Salaam Zindagi: The fun trio is back
Audience response is fabulous. What about government support?
Ismail Bhai, Saleem Pheku and Jahangir — do these names ring a bell? Yes, the core team of the movie, Angrez, is back now with a bang, after a decade. Their latest film, Salaam Zindagi, has just released. Raring to share his thoughts about it, Saleem Pheku aka Mast Ali, says, “It took 10 years for the three of us to get together yet again, but the wait was not intentional. The story ideas that were coming our way didn’t require all of us to be together."
Adding more about the storyline, Naseer says, “We play two brothers, Imran and Irfan, who have seen mostly failures in life, live a boring and monotonous life, doing odd jobs for survival. Things change when the two set off to US with their old friend Usman Bhai, played by Dheer Charan Srivastav aka Ismail Bhai.”
The shooting for the entire movie took 28 days, including the offshore segment. Sharing some info about the Deccani movie industry, Naseer says, “The only challenge that we have is to get our industry at par with any other regional movie industry. Every region gets the support for their movies from the respective state government, but as of now we haven’t got any for Deccani. It’s high time that the government comes forward to support us too.”
Support or not, the Deccani movie industry has a rustic flavour of its own and can’t be ignored. It is not only well received in Hyderabad but in different parts of India and abroad. “Last week we held a special screening of Salaam Zindagi at Mumbai and the response was fantastic. It was a great moral booster,” says Syed Hussain, director of the Salaam Zindagi.