Balraj Sahni Birth Anniversary: Was He The Greatest Indian Actor Ever?

balraj sahni birth anniversary: was he the greatest indian actor ever?

In recent times, we are so willing to shower superlatives on average performances that it becomes progressively difficult to remember the real all-time greats for what they really were.

Balraj Sahni is incontestably one of our all-time greats.

Once Amitabh Bachchan spoke to us about the great Balraj Sahni. And Mr Bachchan confessed he was a faithful fan. “Balraj Saab was an absolute natural. The camera loved him, and he loved the camera back. They (the actor and the camera) shared a symbiotic relationship.”

Mr Bachchan shared his thoughts on the finest performances of the brilliant Balraj. “He was equally brilliant in all his parts. But if you insist on naming the best, I would go with Do Bigha Zameen and Garam Hawa. In these two films, Balraj Saab was flawless.”

As the emaciated rickshaw puller in Do Bigha Zameen, Balraj Sahni actually plied the rickshaw on the streets of Kolkata, unrecognizable in his dirty dhoti and unkempt appearance. When Om Puri played a rickshawallah in Roland Joffe’s The City Of Joy, he modelled his performance on Sahni’s method acting.”

Some think Sahni was greater in M S Sathyu’s Garam Hawa. To prepare for the part Balraj Sahni had gone and stayed with a family in Bhiwandi, an area populated by Muslims. Balraj Sahni as Salim Mirza gives what many film experts consider the one single-most flawless performance in the history of Hindi cinema. He gets into the skin of his character and inhabits the innermost recesses of Salim Mirza’s soul. You really don’t see Balraj Sahni on the screen. You see this Muslim patriarch of a disintegrating family who never stops believing in his God even when He seems busy elsewhere.