When Jaaved Jaaferi spoke about his father Jagdeep’s struggle in Bollywood

Veteran actor and Bollywood’s favorite comedian Syed Ishtiaq Ahmed Jafri, better known by his stage name, Jagdeep, passed away last night at 8:40 in Mumbai.

Jagdeep will be laid to rest today tomorrow at Shia Kabristan in Mumbai.

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Jagdeep had been a part of several big Bollywood films through the 70s and the 80s and even though in the 90s. He has been a part of more than 400 films in his career. The actor was best known for his act in Amitabh Bachchan and Dharmendra starrer ‘Sholay’, wherein he essayed the iconic role of Soorma Bhopali.

Once Jaaved Jaaferi spoke about his father’s struggle in Bollywood, “I had a lot of experiences passed on second hand through my father. Obviously, it’s not my personal experience. He was thrown on the street at the age of 9, 10. Coming from a good household, good family from some place in Gwalior and then suddenly coming to Mumbai and then on the street, on a footpath living under a bridge with his mother. I got that and how he met the people and how filmmakers were then. Because there was no father, the father-figures for him were Bimal Roy, Guru Dutt, K Asif, Mehboob Khan and they used to talk to him like an adult because my father was very matured at that age also. So, all that he absorbed, he passed it on to us”, said Jaaved Jaaferi in an interview in Zoom.

The actor also spoke about his father’s brilliant performance as a child artist, “In my opinion, he was the best child actor I have seen in Hindi cinema till now and I don’t exaggerate. If I look at his work as a child actor, it just flows so naturally. Look at a film like Do Bigha Zamin, look at him as shoeshine boy, look at Aar Paar. And you see that this kid is crying real, there is no glycerine, which is another amazing thing about him, he can cry. As a child, he is crying real tears with the scene. So, for me, that was amazing. And then he passed it on to me, to us. And for me that was important. That stayed with me and those values still uphold”, said Jaaved.
Jagdeep passed away at the age of 81 due to some health-related issues. He was last seen in 2012 comedy ‘Gali Gali Chor Hai’, starring Akshaye Khanna.