 Shahid has been wrenched away from the ‘think’ of things. Just when
he needed to feel like a solitary brooder for his father’s film where he
plays an Airforce officer and hence a man who spends many hours flying
high above the noise and bustle of day to day life, he had to shooed
back into noisy civilization.
The double dose of publicity for his two forthcoming films
Paathshaala and Badmaash Company have come in the way of Shahid’s deep
and purportedly uninterrupted preparation for his father’s film Mausam.
Shahid who plays a romantic loner in Mausam was just getting into his
solitary space taking long mo’bike rides in the night to understand what
it feels like to be completely on his own, when he has been yanked back
into the thick of things with a series of never-ending publicity and
promotion for two films.
Shahid is constantly in and out of interviews. Sometimes he gets so
confused he wonders which of the two films he’s meant to be talking
about. And this is the last distraction he needed when he wanted to be
alone. To prepare for his part in Mausam, Shahid wanted to be completely
on his own, a luxury that he can’t afford at the moment. At the same
time he doesn’t want to lose the thread of the lonely lover-boy’s
character that he is playing in Mausam.
Shahid says going off on his mo-bike is the only way to understand
the full significance of solitude in Mumbai. And he’s applying it to the
fullest at this moment.
Says the method actor, “Yes, I love biking on my own. I often take
off in Mumbai on my bike during the night. Riding my mo’bike relaxes me,
opens up my mind and helps me understand myself better as a human being
and an actor.”
He admits the role in Mausam requires him to be on his own. “But even
otherwise I like going out riding on my own anonymously. It helps me
unwind. I think every actor likes to be alone. In any case I am not a
group person. I don’t move around with 25 hangers-on. I have 3-4 close
friends. They are the ones I spend my time with besides my family.”
Shahid does get recognized even in the middle of the night when he
takes off his helmet at a traffic signal. “Sure I get recognized on the
streets. But no one really bothers me. And really, you can’t stop doing
what you have to out of the fear of being recognized.”
Subhash K Jha / Sampurn Wire
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