Naseeruddin Shah's blind bhai act in Welcome Back is an eyesore

The first time Naseeruddin Shah played a blind man, he won a National Award for the act in Sparsh. That was 1979, Naseer saab was emerging as one of the brightest icons of a burgeoning art house movement.

The second time he acted thus is usually dismissed as an inadvertent career accident by his purist fans. The role was of a blind villain in the 1994 blockbuster Mohra. The fact that in the end the villain turns out to be not blind was truly, outrageously Bollywood in its IQ. It needed Shah's screen presence to pull off the absurdity.

Random thoughts such as these flit in and out of the mind watching the veteran tackle his third blind man's act, in this week's new release Welcome Back. The film is a loony bin that tries topping the brainlessness set to box-office order by its blockbuster predecessor, 2007's Welcome.

The sequel casts Shah as the blind don Wanted Bhai, and the character is meant to replace the late Feroz Khan's explosively named RDX Bhai in the first film.

Put simply, Shah's presence in the film is an outcome of a standard Bollywood credo. What worked once should be repeated. Since Feroz Khan's RDX had become a rage, and because the actor is no more, it was only natural for the makers to hunt for another aged actor with heavy-duty screen personality for a quirky old gangster gig in the sequel. To create slapstick, the character gets a disability. From the film's perspective, Shah as a blind bhai fits the bill just fine.

But where does such a frankly daft job fit in the roster of an actor who has once been hailed as being among the finest anywhere in the world?

Does it remind of Bollywood's lack of roles for its good actors, or does it merely reveal disinterest on Shah's part that his latest blind act should seem like a caricature of his last one (which in any case was a caricature of how the visually challenged ought to be portrayed)?

A look at Shah's roster of mainstream releases this year is sobering. In 2015 he has had Dirty Politics and Dharam Sankat Mein, before Welcome Back. If it was not for a laudable 2014 that gave him Dedh Ishqiya and Finding Fanny, Shah's inanities this year would be listed up there with disasters such as John Day and Jackpot, his other forgettable releases in the recent past.

There is nothing in the world so miserable as a failed actor, Shah told a popular website a while back. Is that the reason he chases such commercial embarrassments as Dirty Politics and Jackpot?

In a way Shah's lost plot reminds of the other titan of '70s art house, Om Puri - also an actor who has meanders through various genres over the past three decades.

There is a difference, though. Puri seems sure of his focus. He has squarely settled on pursuing the pot of gold and not much else. Shah, like the three blind acts that coincidentally seem to define their corresponding stages in his career, would seem robbed of clear vision on which way to go.

Maybe, the trademark dialogue he is given to flaunt in Welcome Back explains it all: "Mazaak tha".