EXCLUSIVE: Zakir Hussain on his underworld show Murshid, “We haven’t glorified the characters”

ZEE5’s upcoming web series Murshid will see veteran actor Kay Kay Menon in the titular role of an underworld don. Zakir Hussain, another seasoned actor, will be seen playing his nemesis. The show is directed by Shravan Tiwari, and it also stars Tanuj Virvani and Rajesh Shringarpure. It tells the story of Menon and Hussain’s characters who are forced to take up weapons after ‘retiring’ from the underworld.

Mumbai has had a history of the underworld and a part of the story of Murshid also takes place 20 years ago. In an exclusive chat with Bollywood Hungama, Zakir Hussain answered whether the story is inspired from any real underworld occurrence from Mumbai’s history. He said, “Not exactly. I don’t think so. This is a fictional story based on Mumbai’s history. I feel we have seen so many stories based on the underworld, and I have acted in some. So, this is a fictional story like them.”

Menon’s Murshid and Hussain’s Farid are at loggerheads in the show. “There comes a point where they clash,” he said. “The story is such that something happens with them at a personal level, and they are forced to pick up weapons again after they had retired.”

Sharing about their respective characters’ past, Hussain added, “So, Farid was Murshid’s partner once. Murshid has only nourished him. Murshid is supposed to be a senior in that arena. Then, like we know a lot of stories, the lust for power kicks in and one person becomes bigger than the other and vice versa. Then the guy (Farid) goes against his own guru.”

Hussain admitted that there have been plenty of underworld stories over the decades. He said that the newness in the show is in terms of how the story is presented. “The characters are people from around us, but we haven’t glorified them,” he said. “We know such type of people are found in our society. They survive and also do their work by being a part of the system and against as well. So, this is about this nexus between the underworld and politics. We have tried to show how they grow their nexus, come out of it and later are compelled to return to it.”

In real life, Hussain and Menon are unlike their onscreen characters in Murshid. “We are very old friends. We know and understand each other. We see each other’s work and we have worked together as well. So, there are no issues in working together. You know what will come from the other side and things get done easily,” he said.

When asked what he looks into a project before saying yes, Zakir Hussain recalled a funny incident with Ram Gopal Varma before the release of Sarkar, the first film that got him noticed. “When I started off around Sarkar, I asked RGV what next should I do next. He said, ‘Don’t do anything. Let this film release’. After the release, I asked him the same. He said, ‘Do some work, what else?’ (laughs) He said I should do films with good director, production and role. So, there is not much into it (criteria for selecting projects). Very rarely does it happen when I don’t like to take up a project,” he said.

Hussain admitted that he kept receiving a lot of negative characters after that, maybe because of his personality. But he is thankful to Rajkumar Santoshi for breaking the shackles for him. “Rajkumar Santoshi sahab also gave me a villainous role but it was also comic in Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani. Then people came to know that I can do comedy as well, so I started getting comic roles. So, I just see if it’s interesting and I try doing it differently. Otherwise, I am not choosy,” he said.

Murshid is all set to stream on ZEE5 from August 30.

Also Read: Murshid Trailer: Kay Kay Menon is all set to unleash hell in this ZEE5 original web-series on Mumbai mafia