An Ordinary Life

by Nawazuddin Siddiqui

  In the years that followed I realized that it was not just Anamika Haksar. This was a common pattern, perhaps a law of nature that one brilliant mind marries a relatively dull mind. At least a mind that seemed ordinary to us outsiders. Who knows? The ways of the mind are mysterious, the ways of the heart even more so.

  12

  Adventures at the National School of Drama

  After graduating from BNA, the rather obvious next step was to head to the National School of Drama. I expressed my wish to Abbu, asking him to accompany me. He agreed joyfully: ‘Hamare ek panditji hain. Woh karva denge. (I know a panditji. He will get your work done.) He loves me a lot. He can easily get your admission done.’ I said all right, let’s go get his recommendation. Without losing much time, we boarded the first of the buses that took us to Delhi. In our little hamlet we were big shots, especially Abbu. Whenever we left our village, people would approach us in respectful endearment, inquiring about our journey.

  One asked, ‘Arrey, Nawab Saheb, where are you going?’

  ‘Delhi,’ my father said. ‘For some work. For some big work.’

  ‘Arrey wah! Very good. By when will you return, Nawab Saheb?’ another person asked.

  ‘Within a day, as soon as the work is done, we will be back,’ Abbu said.

  ‘You are taking your son along?’ another person asked, looking at me.

  ‘Yes, yes!’ Abbu answered.

  ‘Okay! Okay! Khuda Hafiz!’ one of them said.

  Pretty much every time I left with Abbu, this conversation would take place. It might seem repetitive, but this is the priceless love and concern of the villagers. Those simple folk with hearts of gold revered Abbu. Naturally, they assumed that he was a big man in the big city too. They had no idea that in Delhi we had the same status as an insect.

  As the bus neared the outskirts of Delhi, we fell silent, hypnotized by the city lights on the horizon. If you ignored the stars, then night in Budhana was pitch dark, barring the odd lamp or two. But here, the night was a dazzle of colourful orbs flickering like stars on the ground, which gave the sky a reddish hue. They looked promising, as if glowing with a million dreams, our dreams. Arrival in the city though, was one hell of a reality check. It was like crashing into the ground head first, with a loud, painful thud. The sweetness of the village which we were used to evaporated, replaced instantly by spontaneous outbursts of rude and often abusive behaviour—from, say, an autorickshaw driver to any random stranger. We were used to so much izzat that this was a shock to us. We were overwhelmed and more than a little afraid. It showed in our body language too: our bold, big strides in Budhana with chests pushed out in confidence were gone, replaced by a meek demeanour, tiny, timid steps and tightly crouched shoulders trying to cope with the big bad city. If anybody, usually a rickshaw driver, hurled a casual gaali in Abbu’s way, he ignored it as if it never took place. He was not protecting himself, but his son. He wanted to ensure that his son had not heard it and this was the only way to deal with it on the spot.

  When we reached this famous panditji’s place, who was a very big man and who loved Abbu a lot, I was astonished. There was a queue of 150–200 people, all waiting patiently in the peak afternoon sun for their turn to meet the big man, to seek favours or urgent help. Quietly, we joined this humble snaking sea of desperate faces as insignificant and as helpless as flies. After two or perhaps three hours, panditji’s personal assistant called us, ‘Next!’

  I followed Abbu into the cool, dark interiors and stood behind him.

  ‘Who are you? Where are you from? For what work have you come here?’ Panditji asked, without looking up from his table.

  ‘Nawabuddin Siddiqui, panditji, from Budhana. This is my son Nawazuddin. We need your help, sir. My son wants to study at the National School of Drama and if you could please put in a word, sir . . .’

  ‘This work cannot be done. Hato yahan se. (Get out of here.),’ announced the big man cutting the smaller man’s plea short and dismissing him. ‘Next!’

