Farouque Shaikh Movies
Maya (Deepa Sahj) says she has everything she could possibly want, with a decent but awkward professional man as a husband, and two lovely daughters. However, she is just as attracted to men as they are to her, and she falls into and out of any number of disastrous sexual liaisons. Indeed, she eventually cuts such a swath through society that the police are looking for some way to remove her from circulation, and concoct something called "the Maya scandal" to permit them to put her away. This tragic melodrama is based on Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Deepa Sahi, Raj Babbar, (more)
- 1987
Capitalism at its most brutal is a familiar story in Central Asia, and in this story, set in the lovely but decaying Indian city of Lucknow, it takes the form of wholesalers paying the women who weave a colorful folk design in fabric less than it costs for them to support themselves. In this story, Anjuman supplements the charity she receives from her relatives with the pay she gets for her weaving work. However, a local woman doctor urges her to organize the weavers for a better deal, and this is exactly what the plucky young woman does. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Shabana Azmi, Farouque Shaikh, (more)
Writer-director-producer J.P. Dutta authored the Indian period drama Umrao Jaan - the epic, three-hour story of a prostitute's travails in 19th century India. Aishwarya Rai stars as the title character; as the film opens, she is an elderly courtesan detailing her life for the benefit of the belletrist Mirza Mohammed Hada Ruswa who plans to document the woman's story for successive generations. As Umrao narrates, the film then flashes back to well over a half-century earlier, when she - originally a young girl, named Ameeran - is born comfortably into an affluent upper middle-class family in the city of Faizabad, Uttar Pradesh. Ameeran's path collides with destiny when she is kidnapped at a tender age by her father's enemies, promptly sold into a kotha (or brothel) in the city of Lucknow, and renamed Umrao Jaan. Her superiors teach her music, poetry and dance as part of her courtesan training; when her "debut" finally arrives as a courtesan, the gods are with her, for a young aristocrat, Nawab Sultan (Abhishek Bachchan) falls instantly for her, and she for him, and moves into the kotha to consummate their love and begin a life together. Yet all does not go according to plan: disgusted with his son's choice of partner, Nawab's father disowns him, and Khanum, the matriarch of the brothel, quickly refuses to take in an non-paying boarder. With no other options in sight, Nawab is forced to move into a state of exile in the country; meanwhile, as Umrao's heart breaks from the separation, she is greeted by the most unwelcome favors of a local bandit, Faiz Ali (Suneil Shetty), who secretly vows to do everything in his power to win Umrao over and undo the strands of Nawab's devotion to her. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- 1979
A lad from the countryside moves into the city to try and earn money for his family. He has been forced to do this because work is scarce in the countryside, and all the available land has been bought up by the rich. He finds a job driving a taxi and shares this work with three people: a new friend, a young man with an optimistic air and the young mans' girlfriend, who he intends to marry. The girl's family want to sell her into servitude rather than allowing her to marry, and when she objects, they beat and kill her boyfriend. This throws the boy from the country into a quandary: should he stay in the city, brutal as it is, or take his chances back in the country. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Farouque Shaikh, Smita Patil, (more)
