 "20 years of Salaam Namaste: Why Saif Ali Khan and Preity Zinta's rom-com became a success")
It’s not just Saif Ali Khan and Preity Zinta’s peak that may have contributed to the success of Salaam Namaste, a film that turns 20 today and marked the debut of Siddharth Anand. It was a grander and fluffier Kya Kehna, a film that tackled themes like live-in relationships and pre-marital pregnancy, peppered with ingenious characters and innocuous fun. Bringing the house down was the inimitable Javed Jaaferi.
Arshad Warsi was fresh off the success of Munna Bhai MBBS, and Saif Ali Khan found success as a solo hero post Hum Tum. And Preity Zinta was three years away from bidding adieu to films for a certain League. It was the first Hindi film to be shot entirely in Australia and those end credit bloopers are for the ages, so is Abhishek Bachchan’s cameo.
Even after 20 years, the film is remembered for its breezy tone, feel-good moments, and songs that’ll leave you humming all along. Amongst all this, it also took a bold step to depict live-in relationships, and what truly stands out is Saif Ali Khan’s drive to stay ahead of the time, be it with his unexpected characters or daring screen narratives.
At times when screens were dominated by macho men, Saif Ali Khan chose the authentic route of relatability, and it worked! His character, Nick, was flawed but was human at the core. He brought emotional layers to the fore and pulled it off with such ease that we almost forgot how groundbreaking and gutsy it was to play a real character at times when a hypermasculine hero was the ‘trend’.
What Siddharth Anand said about the film
In an exclusive interview with Firstpost, the filmmaker revealed, “That was something that was a lot of improvisation on Jaaved Sir’s part, Abbas’s dialogues, the costumes, they all came together. And you all know the kind of actor Jaaved Jaaferi is, he’s an outstanding actor, outstanding actor, and he’s a great writer too. He made a lot of improvisations and made the character his own. At that time, nobody had seen a character like that or comedy like that. The timing of that character fell into place and it became iconic in just four scenes.”