Obituary: Salim Ghouse was much more than an actor

Salim Ghouse who passed away quietly on 29 April at 70, was a true renaissance artiste. Unlike other movie actors he was not obsessed with being in films. Long before it became fashionable to  do films in  multiple languages. Ghouse gamboled from Hindi to Tamil and Telugu cinema effortlessly. He  even spoke  his own lines in non-Hindi films. “I am an actor not only by profession but also because I love acting. I love being on stage. I wish there were more opportunities and money for theatre actors,” Ghouse said, grieving for the fact that he needed to supplement his meagre earnings from theatre with cinema only to make ends meet.

Rakesh Roshan in whose Shah Rukh Khan-Madhuri Dixit starrer Koyla in 1997 Ghouse played a malicious assassin, says he is sad to hear of Ghouse’s departure. “He was a fine actor. I was happy to work with him in Koyla. He was a very fine human being, dignified and well-read too, his interests went far beyond cinema. As an actor  he was par excellence. I wish we had worked together again after Koyla. That was not to be. Now it’s too late. I was very sad to hear about his sudden going away.” Shyam Bengal had the rare opportunity to work with Ghouse repeatedly.  “He could play all kind of roles. He had this rare talent of owning any character, just like Om and Naseer. This is why in my series Bharat Ek Khoj for Doordarshan he played three characters Rama, Krishna and Tipu Sultan. In 1996 he did Sardari Begum with me where his command on Urdu was seen to be exemplary. Many years  later I cast him in  a  small  but important  role  in Well Done Abba.  I think I should have worked a lot more with him than I actually did.”

For Ghouse all the world was truly a stage. He described himself as a multi-religious actor. “I have a Muslim father, a Christian mother, a Punjabi wife and a Brahmin brother-in-law. My family is like a mini-India. The entire country is in my family,” Ghouse said proudly. His attitude towards art and cinema was truly democratic. In recent years work had dried up for Salim Ghouse. He was not seen in any Hindi film after Benegal’s Well Done Abba in 2010. Ghouse could never go around asking for roles. He believed whatever was his, would come to him.

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha.

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