Interview With “Mere Sai” Fame Abeer Soofi – Text, Picture Stills & Video

On the occasion of our 10th Anniversary we have some thing really fantastic to share and we guarantee that after you read this you will have a big smile on your face and a lot of respect and love for ‘Mere Sai’ (My Sai).

That’s right, for the first time on any blog network ever, we have our very own Sai talking to us and sharing his experience. Meet Abeer Soofi Ji, our Sai on the screen, who makes us laugh, smile, cry and jump with happiness when he makes every thing alright at Shirdi by showing his leelas and miracles in the form of text, picture stills and video.

When we met Abeer Soofiji for the first time he genuinely seemed like a very nice person, with a calm, serene personality. He was effortlessly talking to us, my parents, my son and could relate to all age groups and was comfortable in his Durbar (the serial set at Naigoan) sharing stories with all of us. Well he was ready to give answers to our silly questions as well and seemed enthusiastic for the interview. I put my conditions for interview like, “I want to take interview in costume”, he nodded, I said, “We will go live on Facebook together” he nodded. I never felt i was talking to an actor who belong to a community where they are famous for throwing tantrums. He was one of us, enjoying our company and giving smart poses for pictures and selfies. He entered sets like Super Hero on bike with helmet covering his head and dressed handsomely in denim jacket and jeans. His smile was killing and swaying away hearts of all of us. He did not feel to proceed for shoot as he enjoyed every bit of the moments with us, i saw him requesting his production team personnel, “2 minute de de yaar (Please spare me for 2 minutes)” while that person was staring at him for not getting ready for the shoot. Such was the personality and i was sure the interview was going to be great. However my anxiety did not end until we were done with interview. Kindly do not miss tomorrow’s post “The Making – Interview With Mere Sai Fame “Abeer Soofi” where i will share how we landed to the sets of “Mere Sai” right from the first thought.





P.S Kindly excuse us for the unprofessional and casual shooting of the interview and also we could not set up proper frame and our banner in background due to lack of time and experience in this field.

Interview With “Mere Sai” Fame Abeer Soofi – Text

So thanking ‘Our Lord Sai’ I started interview with ‘Mere Sai’ Mr. Abeer Soofi Ji. I made him familiar with the blog and mentioned how our Lord Baba sparked this idea of an interview with him. What Leelas Lord Baba showed and how this became possible (to be shared in tomorrow’s post)

Hetal Patil Rawat: Our readers want to know you and how are you as a person apart from your T.V personality and how did your journey start?
Abeer Soofi Ji: Well I was an advocate before I became an actor. My real name is Vaibhav Rajesh Saraswat. I learnt acting from my Guru who is Muslim and hence I adopted “Muslim name – Abeer Soofi” in the year 2012. This name is dedicated to him. Now everyone knows me as Abeer. I don’t think I do anything special it’s all Baba’s krupa (blessing) that makes everything special (smiles his serene, calm smile)

June 2016 I went to Shirdi with my mom, she’s a Sai Devotee. Outside the temple at the ‘mookh darshan’ window (from where you can see Baba’s beautiful face) I joined my hands and told Him, “Baba make me a celebrity”. After auditioning about 1000 people overall, 300 look tests, I was chosen in May 2017 to play Lord Sai Baba. Every one at the set told me ‘yeh toh Shirdi main decide hua tha’ (the character was chosen in Shirdi by our Baba Himself). Our researcher Pawar Kaka (Uncle) says “you don’t know what you have got”. And I say “I know what I have.. His blessings”. Well, that’s how it began and the rest is history.

Hetal Patil Rawat: Lord Sai Baba is a Guru with a unique personality. How did you adapt to the role and what did you do to adapt?
Abeer Soofi Ji: I started doing some meditation and pranayam; to inculcate the calmness that Baba always had. I also went to Shirdi and told Him to come for His devotees and help me enact this role. I told Him even if you give me a 10% of your grace this show will do wonders. When I act I feel it’s Him, it’s Baba and not me.

On this i exclaimed had Lord Baba has added His 100% to his 10% summing up to 110% and he absolutely agreed to it.

Hetal Patil Rawat: At present you are living Baba for everyone. From the time you were casted and till date, have you felt like Baba is with you, have you felt His presence?
Abeer Soofi Ji: Baba has made me feel His presence many a times. We had once gone to Shirdi in around 2012 with friends and I always tell my friends if we go for a spiritual trip we will not enjoy with drinks or smoking. They agreed to it and we visited Shirdi.

Another one was around 2016 I had taken my mother to Shirdi. My mother is actually a living Saint and a Baba devotee (smiles affectionately). Her education has been in Sanskrit so we have got those ‘sanskaras’ from childhood. Plus we have stayed in a locality where Hindus and Muslims stay together with a lot of love and respect. So I get the language and the Islamic accent from them. Baba also made me adopt my name Abeer Soofi in 2012 which is neither a Muslim name nor a Hindu name. This was again his Leela and gave me this role in 2017.

