't. 'If you give young kids in the slums money, then they do not see it. The mother took whatever I sent to Bernard. Toys were sold. Books were sold. Cash was taken. They lived in such desperation that she did what she had to do to survive. His mother's boyfriend was burning him with cigarettes. A rat bit him in his sleep, and he became infected. Horror stories that do not end,' Sandi said.
Deccan Herald
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Deccan Herald
Faded, not forgotten: This Bengaluru auto driver once won a National award for starring in a Mira Nair film
Shafiq Syed has documented his journey in a 180-page autobiography, titled After Salaam Bombay. Meanwhile, he aspires his life to be made into a film, saying, "My Salaam Bombay will be more genuine than Slumdog Millionaire." | Credit: Instagram/@
India.com
03-07-2025
- Entertainment
- India.com
Meet actor, who worked in an Oscar-winning film, won National Award for his role, now drives auto-rickshaw to earn money; His name is...
Cinema has become not just a medium of entertainment but also a means of emotional bonding across the world. Every year, countless films of different genres are released, sometimes romantic, sometimes action, and sometimes based on true events. Some films do wonders at the box office, while others are remembered for years due to their depth and sensitivity. One such film is Salaam Bombay , which was released in 1988. Directed by Mira Nair, this film did not receive much attention at the time, but over the years, it has come to be regarded as a cult classic of Indian cinema. Notably, Bollywood's veteran actor Irrfan Khan gained recognition in the cinema world through this film. The movie depicted the daily lives of children living in slums in Bombay. The movie also featured Raghuvir Yadav, Shafiq Syed, Anita Kanwar, Nana Patekar, Hansa Vithal and Chanda Sharma. Nominated for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film at the 61st Academy Awards, the film was India's second film submission to be so nominated. The film also got two National Film Awards, one for the Best Feature Film in Hindi and another Best Child Artist to Shafiq Syed. Although Irrfan Khan was not the lead actor in this film but a supporting one, the soul of Salaam Bombay was a 12-year-old boy played by Shafiq Syed. He captured the hearts of the audience as the film's main character, Chaipau. Even though the film featured well-known actors, the entire story revolves around Chaipau, played by Shafiq Syed. People believed that his luck had finally turned and that he would rise to become a big name in the cinema world, a new star of Bollywood. But the sad reality is that despite the success of Salaam Bombay, Shafiq's life did not turn out the way it should have for a child artist. He neither experienced financial growth nor received many film offers. Even today, he continues to live a life far removed from glamour. Shafiq was born and raised in the slums of Bangalore. As a teenager, he ran away to Mumbai with his friends and spent his days living on the footpaths near the railway station. It was during this time that Mira Nair noticed him and cast him in Salaam Bombay . For the film, he was paid Rs 20 per day and given a vada for lunch. After Salaam Bombay, Shafiq worked in another Mira Nair film, 'Patang' in 1994, but after that, he disappeared from the film world. He returned to Bangalore to his family, where he started living a normal life. Today, Shafiq Syed drives an auto rickshaw. To feed his family and fulfil their needs, he also works temporarily with small production houses, especially in the Kannada TV industry. In an old interview with the Telegraph, he had said, 'I had to take responsibility for my family. There was no such responsibility in 1987. Now I have the burden of many people on my shoulders.' Shafiq is the head of a family today. He lives with his wife, mother, three sons and a daughter in a small town, 30 km from Bengaluru. He may be remembered for Salaam Bombay , but the glamour of films is now far away from his life.
India.com
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- India.com
Remember Chapu from Salaam Bombay? His film was once nominated for an Oscar, won a National Award for…, now struggles to make ends meet, works as a…, his name is…
Cinema has become not just a medium of entertainment but also a means of emotional bonding across the world. Every year, countless films of different genres are released, sometimes romantic, sometimes action, and sometimes based on true events. Some films do wonders at the box office, while some are remembered even after years due to their depth and sensitivity. One such film is 'Salaam Bombay', released in 1988. Directed by Mira Nair, this film did not get much discussion at that time, but with time it started being counted among the cult films of Indian cinema. After all, Bollywood's veteran actor Irrfan Khan got recognition in the cinema world through this film. Could not get recognition even after becoming a hero Although Irrfan was not the lead actor in this film but a supporting actor, the soul of this film was a 12-year-old boy, played by Shafiq Syed. He had entered the hearts of the audience as the main character of the film 'Chapu'. Even though the film had the support of big stars Nana Patekar, Raghuveer Yadav, Irrfan Khan, Anita Kanwar, but the whole story of the film revolves around Chapu i.e. Shafiq Syed. Shafiq was awarded the National Film Award for Best Child Artist for this film, which showed the bitter truth of Mumbai's streets through an innocent child's eyes. People thought that Shafiq's luck had shone, and he would emerge as a big name in the cinema world and become the new star of Bollywood. Away from the glamour, towards the struggles But the sad thing is that despite the success of this film, Shafiq Syed's life was not what it should have been for a child artist. Neither did he taste financial growth nor did he get many films. Even today he is travelling a journey full of struggle away from glamour. Shafiq was born and brought up in the slums of Bangalore. As a teenager, he ran away with his friends to Mumbai, where he spent his days on the footpath near the railway station. Mira Nair noticed him then and he was cast in 'Salaam Bombay'. For the film, he was paid 20 rupees daily and a vada as lunch. Now he is driving home by auto After 'Salaam Bombay', Shafiq worked in another Mira Nair film 'Patang' in 1994, but after that he disappeared from the film world. He returned to Bangalore to his family, where he started living a normal life. Today Shafiq Syed drives an auto rickshaw. To feed his family and fulfill their needs, he also works temporarily with small production houses, especially in the Kannada TV industry. In an old interview to the Telegraph, he had said, 'I had to take responsibility of my family. There was no such responsibility in 1987. Now I have the burden of many people on my shoulders.' The battle between family and dreams Shafiq is the head of a family today. He lives with his wife, mother, three sons and a daughter in a small town 30 km from Bengaluru. He may be remembered for 'Salaam Bombay', but the glamour of films is now far away from his life. In 2008, when 'Slumdog Millionaire' gained international popularity, people remembered 'Salaam Bombay' and Chapu, but by then Shafiq had returned to a normal life, where every day is a struggle for him. Shafiq Syed's story highlights the reality of Indian cinema, where art gets recognition, but the future of an artist is often lost in the fog. This child who once won millions of hearts as Chapu is still looking for a better life.
