An Ordinary Life

by Nawazuddin Siddiqui

  Living in Mira Road meant that the local train was our lifeline. We were at the station almost all the time. Soon after her call, one day I was at the station and stood there staring at the tracks. A train was coming, screaming its arrival with a lusty horn. It would be simple and instant. Should I jump on to the tracks and end it all? End this struggle, end this life? I had nothing. No love, no work, no money. But some being woke up in me and gave me a metaphorical slap. ‘You know this is not your department,’ the voice in my head said. ‘Then why? Why did you go that way? Why!’ it screamed at me.

  The train sped away, screaming pompously, cutting through the air. Simultaneously, I cut off my emotions like doctors sever an umbilical cord. I decided that I would never again be emotional in any relationship. And I kept my word. Never again did I allow myself to be vulnerable like that again, not even with my wife.

  Yet it was important to analyse what had happened. My ex-girlfriend’s flatmate was an attractive, modern and flamboyant actress called Achint Kaur who was quite popular at the time. I concluded that the only explanation for Sunita’s abrupt goodbye was Kaur’s influence. She must have advised her that for the sake of her career, Sunita should probably date someone successful, not a struggling, desperate actor who was out of work.

  Today, Sunita tells everybody that she was once together with me in a very serious relationship. Incredible, isn’t it? Life is beautiful, just fucking beautiful.

  * * *

  Those years between 2006 and 2010 were pretty incredible too. The industry had begun to notice me. People in the industry would come and tell me how all of Bollywood was talking about this ‘one-scene actor’ who was amazing. Over the years, I had had a thousand rejections in every phase of life, whether it was from girls, money, directors . . . I had begun to think of myself as a manhoos, the ill-fated one. What they call in my region ‘grahan lagna’, that is, astrologically the stars have aligned themselves to ensure that this person fails at everything no matter how hard he works. But during those four or five years I knew that this was the end and I would be successful after this. Then a moment came when I knew that it would be over in just a few days.

  That sweet ecstasy of knowing, that relief, completely surpasses the joy of success that I have today.

  * * *

  Strangely, the West was kinder to me first, both in terms of love and work. I gained recognition there through my films which travelled to most festivals. I was at a cafe once with my friend in New York City’s Soho area. The stunning waitress kept staring at me. ‘Boss, you’re all set!’ My friend chuckled. I was not used to such attention, especially from the female kind. ‘You? You are an actor?’ she asked a rhetorical question. ‘Yes!’ I replied. ‘Which film of mine did you see? Gangs of Wasseypur?’ She squinted, trying to remember, ‘No, no,’ she said. ‘Another film!’ After a few moments, she responded: ‘Lunchbox!’ We got talking and let’s just say what happens in New York stays in New York, at least in my case. As you can probably guess from the titles of the films, this is a memory that happened way down the line when I had tasted the sweet nectar of success.

  Before that came Suzanne: a lovely, dear Jewish girl from New Jersey, who lived in New York City. We met there and hit it off. She came to Mumbai and began to live with me. By then, Shamas and I had moved to Yari Road. Every few months, she kept extending her visa. It was a very sweet relationship. She was so lovely that the idea of marriage had begun to cross my mind, first in fleeting thoughts, and then slowly they turned into a decision. At the very last minute when I was about to propose, as if reading my mind, Suzanne said, ‘In my country it is divorce season right now.’ It was winter, famous for festivals and infamous for breakups in the West. Her brother had just gotten a divorce. Perhaps that was why she was afraid of marriage. ‘Let’s wait and watch what we want to do. Let’s see if we want to live together or not after a year,’ she said quietly. I was bewildered. Without telling her, I dropped the idea of marriage altogether.

