Chintan Sarda is a Mumbai-based writer/director; he loves infusing stories across formats. The director, Chintan Sarda’s friend, stated a tragic case of an Alzheimer’s patient, and it propagated the seeds for, The Broken Table. It is a short film which stars Naseeruddin Shah and Rasika Dugal. It unfolds as a caregiver, Deepti dealing with Giri, an Alzheimer’s patient who remains looking for his dead wife.
The director Chintan Sarda mentions that the communication between the two characters in a disastrous situation trapped Naseeruddin Shah’s attention. He said, “Together, we worked on creating the motivation and back-story for Giri.” He said it was truly an honour to direct the senior actor like him growing up watching his films. He said, “Naseer saab wanted to prep for it like a play; he questioned everything till it made sense. Being around him and Rasika every day was almost like a masterclass.”
Naseeruddin Shah is known to be picky about his film choices. But the actor says that collaborating with fresh voices is always a delight. He says, “In the past few years, I have been part of several short films. It has been a stimulating experience to work with young filmmakers who think out of the box and make movies they want to without worrying about the pressures of the producers, distributors and casting stars. Naseer saab has taught me at the Film and Television Institute [of India]. I know the fundamentals of acting because of him.”