An Ordinary Life

by Nawazuddin Siddiqui

  He truly listens to me like a child listens to his parent. He had a girlfriend who was a famous actress in Mumbai. Her sister was a famous actress too. Her family was wealthy, modern, liberal, elitist, what we call ‘hi-fi’. Shamas was deeply in love with her and wanted to marry her. Although I understood and empathized with his feelings, I had to express my hesitation: she would never fit into our humble background; our highly conservative extended family with whom we are super close. How could our folks in Budhana ever understand him or her, or them? It was a misfit, a mismatch and bound to be a total disaster. Shamas nodded quietly and agreed. I never heard of her again. Without saying anything to me, he broke up with her.

  Eventually, Shamas swapped the fickleness of films for the relative stability of television. Sure, the steady flow of income we were so desperate for arrived and improved our lives dramatically, but Shamas also had to work round the clock to the non-stop pace of TV. He worked as an AD for several shows, including a very popular series, Crime Patrol. After working extremely hard for about a year and a half, he finally became a director, directing an endless string of shows for various channels. We moved to a flat in MHADA, Malad, which had one bedroom and a kitchen. Those days, he was shooting at Kanjurmarg which is near the Hiranandani area in Powai. It took him two and a half hours to reach there by bus from our new house.

  Our schedule was simple. Driven by childhood habits, I remain an early riser. I would wake up, do the dishes and cook. Shamas would take care of the cleaning, ensuring that the place was spotless. The obsession with hygiene that Ammi had drilled into all of us somehow eluded me a bit (my ashtrays would be filled to the brim and there would also be cigarette ash on the floor; I’d comb my hair anywhere; I’d carelessly walk on a wet floor that was still being mopped, leaving apathetic footprints everywhere . . .). But Shamas followed Ammi’s ways with full fervour.

  Shamas would eat and leave for his shoots. My schedule was erratic, depending on auditions. Then I would do the laundry. Since I loved to borrow from his wardrobe, both Shamas and I were essentially wearing his clothes, and so the laundry had to do pretty much with his garments only. I’d fill up a big tub with water, generously sprinkle a tonne of Surf into it and then let the dirty clothes soak in the suds really, really well—so well that the clothes remained soaked for six to eight days. By the end of those days, the white shirt would have become yellow, the yellow shirt would have red marks on it and the red shirt would have faded into a pretty shade of pink. Honestly, it did not matter to me at all. I happily wore these ruined garments everywhere. I did not care what I was wearing so long as I was wearing clean clothes. But Shamas, who loved being well dressed, would obviously be furious even though he was too busy to figure things out. During the little free time he had, which was late at night, he would call up Ammi and complain to her about how Nawaz Bhai had ruined all of his clothes. In fact, this awful habit of mine stopped only around 2010, when I was finally getting married.

  In one corner of our MHADA flat was a flimsy mattress, so thin that it was uncomfortable for anybody to sit on. But I loved it. I have never been a sucker for comfort. You see, with comfort comes the danger of complacence; discomfort keeps you on your toes. Lying on it had become a habit, even when it was falling apart at the corners and split in the middle. Shamas knew how priceless it was. To us it was ‘historic’, it had seen our struggles. He kept it lovingly as a memento for a long time until two years ago when somebody—I don’t know who—mistook it for trash and threw it out.

  One day I urgently needed some money and called Shamas, who was about twenty kilometres away shooting in Kanjurmarg. I was at Infiniti Mall, Andheri. (Later, we moved into an apartment there.) There was no way he could have made it there before a couple of hours. Immediately, he called his friend Veeru and asked him to go from wherever he was to meet me. Within minutes, Veeru appeared and handed me Rs 1500.

  In 2007 came a film called Aaja Nachle starring Madhuri Dixit in the lead. I had a reasonably large part in it, but it got edited out and became a small part in the final cut. Black Friday too had come out by then and I was beginning to get some work. The heavy fog of relentless desperation was finally thinning. Even though it was in modest amounts, money was beginning to trickle in. I had also finished a short film, for which I got Rs 75,000; with it, I bought a second-hand Maruti Esteem.

