A CHILD STAR WHO WAS AMONG THE 12 IMPORTED CAR OWNERS IN BOMBAY

Back in the seventies, success was not measured in the number of houses or flats one possessed. After all, real estate was not as astronomically priced as it is today, and it was not unusual to hear stories of lyricists or music directors charging fees for a single assignment that could buy them a flat, or even a bungalow in some distant suburb.

No, in those days it was the foreign car that was the symbol of having arrived. This was because import duties were so high, that buying a foreign car meant the person was affluent enough to pay more than double the price of the car as the duty was more than 100%. Those were the days when the Premier Padmini and the Ambassadors roamed the streets like herds of wildebeest or antelope in the Savannahs. The occasional Impala or the Thunderbird was like the rarely spotted lion or tiger – a breed that would have onlookers crowding around it at traffic lights, staring at it longingly as it zoomed away when the lights turned green.

One can imagine how rare this breed of foreign cars was with a simple statistic from those times – there were only twelve foreign cars registered in Mumbai for several years in the seventies. And one of those cars was owned by a child artiste!

That child artiste was none other than Junior Mehmood – who had such a terrific run in Hindi cinema in the seventies that almost every other film seemed to have a comic act written for him. He worked with almost all the biggest stars of the time – Rajesh Khanna, Dharmendra, Shashi Kapoor, Sanjeev Kumar and of course Mehmood, who had named him and taken him under his wing.  

Born as Naim Ahmed Sayyed in Bombay in 1956, he started off in a bit role in the 1967 film, Naunihal progressing to roles that kept increasing in length. And as his roles increased so did his remuneration. In an interview, Naim Sayyed has spoken of how his wages increased because of his elder brother.

He has recalled that when he first began his career as a child artiste, he would be paid Rs five per day. Then when he had established a foothold in the industry, he went on to receive Rs Five Thousand per film. One day, when the two brothers were sitting together, his elder brother asked him how much he was charging per film. When he heard it was a sum of Rs Five Thousand, the elder brother said, “What!! Start asking for Rs Fifteen Thousand from tomorrow.” Naim Sayyed was taken aback at his brother’s confidence in his ability to draw three times. But he followed his advice and soon realized that producers were prepared to pay for the childish brand of humour he injected into their films.

After a couple of months, the conversation repeated itself like a déjà vu – when his brother heard he was charging Fifteen Thousand rupees, he said, “What!! Are you nuts!?! Ask for Thirty Five Thousand rupees.”

Even this amount, producers were prepared to pay.

A few more months passed and the conversation took place again. Now Junior Mehmood had hiked his remuneration to Rs Sixty Thousand rupees. The line of producers outside his door had reduced only a bit, and now he was emboldened enough to ask for the magic figure of Rs One Lakh.

And this was at a time, when the top heroes of the day were charging between two- two and a half lakh rupees per film. Junior Mehmood had now reached a stage where he earned a lakh of rupees for playing the hero’s sidekick or his comedic partner. While heroes earned their wages over several months of shooting, Junior Mehmood’s roles usually demanded a week to ten days of shooting per film. That effectively meant that he was in a position to do many more films…and receive even more six digit cheques in his name.

And that explains the gleaming imported car that stood outside his home in the seventies.