Sai Paranjpye was sublime in Chasme Badoor.

Sai Paranjpye was sublime in Chasme Badoor.

Director Sai Paranjpye was sublime in the film Chasme Baddoor. Sai Paranjpye carried forward the neo-film revolution that was started by Shyam Benegal, Govind Nihalini and others. The film was released in 1981. Farooq Sheikh, Ravi Vaswani and Rakesh Bedi were three friends of Delhi University.

Deepti Naval came in their life. Farooq Sheikh completed MA in Economics and was preparing for PhD. Both Ravi Vaswani and Rakesh Bedi went to Deepti Naval’s house but failed to impress her. Deepti Naval came to Farooq Sheikh’s house to advertise Champo Washing Powder.

Deepti Naval’s father gave employment to Farooq Sheikh in his office. Both of them almost got engaged, when Ravi Vaswani and Rakesh Bedi betrayed Farooq Sheikh and tried to end the romantic relationship. The music in the film was impressive. Yesu Das, Haimanti Shukhla and others sang notable songs in the film.

At the end of the film a artificial kidnapping scene was hatched up and the marriage actually took place. All the actors including Saeed Jaffery and Lila Mishra were excellent. Farooq Sheikh and Deepti Naval formed a very impressive pair of actor and actress who featured in other landmark films like Katha, Kisi Se Na Kahe Na, etc.

In the early 80s, the viewers of bollywood films had the taste and patience to appreciate parallel films and refined commercial films having leading performances from the intellectual actors and actresses like Om Puri, Naseeruddin Shah, Smita Patil, Shabana Azmi, Farooq Sheikh, Deepti Naval and others. The Chasme Baddoor should be restored.

Farooq Sheikh and bollywood films.

Farooq Sheikh and bollywood films.

Farooq Sheikh had created a new dimension in bollywood films by playing roles both in commercial films and parallel films. He played the role of the friend of Nasirruddin Shah in the film Katha. It was comedy film where Nasir played the role of an innocent person who wanted to marry Dipti Naval. Farooq Sheikh gave the impression in the colony that he was rich and well to do, all was based on lies. At the end his deeds or misdeeds were unfolded.

He played the role of frustrated young person in Saath Saath with Dipti Naval. After completing the education career he was looking for jobs and the search was complicated. Both Jagjit Singh and Chitra Singh sung meaningful songs in the film including “kyun zindagi ke raah me majboor ho gaye”, “tumko dekha to yeh khayal aya”, etc.


In Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s film Kisi Se Na Kehna, Farooq Sheikh had played the role of the son of Utpal Dutta, a strict father who loved traditional values. He had an affair with Dipti Naval, who was a doctor. He took the help of Saeed Jaffery, his uncle who told Utpal Dutta that Dipti Naval was a village girl, and taught her the details of Indian epics and got her married to Farooq Sheikh.

He had also played important roles in films like Noorie and Umrao Jaan. He is also remembered for comedy films like Chasme Badoor and Peecha Karo.


He even played the role of Sarat Chandra Chatterji, the famous writer of Bengal in the TV serial related to him under the title of Srikanto. His tv program “jeena isi ka naam hai” is still popular among viewers across the country for his unique style of interviewing celebrities.

The viewers expect him to make comeback in bollywood films in character roles as he has a lot of acting left in him.