Incredible India

And the winner is-

Interview: Shekhar Suman

(Published on mangalorean.com on June 27, 2009
Link: http://mangalorean.com/news.php?newstype=broadcast&broadcastid=132016)

(Shekhar Suman is basically a bollywood actor a very well known figure of Indian Television. He has worked in more than 30 films and has done many hit TV serials like Dekh Bhai dekh, Reporter, Poll khol, Laughter Challenge. Few years ago he came out with his music album ‘Kuch Khab Aise’ in which he sang many stunning songs. Recently he turned towards politics. Now he has planned to direct a film. Manish Kumar talks with Shekhar suman.)


Few years ago you used to expose corrupt politicians in your show ‘Poll Khol’ and now you turned towards Politics? How the idea of becoming a politician came to your mind?
I never see myself as a politician. I am still an actor who wants to do social service, who want to serve the mankind, politics becomes a means of doing so. When one has a political standing, his plans could be well executed. Like I want to open a hospital and a film training centre in Bihar and if I have a good political standing I can execute my work well.

We have seen Shekhar Suman as an actor, singer, politician and now DIRECTION? Tell us something about this new role of your life?
Whenever I fulfill one dream I want to go for the other one. Direction was always my biggest dream. Director in reality is like a caption of a ship who directs the ship. The work of a director starts from the idea of the film and consists of handling editing, screenplay, music, dialogues and finally till promotion of the film. The work of a director is really very challenging. I have planned to take Adhyayaan in my film as actor and it will be a romantic story and I think by the end of this year we may release this film. We are now working on the script.

You have worked for almost 30 years in this film industry. How was your overall journey?
It was really a very interesting journey. I have seen a lot of ups and downs and I still feel the happiness of getting ‘Utsav’ which proved to be a good memorable film for me. For any actor his first film always has a sentimental corner. I feel lucky that I got the chance to work with Girish kannad, Shashi Kapoor and Rekha. I still feel lucky that I got the chance to work with many of the greatest stars of Bollywood like Madhuri Dixit, Juhi Chawla, Padmini Kolapuri, Dimple. On a whole the journey was really very exciting and thrilling.

Almost every artist has some initial struggling days. Share your experience with us?
I missed many things. You may encounter many actors who would say that they spent their night on Marine Drive or they used to sleep on railway platforms on particular bench and they feel proud and happy witnessing the bench. But I really missed all these. I had my sister in Mumbai so I never felt any difficulty. I used to get three meals per day and she was very caring.

We have heard that you were very naughty during your childhood. Tell us something about those days.
Childhood without naughty things has no meaning. I have done many silly things in my childhood days. I still remember, I used to climb on guava trees and many times I fell down of the tree. Once I inserted water in spite of petrol in my father’s vehicle and for that I was beaten badly. I also used to lock my cousins inside our car. During childhood many wicked ideas used to come in my mind. I really enjoyed playing Pitto, Aiyes-Pais (Hide and seek). I really enjoyed those days.

Nabbing Childhood from the Innocent

Mumbai: You might have visited several times to public places like railway stations, bus stations and other such public gatherings for many purposes and you also might have concentrated your focused to many aspects of these places, but have you ever pondered over the life of the people living there permanently and dependent totally on these public gatherings for their livelihood.



Such a scene can be easily witnessed in various stations of Mumbai, the heart of India so called as the city of dreams including Lokmanya Tilak Terminus (LTT). This terminus has a wide range of helpless people and worse part of the fact is that many of them are children below the age of ten years.

At this station one can easily find small innocent kids engaged begging for their livelihood and to make the situation to seem more pathetic they are usually seen with their siblings who are less than one year in age. It is becoming the family business of these innocent kids who are actually in an age of getting primary education but are compelled to work like this in order to sustain themselves.

The story does not end here; there are also kids outside the stations who are engaged in selling pan masalas, cigarettes and other addictive drugs and the majority sellers are those who are either below the age of ten years or women to attract majority of the customers. It is really a matter of shame for the society that these groups of people are engaged in this type of business.

But here comes the moral and social responsibility of the society. Why the society is ignoring these groups. Why they are getting encouraged to do business? Do we have any responsibility towards them as humans?

As a human beings we are in many aspects superior to many other animals so socially also prove the same. Why we encourage them to go ahead with begging and why don't we go for adopting one of them and give them a chance to prove themselves. There are still such people in this world who are interested to provide some of them the same living standard as enjoyed by others in the same society.