While others ran away thinking it was a scam, Shafiq Syed accepted because he was hungry. Among several other children, he was then selected to play the lead role in Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay!. The film went on to become a huge success and is still considered as one of the only three Indian films to have received an Oscar nomination in the Best Foreign Language Film category.

Life after Salaam Bombay!

After the film’s breakthrough success, Shafiq thought he would give acting a real chance. After all, being honoured by the President of India, and winning the National Film Award was one of the most precious and meaningful moments of his life. However, he stopped getting opportunities soon enough. After feeling sidelined, he decided to leave Mumbai and returned to his hometown, Bangalore.

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After going back home, he forgot all about acting and started working as an auto rickshaw driver. He had to run a family of five other members, dependent on him, when he was only earning Rs 150 daily.

‘Salaam Bombay was like my own story’

During an interview with Open Magazine back in 2010, Shafiq had shared, “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.”

He further 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. 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?”

While speaking to The Times Of India earlier, he said, “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.”

After Salaam Bombay!, Shafiq Syed also starred in another film, Goutam Ghose’s Patang, but did not appear in any other project later.