  One monsoon day, I returned exhausted from the shoot of Aaja Nachle in Film City, parked my car in the basement and went upstairs and straight to bed. I wanted to make the most of the few precious hours I had to take rest. Early next day I had to go on another shoot for a film made by folks from the United Kingdom called Meridian Lines, which also starred Irrfan Khan.

  At 1.30 a.m., I called Shamas. He was at a friend’s house in Oshiwara.

  ‘Shamas, the car is not there.’

  ‘What, Bhaijaan?’ he asked in incomprehension.

  ‘I had parked the car in the basement as always. But the Esteem, it’s gone,’ I explained.

  Shamas could not believe it.

  ‘Let’s do one thing, Bhaijaan. Take an auto to the police station. I will come there by bike. Let’s meet there itself.’

  The police was not interested. A second-hand, cheap car was nothing to break a sweat about. It was a 1992 model which I had bought in 2007. While I had paid Rs 75,000 for it, its market value turned out to be Rs 60,000. This was truly too trivial for the police when brand-new Mercedes cars were being stolen. But for me it was a humongous deal. It was the first big thing that I had bought with my own money. To me, it was a massive amount, especially after the insane days we had seen.

  We knew they would not do anything. So we boarded Shamas’s bike, with me on the pillion. And just like that, we turned detectives solving our own case. With the eyes of predators, we hunted all around the area. But the drizzle became a full-on torrential downpour and forced us to stop.

  ‘Bhaijaan, let’s try another police station,’ Shamas suggested. ‘All right!’ I said and we drove to DN Nagar Police Station where the same story was repeated. They too were not interested. Annoyed, we were just walking out of the station, discussing what our next move should be, when all of a sudden we saw an Esteem, not just any Esteem, but our Esteem, zipping past. It was like in a movie. And so we too acted with speed, as if in a fully edited movie. We ran to our bike.

  ‘Start the bike, Shamas!’ I screamed. ‘Turn around.’

  But Shamas, always being the calm one, the wise one, said, ‘Let’s follow him in silence, Bhaijaan. Let us see where he is going. And once we reach that spot, let’s call the cops.’

  The chase continued. The thief had no idea he was being followed until we closed in so much that we were driving adjacent to the car. He had rolled down the windows to enjoy the delightful air fragrant with a freshness only the rain can bring. But I could not control myself any more and let Shamas’s wise words go to hell.

  ‘Oye, behenchod. This is my car,’ I screamed at the top of my angry lungs. ‘Where the fuck are you going with my car?’

  Obviously, he figured that these guys were the owners. He stepped hard on the gas pedal and sped, splashing a forceful wake of water behind from the massive puddles, like a motorboat, to drench us in. It was pouring so hard that it was getting almost impossible to see or to drive as the level of the water rose. We were soaked to the bone, our shirts glued to our skin. And the bloody thief was all dry and cosy inside the comfortable car, our car! But we followed him, to Juhu Circle, then SV Road, then Vile Parle, then Jogeshwari.

  And then, as if just one last bead was left in this string of tiny battle beads to make it into a necklace, the petrol ran out of our bike. For fuck’s sake! How was it even possible! Shamas was known to always keep the petrol tank full. Except on that night, when he thought it was late and he would fill it in the morning. So we took a detour from this crazy race to go to a petrol pump nearby, while the crook rushed away.

  A police patrol van was passing by the petrol pump. We ran shouting, ask
ing them to stop. We told them the entire tale of how this random dude had run away with our car and we had spent the entire night chasing him. The cop spoke into his wireless, giving the number of the car and announced instructions for a road blockade. He said not to let this Esteem go beyond Goregaon. We were grateful. We thanked him and waited with bated breath for some news. Definitely, the thief would be caught any time now.