  The shooting of Miss Lovely commenced. Suzanne used to accompany me there. Then came the day when her visa expired and she needed to return to New York to sort it out. She was gone for many months. One day, while we were shooting a dance scene, something happened to my co-star Niharika Singh. When the director said, ‘Cut!’, she quietly rushed to her vanity van and stayed there. Something seemed to have happened to her. She was suddenly cold, went out of her way to maintain a distance from me and began to keep mum. I was puzzled. What was wrong with her? What had happened? She used to be friendly, social and talk quite a bit. I thought it was best to ask her what had happened and so I did, not once, not twice, but several times, for several days. She responded that nothing had happened. I silenced my curiosity. I simply urged her to talk, be more social, that it was not healthy to be so quiet. After some days she began to. I invited her over for a home-cooked meal, a mutton dish which was my speciality. She politely agreed and came over. The dish I had made for her turned out to be absolutely terrible. But she was too well mannered to say so. Not only did she eat everything that was on her plate, but she praised it as well.

  ‘Now you come to my house, Nawaz. I will cook mutton for you,’ she said warmly.

  For the very first time I went to Niharika’s house. I rang the doorbell, slightly nervous. When she opened the door, revealing a glimpse of the house, I was speechless with amazement. A hundred, or so it seemed, little candles flickered beautifully. She wore soft faux fur, looking devastatingly gorgeous, her beauty illuminated even more in the candlelight. And I, being the lusty village bumpkin that I am, scooped her up in my arms and headed straight for the bedroom. We made passionate love. And just like that, out of the blue, I began a relationship with Niharika Singh, a relationship which I did not know then would last for almost one and a half years.

  During the early days I wanted to impress her. I was a struggler but by then I had managed to get a car, a second-hand one, but a car nevertheless. She lived in Malad, I lived in Yari Road. There was this time when she had to come to Yari Road for some work. I told her that I would fetch her in my car. I decked myself up in my best clothes, sprinkled cologne and drove off to her place with a song in my heart. She sat inside, we drove off and bam! In the middle of the way, the cranky old car decided to break down. Since then, she blatantly said she would not sit in my car because it was not to be trusted, she would go in her own car instead.

  Such last-minute setbacks had become a pattern for me from all ends. My love life had become a Siamese twin of my work life. I worked so diligently on getting girls and films. A momentum would build up and then, bam, lady luck would slap me on the face in both cases. I would be selected for a role, the costumes would be finalized and I would be flying on cloud nine that now I will become an established actor, and then, just like that, out of nowhere, would come a phone call cancelling my part or me in that role, right at the very last minute. I wondered why this happened to me. I still do when I look back.

  Anyway, coming back to the story, in the meantime, emails from Suzanne started coming. ‘Why are you not mailing me, Nawaz? What’s wrong?’ I did not respond, I did not have the courage to. I trusted my silence would convey what needed to be conveyed. When I was checking my inbox one day, Niharika happened to see one of her emails.

  ‘Who is this?’ she inquired.

  ‘You know very well who it is,’ I said. ‘It’s Suzanne.’

  ‘Wo-ow! It’s still going on between you two! Amazing!’ Niharika thundered in anger. ‘It is wrong. I hope you know that.’

  ‘No, Niharika, nothing is going on between us. Sometimes her emails come, that’s all. Slowly she will realize that Nawaz is not interested and she will stop emailing,’ I explained softly.

  ‘No, Nawaz! You must maintain clarity,’ she said.

  ‘All right! I will email her clearly then,’ I said.

  ‘No, you won’t. So I will email her,’ she said sternly.

  From that day, Niharika began to send emails to Suzanne from
my email address. She would type, ‘I cannot continue with you . . .’ and sign off as me. Imagine the shock for Suzanne. She would send heartbreaking replies like: ‘What happened, Nawaz? Please tell me, Nawaz! . . . I am crying, Nawaz! Tell me, please.’ It was absolutely awful. I simply could not endure it! It was as if she was screaming, crying out aloud helplessly in unbearable pain.

  It was apparent that the emails had some sort of a multiple personality disorder. After a few of these email exchanges, Suzanne figured that this was not my voice at all. ‘Who is this writing, Nawaz? I know this is not you. Somebody else is with you,’ she wrote back. Imagine her plight—helplessly trying to solve a mystery from another continent and her only clues were those few emails. ‘Somebody else is making you write these emails. Tell me who is this person?’ she wrote. ‘Who is she? Who is this bitch?’

  ‘Bitch!’ That word infuriated Niharika so much that she made me end all correspondence with Suzanne forever, then and there.

  I was very sad. Then I thought, so be it, it’s all right, I am with Niharika. My melancholy evaporated quickly.