  It is not about the episode itself. No parent wants to be belittled in front of his child. It was like the heartbreaking father–son relationship portrayed so unforgettably in Vittorio De Sica’s masterpiece Ladri di Biciclette (Bicycle Thieves). Abbu then told me, ‘Woh abhi sahi mood mein nahin hain. Jaise hi hoga, woh mujhe pehchan jayega. Dekhna. Gale laga lega. (He is not in the right mood now. When he is, he will recognize me. You will see. He will get up and hug me.) Dekhna.’ But, of course, that never happened. It was just one of Abbu’s myriad fantasies. As time went by, Abbu’s greatest sorrow was not over his personal failures but over how every single one of his fantasies was being crushed in front of his son. The cracks in them got bigger and more visible until finally collapsing like a tower of cards. Still he went on sharing his tragic tales with great genuineness. What a liar he was! That is why I loved him so much. As he kept lying, I decided that one day I would magically alchemize my father’s lies into reality, I’d make his fallen dreams come true.

  We returned to Budhana, he to his life and me back to Baroda determined to get into NSD on pure merit. By now, I had gathered ample theatre experience, but I had missed the application time window. So I had to wait an entire year to apply again. In the meantime, I joined a small troupe in Delhi called Sakshi Theatre Group. By the time I arrived, its heyday was over, it was now a fading glory. But once upon a time, it was a big, well-known group, not unlike N.K. Sharma’s Act One, which was the biggest theatre group back then. Act One was the highlight of Delhi theatre. Many of today’s famous actors, like Manoj Bajpai, acted in both groups. Saurabh Shukla was Sakshi’s director at the time. He directed one or two of the plays that I featured in. I forget the name but one of them was a play by Badal Sarkar and my character was called Gora. Other big directors were also associated with Sakshi, like Vibhanshu Vaibhav and KK (not the actor, although both the director and his namesake actor seem to have disappeared).

  Theatre filled up my soul but it ignored my belly which remained empty. I had no choice but to get a day job. There was an opening for a watchman’s position at a toy establishment. Its head office, a tiny one, was in Delhi’s Shahdra where they were interviewing candidates, who, if selected, would be working in the National Capital Region. The main criterion for selection was the ability to produce a deposit of Rs 3000. I got selected and was posted in Noida. I took up lodging close by, in Lakshmi Nagar. I’d leave early in the morning for my chowkidar duty. After wrapping up work in the evening, I would take a bus directly to Mandi House to rehearse for plays. Rehearsals began roughly between five and six in the evening and went on often until ten at night. Then I would return to my rented room in Lakshmi Nagar to rest and then repeat the routine day after day. I lived this double life for close to a year.

  I should not complain but who doesn’t complain about the scalding midday sun, even if it is a daily thing? My job required me to stand. Watchmen have to look alert, right? They must appear like they are diligently keeping a watch. Otherwise, what’s the point of them being there? I understood this and tried to comply with diligence, although in the end the sun defeated me and I sought refuge from its harshness by sitting on a chair every now and then. Often, I’d doze off, tired due to my hectic routine which left little room for rest. They gave me two warnings, and I tried to mend my ways. But I was burnt by the sun and exhaustion, so I kept scooting off to a chair in the shade and taking naps. The third time I was fired. It did not matter; my heart was in theatre. What mattered though was the deposit. It had resulted from my mother’s painstaking sacrifice. Ammi had pawned her jewellery yet another time so that one of her babies could take yet another baby step. How I chased the owners, but they did not return my deposit.

  * * *

  First BNA, then Sakshi: now nobody could push me aside for lack of dramatic experience. This time I applied to NSD on time and luckily got through in the first attempt itself. Home to some of the greatest actors of the country, it taught me everything about my craft. It is an u
nparalleled powerhouse of talent. Even today, it is bursting with actors who are way better than me. And the teachers! Every one of them was and remains a genius. No amount of praise does them justice.

  It so happened that Anamika Haksar became my teacher at NSD as well. What can I say! The ways of coincidence and chance are cryptic—there is no point in trying to decipher them. The plays she did here though were of a different style from the ones at BNA. These had a great deal of absurdity and experimentation, which people did not always understand. She made us do a great deal of scene work at NSD. So we played out scenes of difficult plays or famous ones like Hamlet’s or Shylock’s speeches. But her exercises never ceased to amaze me.

  Incidentally, my first kiss happened in NSD, that too on stage. By the way, it was not on the lips but on the cheek of my co-star Geetanjali, who is the wife of the excellent actor Atul Kulkarni. We were enacting Anton Chekhov’s last play, The Cherry Orchard, and it was part of the role. That was how sad my love life was.

