Events like Village Square’s Chitrashaala help promote good content, feels actor Faisal Malik. He talked to us about attending the short film festival, filming Panchayat in a village, his humble roots, and what went into playing Prahlad cha.
You can cite many reasons that made Panchayat a hit, but you would agree that one of the towering figures behind the mass love that it has received is Faisal Malik. And tower he does over everyone else in the latest season of the TV series – in more ways than one, endearing Prahlad chacha as every viewer’s uncle in the process. The winsome demeanour is seen in real life too, as Malik patiently lets fans click selfies with him, while his spaghetti gets cold and the garlic bread dries up on the plate. He doesn’t seem to mind. He didn’t get success on a platter.
Malik took out two days from his schedule to attend the Chitrashaala short film festival organised by Village Square, during which he had a conversation with actor Adil Hussain on the stage, interacted with filmmaker Muzaffar Ali off it, and sat down with us for an interview a day before the event. We chatted about his experience filming Panchayat in a village, his humble roots, his passion for cinema, and of course what made Prahlad cha enter everyone’s hearts.
Because you want to sit with him when Prahlad-cha broods alone, laugh when he crackles at the mention of the white pigeons, and clap when he intimidates the baddies. In his short stint on the screen so far, Faisal Malik has achieved what all actors aspire for – to be recognised as the character in real life. People even come up to him to pay condolences for his son’s demise, he said.
“The death of a family member is something that anguishes all of us,” he said. “I was able to stir those emotions in the viewers as well.”
Malik, who was first noticed on the screen in Anurag Kashyap’s Gangs of Wasseypur, revealed that his foray into acting happened by chance.
“The person meant to play Inspector Gopal Singh left and I was asked to step in. After that I was flooded with offers to play a cop,” he laughed.
Also Read: Rural themes resonate with celebs and cinema lovers at Chitrashaala
But his interest in films had germinated long before he arrived in Mumbai from Prayagraj to work in the show business. An uncle of his worked as a manager at a cinema hall in Machhlishahar, a small town in Jaunpur district of Uttar Pradesh, which Malik frequented during his vacations to visit his maternal grandparents.
I used to spend hours in the projection room, watching and rewatching movies of Amitabh Bachchan and Mithun Chakraborty,
said Faisal Malik, recalling how he watched three consecutive shows of the Govinda-starrer Raja Babu. And that when his grandfather got a VCR cassette for Muqaddar ka Sikandar, he saw the film a few hundred times.
“I didn’t score high marks in any subject in the school, but I used to be very active on occasions like Teacher’s Day, taking part in skits, etc. So I always had an interest in this area,” Malik said.
With his parents pursuing salaried jobs – Faisal Malik’s father worked in the irrigation department and his mother taught Urdu – the different path that Malik chose was certainly a different one.
“My brother also has an MBA from Mumbai. I was the only one in the family who was weak in academics,” he said.
But the real test began for him after he moved to Mumbai 22 years back. Malik however doesn’t like to call it a “struggle”.
“It was a choice. When you do that, life does get tough. I don’t take it to heart,” he explained. “Everyone does it.”
Faisal Malik wouldn’t want to call his journey inspiring either.
“I was inspired when I went for the shooting of Panchayat and witnessed young boys running early in the morning, practising for some recruitment test or the other,” he revealed. “I thought that at their age I used to be asleep at that time. It’s a different inspiration to wake up early for the shooting and see these youngsters running in their canvas shoes. In the city we see people going to gyms wearing shoes that cost over Rs 10,000.”
Also Read: Ahead of season 3, a real-life ‘Panchayat’ experience in MP
The real facets of rural life can be brought to the people through the OTT platforms, he feels.
“Very few people have the courage to make meaningful content,” he pointed out. “OTT came and did that. It’s a gap that’s been filled.”
Events like Village Square’s Chitrashaala short film festival, that showcase the various aspects of rural India, are also important to promote such stories, he added.
“I like the idea of the themes of craft and climate for the festival. People should take the initiative to do climate-based films every year,” he said. “The time is here for us to consume such content. If it’s happening through Village Square, it should happen more.”
Also Read: Taking a deep dive into climate issues through cinema
Village Square’s Chitrashaala short film festival focused on stories from rural India.
Date: August 3, 2024
Venue: Alliance Francaise, Lodhi Road, New Delhi
Pallavi Srivastava is Associate Director – Content at Village Square.
