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La Familia: Meezaan Jafri remembers grandfather Jagdeep: ‘Dada used to come for all our school functions’
Meezaan also says that his grandfather had a great habit of recording everything on a video camera, which has a lot of footage from his childhood.
Actor Jagdeep is known for many of his popular characters, but Soorma Bhopali from Ramesh Sippy’s Sholay remains the most iconic. He started out as a child artist, and worked in over 400 films. In a conversation with Pinkvilla, Jagdeep Saab’s actor-grandson Meezaan Jafri remembers his grandfather. Meezaan says that he got to spend a lot of his time with his Dada when he was a child. “I remember as a kid I used to do dance performances at home, impersonate people, or my cousins and I would put together these plays, and the only audience we had was him,” Meezaan remembers fondly.
He adds that Jagdeep Saab would always motivate them and complement their work. “Who knew that years later I was going to become an actor myself. Back then I used to just do it for fun. In fact, Dada used to even come for all our school plays and functions, and had a great habit of recording everything on a video camera. He actually has the best footage of my sister and I when we were kids, because he would record everything that we did. Even today, I always go back to his archive to see my baby footage, and everything else that we did as kids,” smiles Meezaan.
The Hungama 2 actor says that as he grew up, he started understanding Jagdeep Saab’s wisdom even more. “When we grew up he started talking more about life and his experiences. Also, when we asked him about his films, and the people that he worked with, he would talk a lot about that too. Those stories subconsciously make you learn so much, and only later on you realise there were proper life learnings there, which are coming to use on a day to day basis now.”
He remembers a few of the important stories shared by Jagdeep Saab. “Dada once shared a story about this big filmmaker, who helped a colleague in need of money, despite the filmmaker himself not having enough cash on him. So he would often speak about how people back then would help each other without any questions asked. He would even speak about how invested certain makers and actors were in their craft. Many artists back then were making films because of their passion for movies, and not really for the money,” inform Meezaan.
He also shares an interesting anecdote about Mughal-E-Azam that Jagdeep Saab had shared with him. “On the first day of the shoot when Prithviraj Kapoor sir walked in on the set of Mughal-E-Azam, K Asif sir saw him and said that he wanted him to walk like a King. So Prithviraj sir went back and worked on his walk. I think he started walking a lot on the beach, which gave a different posture and a tempo to his walk. When he came back on the set, K Asif sir said, ‘now my King is ready’. That showed how even the smallest of details mattered so much for them, which is why these films are considered legendary today,” states Meezaan, adding that his grandfather was lucky to also have got an opportunity to work with legends like Guru Dutt, Bimal Roy and Mehboob Khan.
Jagdeep Saab’s role in Kaalia is one of Meezaan’s favourite performances of his grandfather. “That scene with Mr Bachchan is my favorite. There is a lot to that scene that people don’t know. That scene was actually made in the dubbing studio. When they were filming that sequence, Dada was just giving expressions. At that time he didn't say any dialogues, but when he came into the dubbing room he just took the scene to another level. That just showed me how important dubbing is, and how much of an impact it can make to a scene. These experiences teach you so much,” Meezaan recalled.
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