  During the second year, a bunch of us blackies—among them, Nirmalda and Sunderlal Chhabra—became best friends at NSD. Apart from the darkness of our skin that is so maligned in our country, the other thing that bound us was the consequence of that skin: leave alone getting a date, girls did not even look at us. Our classmates with fairer skin, which is so celebrated in our country even in men, got girlfriends easily. We kaalas kept trying to follow in their footsteps but no matter what we did, we remained unsuccessful.

  Once, after downing a fairly potent dose of delicious bhang, one of us blackies lost it. The cannabis had worked its charm on us as well but not as strongly as it had done on him. So we had retained enough of our senses to know that this guy would do something ‘interesting’, so we followed him. He did not disappoint, forget disappoint, he shocked the daylights out of us. This mild-mannered, shy boy turned into a lascivious beast who began to touch the campus girls inappropriately. Our intoxication wore off almost instantly! Most of his victims that day happened to be girls from Kathak Kendra, a dance school. The girls ran helter-skelter screaming in panic that this man had gone mad. Some of them climbed upon a stationary bus nearby; some boarded moving buses; some climbed trees. But one of them was brave enough to walk up to him. She gave him a loud, piercing slap. It sliced through the commotion, silencing everybody.

  ‘S-H-U-T U-P!’ she screamed into his wretched face in disgust.

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ she demanded angrily.

  ‘Because I am stoned,’ he answered meekly.

  She took a deep breath. ‘That is why I am letting you go,’ she warned, pointing a finger at his face. ‘But next time, you better watch out!’ she warned and walked away.

  This surreal episode was immediately named as Sunderkaand, and it continues to be known as that till today. Our timid voices wafted in a sequence one after another from a corner, ‘Excuse me, madam! I am also intoxicated . . .Yes, me too, madam! Can we also do this?’ Furiously, she turned around. ‘I’ll slap you, you motherfuckers. Get lost!’ she screamed and left. We vanished in fear. The girls too left their hiding spots and began to walk away.

  We thought that was the end of Sunderkaand but we were mistaken. Twenty or thirty minutes later, half a dozen boys appeared. The girls had complained to the boys at Kathak Kendra. The boys at the dance school had that effeminate demeanour which has stereotypically been assigned to dancers. We did not assume they’d be physically strong or anything like that. But here they were, true to their feminine side and yet with the roaring wrath of a Sunny Deol. Their classmates had complained about a kaala guy and pointed in our direction. When they came, they saw that all of us were black. So they beat up the first guy standing in that small line, assuming him to be the culprit. This happened to be an innocent fellow called Ranjan who had just arrived. He had no clue what the hell was happening! And what he was being beaten up for. Poor chap! This is the unforgettable Sunderkaand episode.

  * * *

  Utterly frustrated at our gloomy prospects of getting girlfriends, the three of us decided to take matters into our own hands. We decided that we were going to be brave and take the plunge of finally losing our virginity. So we went to the ‘renowned’ red-light area near Paharganj. As soon as we reached there, a sex worker beckoned us towards her through typical lewd gestures. Such attention had never been bestowed upon us before. We were partly thrilled and partly petrified. Abhay, the friend whose idea this was and who had brought us here, went with her first, following her upstairs to her chamber.

  Soon after, she called for the second guy. He went and I followed him. In the middle of this tiny trip, we stopped as we heard loud sobs. It sounded like the crying of somebody who was being beaten up badly. We got anxious. Each of us had given about Rs 35 and were preparing for our adventure. That’s when it struck us. The cry sounded so familiar because it was. It was Abhay’s voice. We ran upstairs and within seconds the mystery was revealed.

  The prostitute had stripped him naked, leaving him only in his clumsy underwear. And she had beaten him up badly with wires she had folded for double the impact. It was his awful luck that he had found a weird one. She had asked for Rs 35 and he had given her 30. She was furious because this was already at a discount since the original rate was Rs 40. She checked his wallet and stripped him bare to see if he was hiding any money, all the while thrashing and screaming at him, leaving a maze of horrible scars all over his body. He was telling the truth. The two of us had Rs 15 or so extra in our wallets but Abhay did not have a single rupee more. We fled from the madness.