At the time in Shirdi mom did not want to go to Shani Shinganapur but I said we should go and we went. On the ghats (hilly roads) our car couldn’t climb and kept creeping down as there was no enough fuel. It was getting dark and we were worried. Mom said don’t worry ‘Baba kuch karenge’ (Baba will do something). And Baba did! Near by was a Hyundai car showroom but the owner wasn’t there. They called him and he came himself. Baba gave him an intuition I guess. He helped us and we could go finally but got really late in reaching Mumbai. The same day we were invited for Aman Verma’s wedding at Sahara Star. However the wedding was postponed as his father passed away.

Even for the auditions I was called by a very famous casting director Neha Singhania. Initially I refused saying I will have to have tp be in beard which i dont have naturally and i was hesitant to use a duplicate one and so I don’t want to do role. But they called me again and I was shooting for a movie called Unfinished, I was a main lead in it. It has millions of viewers with God’s grace. Well any way I came for the audition and got qualified in three consecutive rounds and finally got selected. Then the issue was I don’t get a proper beard. My friends said put some oil and have some tablets for it. I did that too but not regularly. But eventually got a natural beard in the same shape as Baba’s beard (laughs). All His presence and Leela. The role was pre decided and it was mine!

Then came Gurupoornima! Shirdi at that time had about 5lacs devotees. My friends said ask the producer to call and we will be able to go easily for the darshan. I had decided though that I will go like an ordinary devotee taking the longest route possible. We did that and I told Baba that get me the love of my viewers! It’s Your role and please ensure that the viewers love me!

Whatever I have asked Him for He has given me. A house, a celebrity status, love from my viewers! That’s nothing but His presence.

Hetal Patil Rawat: When you say “Allah Malik”, it intrigues our hearts, is it the same with you and how did you practice it?
Abeer Soofi Ji: – Well I watched the work of many great actors who have played Baba in the past. Jackie Shroff Sahab, Nagarjuna Sahab and Mukul Naag but did not want to copy anyone. Tried saying “Allah Maalik” in many ways too and finally landed on something which viewers love. Even i try to see flow of the story and say it whenever it’s required. This is purely Baba’s blessings. I had asked Baba for 10% but he gave me much more!

I was not able to ask more questions because time was flowing and his shoot was ready. A person was standing waiting for him to join. Second half of the day had already started and dubbing was also scheduled that day. I winded up the interview in haste and requested him to give me two more minutes as we wanted him to inaugurate our network logo. He said, “Laao Laao, jaldi karo jo bhi karna he (Bring bring do whatever you want quickly)”. As an actor he had to give importance to his shoot schedule and instead he was eager to inaugurate our logo and gave an elegant pose holding our Printed Logo. I requested for a selfie, he posed, Pooja asked for selfie, he again posed, both our mothers wanted to hug him and be clicked, he did that, he was so enamored of us and we were also experiencing the same. That was definitely not formal meeting, it was casual and so was the interview. We took small gifts of Lord Baba for him and he lovingly accepted it. One of the Sai Brothers Brijesh had made sketch of Abeer ji and packed Udi packets with it. Brijesh requested him to open it in front of us and he did so. In this unpacking process, Udi packets fell down and he asked us to pick them up as they would be going to this mother. He was very touched with such a creative gesture of Brijesh that he requested to click picture with him holding sketch in one hand and placing his hand on Brijesh’s shoulder. Groupies, selfies, pictures, hand shakes, talks, praises, all was going on simultaneously and it was felt as if time has stopped. But anyhow he had to leave, with heavy but contented hearts we bid good bye to him with wish to meet again while he was repeatedly asking us to pray for him. Although interview was an excuse, Lord Baba gave us an opportunity to meet a person who is so humble and down to earth. I thank Abeer ji and Lord Baba for giving us such an opportunity.

Interview With “Mere Sai” Fame Abeer Soofi – Picture Stills

As per our blog policy, we cannot share individual pictures here, we request you to click here for all picture stills on the set of Mere Sai. Please feel free to put in your valuable comments.

Interview With “Mere Sai” Fame Abeer Soofi – Video

Well sharing the most awaited video of our anniversary celebrations

Credits

© 2008-2018 Devotees Experiences with Shirdi Sai Baba – A Member of Sai Yug Network All Rights Reserved

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. You are most welcomed to share the interview content with your readership as long as you attach attribution link back to this blog post and avoid selling the interview content in a commercial product or service.

Read Interview With Mere Sai Fame “Abeer Soofi” in Hindi

Stay tuned on our facebook page for live steam of celebrations of 10th Blog’s Anniversary. Pictures will be shared on blog as well.
Upcoming Post: Interview With “Mere Sai” Fame Abeer Soofi – The Making

© Devotees Experiences with Shirdi Sai Baba

Hetal Patil
Hetal Patil
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