Gunning for the top

Actor and writer Ahmed Sidhique has written the story of Gangster, the Mammootty-starrer that releases today.

Ahmed Sidhique, actor and scriptwriter

“He is the coolest guy,” says Ahmed Sidhique, aka K.T. Mirash of Salt n’ Pepper fame. The dude is talking about none other than Mammootty, Ahmed’s co-star in Praise The Lord . Mammooty and Ahmed also worked together in Aashiq Abu’s Gangster, releasing today . The superstar is playing the lead in the film that has been scripted by Ahmed.

“ Gangster is the story of Ali Akbar Khan, a gangster’s son. It is a racy action thriller. Mamookka has not done such a role after Big B . A few decades ago, we had seen both Mohanlal and Mammootty doing such films quite frequently,” says Ahmed referring to films such as Irupatham Noottandu, Athirathram , Naaduvaazhikal…

Mammootty’s wizened and greying looks have been the talk of social media. Ahmed says it was something that was envisaged in the script itself after discussions with the director.

Although Ahmed is also making his mark as an actor, he says his dream is to be a successful scriptwriter. He insists that acting is something that happened, courtesy his friends in the film industry.

“I have always been fascinated by films. So when I came to Thiruvananthapuram to do my graduation in management studies, it was natural for me to go around with a bunch of people who thought, breathed and dreamed cinema. Since I used to write while doing my Plus Two, my ambition was to make it as a script writer. I had written the story of Mrityunjayam, the short film directed by Uday Ananthan in the Portmanteau film Kerala Café ,” says Ahmed.

He got in touch with Aashiq Abu and showed him the script of

Gangster . The filmmaker found the youngster’s script promising and discussions went on in the midst of the shooting of

Salt n Pepper , the film that added zing to Aashiq’s career graph. He persuaded Ahmed to act in his film as the nerdy K.T. Mirash and by the time the film left the cinemas, Ahmed had made his name as an actor too.

He maintains that he is an actor who can deliver only when he is among friends and in his comfort zone. “All the films I acted in were directed by my friends. They give me the confidence to act,” claims Ahmed, who acted in Vineeth Sreenivasan’s Thattathin Marayathu as Musthafa and in Arun Kumar Aravind’s Left Right Left as Jason Fernandez, the smooth talking travel agent. “I was able to pull it off in those films but that is only because both Vineeth and Aravind are my friends.”

Now it remains to be seen if the box office will also befriend the young writer.