  While running, somebody pickpocketed us. That’s the thing about such areas. No matter how street-smart you are, the inconspicuous thieves there will outsmart you and steal everything they can from you and you won’t even realize. After that, I gave up all hopes of losing my virginity.

  But I did not give up on love. Not yet.

  I tried to go out with the actor Tannishtha Chatterjee. A few years younger than me, Tannishtha was my junior at NSD and what we village types would call a shehri hi-fi girl because she had the appealing panache of a big-city girl: she was confident, she spoke English fluently, she smoked, and so on. I had harboured a crush on her for four months. To an outsider, a villager who had no idea about how these things worked, it seemed that Tannishtha was floating. Most of the NSD girls were in steady relationships. But she was dating someone and then a few months later she was with another boy, and so on. This gave me hope. Since I respected and liked her so much, I thought I should also try my luck.

  One day at the campus when she was drinking chai, I took a deep breath and walked up to her.

  ‘Tannishtha, I have something to tell you,’ I said bravely. ‘May I?’

  ‘Yes, yes! Obviously. Tell na,’ she said.

  ‘Not here. Ummm . . . how about we go to the Bengali Market?’ I suggested.

  ‘All right, let’s go,’ she agreed and off we went.

  In a tiny restaurant renowned for its chaat, we sat across each other sipping tea.

  ‘Tell na, Nawaz. Go on,’ she urged.

  ‘I want to be your friend,’ I said bravely.

  ‘Huh? But you already are my friend,’ she said, puzzled.

  ‘Not that friend. That type of friend,’ I said.

  ‘What type? You are my friend, Nawaz. I don’t know. What do you mean?’ she asked, confused.

  That’s all the speech I had prepared. So I left it at that. We finished our cups of tea, I paid for them and we left.

  Before we reached the campus, panic gripped me. I was extremely afraid. What if she told others and I became the laughing stock of all of NSD? What if? This fear paralysed me so much that I worked very hard to ensure that she did not see my face. A little over a fortnight passed this way. Then a boy, who was her friend, came to me and asked, ‘Nawaz, why are you not meeting Tannishtha? She is asking for you. She is wondering what happened.’ I simply stared at him. What could I possibly tell this man? Luckily, the situation resolved itself as by th
en Tannishtha had begun dating somebody else, and apart from acting, her attention went there.

  In the weeks that followed, I looked back at my many pursuits, my potential love stories that never materialized and I wondered why it was that I was the only one not getting any girls. I tried hard but I could not get into a relationship. After deep contemplation it dawned on me that perhaps this was not my department at all. Perhaps it was best if I left it. And that was exactly what I did. Instead, I focused fully and solely on my work for those four or five years. It is that diligence, that focus which has brought me to where I am today.

  * * *

  The National School of Drama had no shortage of eccentric people. There was this guy, whose name I don’t even know, who would come up to me and ask, ‘Do you want to hear my speech of Ashwatthama? I can do it even better than Naseeruddin Shah!’ I had just begin to nod my head and say all right, buddy, show me what you’ve got. But before I would even nod, leave alone speak, he would begin his theatrical speech of this character from the Mahabharata. Once it was done, I’d say, ‘Very good, yaar! Very good!’ He would leave and accost whoever else was nearby and begin the process again, and repeat it an umpteen number of times with an umpteen number of people. He would begin in the morning and proceed to bore the daylights out of all the unlucky people who happened to be there, right until dusk.

  One of my favourite things about NSD was Vijay Shukla. He was my senior, not academically—he was not in the school itself but in the repertory wing of NSD—but in theatre, in terms of his acting experience, his expertise. I have met many fine actors and many fine personalities but none as fine as him. There was Rajesh Khanna, the actor who had won over the entire nation at the time. And then there was Vijay. Both of them were stars. The fact that I’m comparing him to Rajesh Khanna illustrates just how charismatic and unforgettable this man’s personality was. I have never met anybody like either of them. Even after all these years, I am still totally in awe, perhaps more in awe of Vijay than of the superstar.