Naseer: I rate Madhuri at par with Madhubala & Waheeda Rehman

Naseeruddin Shah is having a ball in Lucknow shooting for Abhishek Choubey’s Dedh Ishqiya, the sequel to the well-received Ishqiya. Says Naseer, “I’ve been here in Lucknow before to shoot for Muzaffar Ali’s Umrao Jaan, Shyam Benegal’s Junoon and Sudhir Mishra’s Yeh Woh Manzil Toh Nahin. But I haven’t been in Lucknow for some years now. The city has changed a lot. It’s great fun...My wife Ratna visits off and on.” Naseer says the sequel is better scripted than Ishqiya. “Oh yes Dedh Ishqiya has a better script. Being with Arshad Warsi is an added incentive. I have not seen his new film Jolly LLB as yet. But there will be a screening soon.” That his co-star is Madhuri Dixit adds to Naseer’s sense of enjoyment. Says Naseer, “She’s quite wonderful. I have to confess I am a Madhuri Dixit fan. I am not embarrassed to say this. I rate her on a par with Waheeda Rehman and Madhubala. We did Pankaj Parsher’s Raj Kumar and then we did M Hussain’s Gaja Gamini, the one that nobody understood. I was the only one who tried very hard to understand what was going in the film. I think Hussain Saab admired Madhuri. So he decided to make a movie around her. There was no story or anything. It was just a series of beautiful images, totally abstract and non-cinematic. I think he was trying to create a new language if cinema.” Dedh Ishqiya is the first film that gives Naseer a chance to enjoy Madhuri’s presemce as a co-star. “I am glad Madhuri and I are finally doing a film that has a plot and some substance. In Gaja Gamini we had no scenes together. I am amazed to see her at work in Dedh Ishqiya. She is playing her age, very gracefully.” Naseer is also had fun doing a brief role in Makarand Deshpande’s Sona Spa. Says Naseer, “I enjoy watching his work. I just love Makarand’s work and his relentless energy ...and his completely off-centre perception of the world. In his theatre productions he always manages to astonish me in one way or another. He had done Sona Spa as a play. I enjoyed the play. And when he made a film out of it he asked me to do a role. So I did it for a lark.” Besides Sona Spa Naseer has not signed any new film. “I have no other film on hand. My primary interest is theatre at the moment.”