Rajiv Rai Recalls Naseeruddin Shah’s Tridev Age-Gap Unease

Before “Tirchi Topiwale” became a retro favourite, it came with a very Indian-film moment of awkwardness. Director Rajiv Rai has now shared how Naseeruddin Shah flagged his age gap with Tridev co-star Sonam himself, long before social media would have turned it into a debate. The recollection is a small piece of behind-the-scenes honesty from an era that rarely documented such conversations.

The discomfort began with the dance

In a conversation with Vickey Lalwani, Rai recalled that Shah was more nervous about the sensual track than viewers would have guessed from the final film. Dance, the director noted, was never Shah’s strength, and the actor said he had never done a song like this. He asked how it would work and what would happen.

Rai’s answer gave the shoot its philosophy: do not count the steps. Treat the choreography as an acting problem. If a step did not fit, Shah could adapt it to his performance and leave the pressure of a 1-2-3-4 routine behind. It was a small reframe, but it changed the actor’s comfort level.

An honest question, then Sonam’s answer

The age-gap conversation came later, when Shah told Rai that Sonam was younger than his daughter Heeba Shah from his first marriage. According to Rai, the actor said it was his duty to mention it and asked if it mattered. Rai replied that Tridev was cinema, not a realistic documentary, and that the pairing looked believable.

When Rai checked with Sonam, her answer was just as clear. She said she was “dying to work with Naseeruddin” because he was one of the best actors in the country, and she asked the director not to change her casting. Rai described Shah as a very honest man, and the exchange seems to bear that out.

Why this backstory still matters

The age-gap question has not aged as gracefully as the song. Indian cinema has long paired older heroes with younger women, and in the late 1980s the practice was so routine that it usually went unremarked. What makes this story charming is that Shah chose to raise it himself. It was not a protest; it was professional courtesy, answered with a directorial trick rather than a moral lecture.

Tridev’s large cast also explains why the film has stayed in the memory: Sunny Deol, Jackie Shroff, Madhuri Dixit, Sangeeta Bijlani, Anupam Kher and Amrish Puri. For Rai, whose later Gupt: The Hidden Truth became his best-known film, this second directorial outing shows how a performance limitation can become a memorable screen moment when a director meets it with trust.

• Naseeruddin Shah raised the age gap himself before the song was shot.
• Rajiv Rai’s fix was to treat the dance as acting, not steps.
• Sonam asked for her casting to stay unchanged and got her wish.

Next time “Tirchi Topiwale” plays, it carries a little more history.

Source: The Times of India