Book review - Autobiography of Naseeruddin Shah - Must read for theatre enthisiasts

And then One Day : A memoir  

- By Naseeruddin Shah

This book is strictly recommended for only theatre enthusiasts or Naseeruddin shah Fans.   A very frank notes of ones life, struggles and about the Film/theatre industry. 

Some of the quotes/excerpts  i specially liked:

Naseerji, this is not an art film, here you have to ACT!. 

-  as said by a director to Naseer 

On commercial Cinema and audience… 

…what i find terrifying is the degree of dumbing down the audience that these films have managed to achieve, i daresay intentionally. A habit of consuming junk has over the years been created in the audience. They ar enow irrevocably hooked to that taste , they crave it so they swallow anything that comes thus packaged, and ironically they are blamed for having to be pandered to. the films we make reflect no one’s inherent taste but our own. Every few months when some nonsensical multi-starrer flops, everybody assumes the audience has finally come of age but very soon they flock right back to something else equally shallow. its impossible to explain. 

               ----I have this same very feeling when i see friends going to watch salman khan, shahrukh khan, akshay kumar movies … and despite not liking it most of the time…ensure that they don’t miss the next one on Opening weekend. sic sic…

On motivation and popularity and the crap…

i cannot deny the paradox in my behavior that my motivation for booming an actor was not to uncover the secrets of the craft or to serve meaningful work to make my contribution to society but to get noticed.  i wanted to be known, I wanted to be rich, i wanted to be looked at, talked about; and when that started to happen in a serious way i found myself shying away.  i hated being accosted and treated with familiarity by strangers and i could no longer take compliments seriously - they came to me even for some very inferior work.  i had always thought i would love signing autographs, in fact had dreamed of the day i would and had practised half a dozen different ones when i was in school. but when it started to happen, and i was handed crumpled scraps of paper extracted from wallets or visiting cards with no space on them or even tissue paper, and not infrequently after signing was asked what my name was, i decided i hated this utterly meaningful exercise. i am often mistaken for Om Puri or Girish karnad or Nana patellar and congratulated on the work they did in their films. 

                         -Naseer went from National School of drama to FTII so that he can get into films. He preferred the camera to theatre … some reason attributed to the popularity and money.  its strange he came to the above argument soon…