Stunt master Fayaz carves a niche for himself in film industry

A boy who was selling peanuts in film theatres went on to become a stunt artiste in the film industry, acting and directing stunts in around 1,560 films of Kannada, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam languages.

As a stunt master, he also trains 1,100 students. Fayaz Khan, a resident of Gonikoppa, is a unique personality.

His association with actors like Dr Rajkumar, Vishnuvardhan, Prabhakar, Ramesh, Shivarajkumar, Puneeth Rajkumar, Rajnikanth, Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar, Mohan Lal, Chiranjivi and others shot him to fame as a stunt director.

Fayaz was born into an underprivileged family and he could not continue studies after class three.

He helped his family by working with his father who was carrying out welding. After doing welding work in the morning, Fayaz went to the film theatre in the evening, to sell peanuts.

During childhood, watching films, he used to dream about becoming a fighting master in films.

His dream took him to Bengaluru in 1985. Requesting a lot of film directors, he managed to obtain a role in a Tamil film.

Later, there was no looking back, said Fayaz Khan.

After working in thousands of films, he worked as a trainer at Karnataka Chalanachitra Sahasa Nirdeshakara Mattu Sahasa Kalavidara Sangha.

From the last few years, he has set up his own association and has trained about 1,100 youth in stunt art. His dream is to open a film training institute in Kodagu.

Senior theatre artiste Narayanaswamy from Gonikoppa said that Fayaz Khan has brought laurels to Kodagu, by being one of the best artistes in the film industry.

Swamy recalled that during a fight scene, Fayaz suffered a serious head injury. However, he later recovered and got back into action.