  But the hours dragged on in slow-mo speed. It became four in the morning, there was no news. This time it was not the rain, for it could not drench us any more, but acute anxiety that drowned us. We thought, let’s scour the gullies around. We took the bike into muddy slush piles where the bike could not usually go. So we got off and pushed it through the muck. Our clothes were dripping and splashed with mud. We were shivering as we hunted through every narrow lane around SV Road. It was now 6.30 a.m. Nothing.

  Utterly dejected, we were about to give up and return home. A signboard that read Ajit Glass Factory lay ahead of us, at the head of possibly the narrowest lane. Shamas tried to go. But I stopped him.

  ‘How can a car enter this tight, this cramped a lane? It’s way too tiny, Shamas,’ I said.

  ‘We have looked everywhere else, Bhaijaan. Only this place is left. I have a hunch it will be here,’ he said. ‘My motorcycle agency is here as well. And they are always warning me, “Watch your vehicle! Watch your bike. This is a bastion of auto thieves. Don’t leave your bike outside. It will be gone in a blink.” So, Bhaijaan . . .’ he said.

  He was right. Within minutes of going in, we spotted our beloved Esteem. We called the cops and our friends. Shamas called the assistant commissioner of police (ACP) who happened to be his acquaintance. ‘Beta, don’t bother to register a complaint. Take your car and quickly run off,’ he advised wisely. ‘Otherwise, the police will keep it with them until the procedures are done. It will sit there and rot away while you are caught in manoeuvring the red tape.’ I wanted justice so badly. I wanted the fucking robber to be caught. But ultimately, I calmed down and heeded the ACP’s wise words.

  The keys were still in the car. The robber had run away in fright. I drove the car straight to my 9 a.m. shoot at Film City. As soon as I reached, they handed me a long list of dialogues to narrate. Naturally, I could not remember a thing after that sleepless night. The first shoot was for a film called Black and White. In the scene, the actress Shefali Chhaya had to slap me, and she did it ever so gently. Then she asked me if I was okay. I said, ‘Yes, I am, but please slap me hard.’ She did. That is when I woke up and was able to remember the dialogues. The shoot went smoothly.

  It was Shamas who taught me how to drive. It was a massive headache for him since I was an awful student. Moreover, he would be already exhausted from shooting all day. Normally he woke up at 5 a.m. since he had to go shoot at 7 a.m. I unapologetically accommodated myself into his cramped schedule. I would wake up the poor overworked boy at 4 a.m. to go to the Inorbit Mall and Gorai area to learn to drive.

  Strangely, the same car which had snatched his sleep also ensured he got some. My friends would come over at all odd hours. So Shamas would often go downstairs and sleep in the parked car in peace without being disturbed. Then at the crack of dawn, he would come upstairs to bathe and get dressed for work. We kept the car as a fond souvenir well until 2015 when it finally stopped working and simply had to be disposed of.

  Today, we have come a full circle, with him directing me in an ad film and me producing his film. But even now, we shudder when we recall those days of the struggle to pay rent and buy food.

  16

  Aaliya

  She came out of nowhere. Not unlike the darkness that follows twilight, creeping in, in the blink of an eye; or the stars that suddenly appear out of nowhere on that ebony canvas of darkness, setting it alive. That’s how Anjali entered my life.

  She was actually Shamas’s friend. Like so many of us, she too was in Mumbai as a struggling actress. She hails from Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh. Shamas and she worked together in Wounded, a film about dacoits. It was shot in what we call daaku (dacoit) land, in two parts. Anjali was playing the lead in the first half, as a teenager. In real life, she was about twenty-four. During the first leg of shooting, they were completely caught up in work and did not get any time to talk. In the second part of the shoot, they had some leeway, some free time to get acquainted. They chatted and got along so well that they became buddies. There were three of them actually: Shamas, Anjali and another actor called Awadesh. Till today, the three of them remain cronies.