  Niharika was an intelligent girl. Being an actor herself meant that she knew and understood my struggle for work. Sure, my life was better but I was still running around from office to office, showing my face, talking, asking for roles, giving auditions. I spent all day hopping around like this. She would call me in frequent spurts throughout the day demanding to know of my whereabouts. She insisted that I tell her all the spots I would be at on that particular day. I was very touched with how much she cared for me. Soon enough though, the romance of the concern faded. The regularity of the questions felt like being nagged non-stop, and I began to get rather annoyed. She, on the other hand, did not have to run all over the place like me. She was being serenaded by several offers; she had the luxury of choice. I did not. So I expected compassion, I expected empathy.

  There was another piece to this puzzle. Like all girls, Niharika obviously expected some of the sweet conversations that lovers have, to take place between us. But I was quite a selfish bastard. I had a plain aim: go to her house, make out and leave. I could not talk lovey-dovey too much. It finally struck her that I was a rascal who cared only for himself. (Actually, all the girls I have ever been with have had this same complaint about me. I would only come to them for my own needs. Otherwise, I might not even take their calls.)

  When I went to her place next, she was wearing a silk robe. I ran my hand over its coolness around her waist, grabbing her but she pushed me away. ‘No, Nawaz!’ she said. ‘I won’t meet you again. This is enough.’ I pleaded, I cried, I apologized. I said I wouldn’t repeat my mistakes again. I would be more thoughtful, a better lover. But she remained adamant. She had had enough. She had been hurt too many times. So that was that, we broke up cutting off all contact.

  Two months later, another girl came into my life in a most mysterious way. I did not know then that years later, I would marry her.

  15

  Shamas, My Guardian Angel

  When my youngest brother was born, my parents were stupefied. He was the spitting image of Shamsuddin. It was as if their first child, whom they had known only as a newborn, had suddenly decided to visit them again. Once they got over the many feelings that paranormal miracles bring, they decided to honour our ghost brother and give this boy a name to match the physical resemblance between the two. The closest name they could find to Shams(uddin) was Shamas. And so, that’s what they called him. As he grew up a bit, Ammi often held him on her hip and pointed to a photo of our dead oldest brother to show him whose carbon copy he was.

  When it came to Shamas, I obeyed all of the unsaid rules about older brothers torturing their youngest siblings. He was a very cute and chubby little kid. So chubby that you could not see his neck. Ammi lovingly called him Koyetee Gardan, meaning the Small-necked One. I used to also call him that, but in ridicule. (To make things even though, Shamas and the rest, including Ammi herself, used to call me Boodgoom because I used to eat up words in the middle of speaking, well until NSD finally cured me of it.) One of my favourite things was to turn him into a ‘pillow’ and sit on him, no matter how hard he resisted. Then, I’d rag him. If Ammi had sent Shamas on errands like getting mithai, etc. from the market, he was bound to encounter me. I was perpetually hanging out with my friends at various corners, like, by the barber’s shop, which was on the way home. I’d accost him, inspect the wares, rag him, eat up two or three pieces of the mithai or other goodies and only once I was done would I let him go. It was up to him to give whatever explanation he could, to Ammi for the missing pieces.

  To Shamas and my younger siblings, I was everything that Ammi was to me. This included complete freedom, of course—like, to choose whatever streams they wanted to study later on in life (arts, commerce, science), whatever paths they wanted to follow, etc., which was extremely rare in those days—when it was common for parents and elders to pressurize their children and impose their ways on them. But most importantly, it included military-like discipline and a massive emphasis on education—inevitable beatings would follow if these were not abided by. Once, Shamas had just returned home after taking his seventh-standard exams. Without allowing him to relax, I snatched the question paper from his hand and instantly examined him, asking what answers he had given to each question. During his tenth-standard exams, I was away studying in Haridwar. He had no idea that I had come home for holidays. So again, he walked in and was shocked to find me there. He knew the ordeal that would follow. I too was astounded to find him there. I knew the details of the exam he was taking—the subject was physics and the duration was two hours. But he had finished it in half an hour and come home. How come? So again, I followed our tradition: I snatched the question paper from his hand and began interrogating him on every single question. When he could not answer some of the questions, I completely lost my temper and gave him a massive beating. I kicked him and hit him so hard that some blood came out; he carries the scars of that beating even today.

