What's Imaad into?

The musician, actor and soon-to-be filmmaker is tripping on Libyan disco, reading up on Delhi's history, plugged in to nerdy podcasts and loves a little-known fish from Goa. Are these your favs too?

- Karishma Kuenang

Which Imaad Shah do you know?

The 34-year-old actor who last played the dreamy Roman in Made in Heaven 2 (2023)? The other half of Madboy/Mink, the funk/disco act he formed with Saba Azad in 2012?

The son of acting stalwarts Naseeruddin Shah and Ratna Pathak Shah, who's worked on Katha Collage and Waiting for Godot?

The filmmaker, whose short film was selected for NFDC Film Bazaar's Work in Progress Lab? Or as someone whose curls have simply defied gravity through it all?

If it seems like a lot, it's because Shah sees them as extensions of the same idea. "For me, a successful person is someone who is fulfilling their own creative requirements, someone who has created a life in which they can express themselves the way they want. And do it freely," Shah says.

Unsurprisingly, his interests include everything from Bosnian history and Libyan disco to Goan chonak fry and horror comedy. Here are his favs.

Five books you've liked recently.

The Last Mughal (2006) by William Dalrymple.

"It's an incredible portrait of Delhi on the eve of the First War of Independence in 1857. Poetry, Corporate Greed, Old Delhi, Ghalib it has everything".

Delhi Ki Aakhri Shama (1986) by Mirza Farhatullah Baig.

"A fictionalised account of the last mushaaira under the patronage of Bahadur Shah Zafar. A satire and a great account of 1850s Delhi, offering a sense of the language and culture of the time."

Byculla to Bangkok (2014) by S Hussain Zaidi.

"It's the sequel to Dongri to Dubai. Hard to put down."

Midnight Freeway (2021) by Vivaan Shah.

"Hardboiled noir. A detective story set in contemporary Mumbai. Entertaining, gripping and consistently funny."

Parivarnama (2022) by Shehla Hashmi Grewal.