I didn’t know who Muzaffar Ali was. He told me he was working with Air-India and he wanted to make a film about a UP taxi driver, who comes to Mumbai in search of a job and how the city claims him, never lets him go. I liked the sensibility, so I agreed to do the film..

Reticent actor and popular television host, Farooque Shaikh, seems a man too good to be true. Except that Madhulika Varma, discovering a strong, silent type, taps into old friendships, an adoring spouse and sundry acquaintances to draw the whole picture of the nice guy who went missing.

I am on the road to Film City, Mumbai. Large chunks of this once pristine, emerald haven have been gobbled up by an advancing army of skyscrapers. The seductive, wayward, ribbon of a road that once sashayed ahead has now been pummelled into a listless concrete Duh! The earth scents have been replaced by gasoline. You ache for a time lost – before the Shock and Awe Brigade struck and transformed the world into one giant gyrating remix.

Much was swept away by this giant swell that hit town. Including the celluloid male. Too often, he was an excitable, brass-knuckled avenger and you dunked him in the bin along with your frayed film ticket. But occasionally, in an NFDC film, or those crafted by the Benegal/Bangla brigade, you met the everyday man – sensitive, flawed and palpably real, he stayed with you, even walked you home.

You don’t see him anymore. You want to find out why he left. Which is why, I’m on the road to Film City, in search of a man called Farooque Shaikh. The nice guy who went missing. Garam Hawa, Gaman, Bazaar, Noorie, Chashme Buddoor, Katha, Saath Saath, Kissi Se Na Kehna were the films where the actor didn’t hit the high notes, just fleshed out the contours of an everyday-kinda guy. Where Shaikh differed from the Oms and the Naseers was that they had the unwashed, lean and hungry look, while Shaikh, at all times, looked like he had access to a good launderette and that, no matter how grave the crisis, he wasn’t going to skip lunch. And, he oozed chicory charm. Which is why, it is fabled that several of his co-stars and all the pardanashins of Lucknow were seriously smitten by him!