  As he grew up, he displayed a scientific bent of mind and intelligence that none of us had. He was not interested in playing around as much as in fixing television sets and repairing radios impromptu. We never needed an electrician with him around.

  Circa 1994, when he was studying aeronautical engineering in Dehradun, I went to visit him. Faizi and Almas were there as well. His room was immaculate, with all his books stacked up neatly.

  ‘Shamas, is this how a studious person’s room should look like?’ I scolded him.

  ‘What, Bhaijaan?’ he fumbled.

  ‘When do you study? Stop decorating your room like girls do. A studious person’s room does not look like this,’ I said, walking over to his books.

  ‘No? Then what should it look like, Bhaijaan?’ Shamas nervously asked, knowing I was up to something.

  I scattered the books everywhere, throwing them all over until the floor had become a stormy sea of books. I pointed proudly and said wisely, ‘This is what it looks like. It looks like the books are being studied.’ Shamas was pretty pissed off. His big brother had come to visit him just for a few days and here he was creating this massive mess. Being the clever lad he always has been, he came up with a solution on the spot.

  ‘Bhaijaan, if we don’t keep our things tidy, then cockroaches and spiders and rodents come.’

  ‘Really?’ I asked, a little scared.

  ‘Really, Bhaijaan,’ he said with a poker face. ‘And snakes too. If we were to randomly sort through this to pick one book, and if there is a beast hiding underneath to bite us, then?’

  I was quiet. And quite scared.

  ‘You see, Bhaijaan, that’s why we need to keep everything settled and tidy.’

  ‘Right, Shamas. Let’s keep it that way then,’ I said timidly and we began to tidy up.

  It was only many years later that I found out that he had made this up to escape from my unnecessary bullying.

  * * *

  After graduating from NSD, I
did not take a single penny from home. My needs were completely basic; I managed. But in Mumbai, the very word difficulty touched new lows every week. I asked Ammi to send one of my brothers to Mumbai—ideally, Shamas, given his intelligence and technical bent of mind. The idea was that the brother could take care of basic but critical survival issues around food, shelter and money so that I could move my focus to the real thing that I had come to Mumbai to toil for—acting. He could study editing for a few months and then work as an editor for film or TV. These jobs were easier to come by and ensured a steady flow of income.

  Shamas first visited me for a few months in the year 1998 when I lived in Mira Road. He accompanied me on shoots and became mesmerized with Mumbai, with this world. He was completely smitten with the central role of the director—the puppeteer who held all the strings. But when he finished his studies in Dehradun and returned some years later, around 2005, he skipped editing and almost immediately became an AD with the hopes of eventually becoming a director. We had moved to Malad by then. It was wonderful respite for a while as some money trickled in. His first gig was in assisting Adeep Singh for a film I was starring in called Adharm. The film sat with the censor board for a long time.

  But then, as is common with ADs in our industry, especially those lowest in the hierarchy of ADs, the money stopped coming in and both of us were struggling. Those six or seven months were extremely painful for both of us. We lived in very dire circumstances. Shamas came and apologized to me, saying he should have listened to me and took up editing. The guilt has haunted him ever since. He has remained my constant shadow and prioritizes me above everything else. I am moved and humbled by his love. I can never express how grateful I am to him. He has inherited Abbu’s integrity. All of us brothers have in fact—none of us have ever duped anybody—but especially Shamas. In spite of all the treachery and the endless cruelty, Abbu had remained faithful to his stepbrother. Tau practically turned Abbu into a beggar and yet Abbu never spoke ill of him; indeed, he loved him dearly. One day Abbu told Shamas, ‘I did so much for my brother who never gave a damn about me. But you, Shamas, the brother you do so much for, he cares for you. That’s something. Remember that.’ Abbu is no more but Shamas remembers that all the time. He says it is the pivot his life revolves around. Words can never do justice, but Shamas is the greatest gift I have, my eternal guardian angel who ensures I have every single thing before I even realize the want for it.