  After Wounded wrapped up, they returned to Mumbai and met on and off, not very often. Shamas was especially unavailable because he had shifted to TV by then, and as we all know, shooting in TV is a non-stop job. Then one day, out of the blue, Anjali called Shamas at 2.30 a.m. I woke up too, wondering what kind of a girl was calling at this hour. But it was an emergency. You see, the plight of struggling actresses is a lot worse than that of actors’. There is no scarcity of sadistic people who refuse to rent out flats to girls who are in the film business, and if they do, then they make their life difficult with all kinds of questions about late nights, etc. Anjali too was in a similar plight. She had gotten into an awful fight with her ‘PG’ Aunty—the landlady at whose house she was staying as a paying guest—over returning late at night from shoots.

  ‘Bhaijaan, she is my friend. She is on the street at Manish Nagar, Four Bungalows,’ he explained. ‘It is 2.30. Is it all right if she comes over?

  ‘Gosh, Shamas. She is a girl. Look at the hour. Get her here now!’ I said urgently, worried about her safety.

  So that is how Anjali came over to stay at our house. A ‘friend’ of the opposite sex is sometimes just that, but sometimes there’s a grey spectrum to it. Not knowing that it was a platonic friendship, I left the two alone and went to stay at a friend’s place. I did not want to meddle. I assumed she was his girlfriend or at least there were romantic inclinations, but there were none. When I did not return for four or five days, Shamas was furious. ‘Due to you, my brother is getting troubled. Pack up now and leave,’ he was shouting angrily at Anjali. I happened to enter just then, back for some fresh clothes. On noticing me, Shamas declared, ‘Bhaijaan, she is leaving. Please come back.’

  I was upset at Shamas. Had he lost it! Here was a girl, that too his friend, who had nowhere to go. How could he be so heartless! ‘No way, Shamas. Ladki hai. (It’s a girl.) Her safety is most important. She should not have any problems,’ I told him.

  Meanwhile, Shamas and Anjali made some calls. It turned out that their friend Awadesh had bought his own flat in MHADA Four Bungalows itself. She asked him if she could come over. Of course, he agreed. And so she packed up and went to Awadesh’s and stayed there for about three months.

  Imagine Shamas’s shock when he found her returning to our house, that too with all her baggage! ‘Ajeeb ho. Phir aa gayee tum! Kyon? (You’re a strange one. You have come here again! Why?),’ he demanded. While he was busy working non-stop, he had not realized that Anjali and I had been in constant touch. We had fallen in love. She took great care of me. Sometimes the presence of a girl lights up your life, like a festival cannot. I was happy. I simply told Shamas, ‘Call her Bhabhi.’

  This time it was Shamas who left without saying a word for the same reasons that I had. He packed his clothes and took off to his friend’s house in Hiranandani, close to the location of his shoot. Not wanting to bother the couple or, as we say, be an annoying kebab mein haddi (a bone in the kebab), he stayed at his friend’s for nine months. It was the longest we had been apart.

  Anjali and I continued to live together. We were madly in love but it was a tumultuous relationship, the course of which changed randomly, driven by fury. Her love was deep, her temper short. We quarrelled every few days or she would get upset. And ever so often she would pack her bag and storm out in a fit of anger, to stay with a friend at Lokhandwala. Sometimes she would not return for one or two months. I would follow her, plead for forgiveness and cajo
le her to return home. This became a sort of a ritual, like a cassette tape annoyingly put on repeat. Although I loved her very much, I thought she might be too risky to get married to. So I decided to not get married at all.

  The saga of love and running around in circles continued for something like a year and a half. Then came a time when she did not return for a very, very long time. I forget the exact length of time. I was rather fed up of running around like this repeatedly. Even though my heart pined for her, I did not go to get her. The prolonged period turned into a silent break-up. I think nowadays they call it ‘ghosting’.

  The loneliness was getting to me now. It was different earlier. Now, I had known love and the company of living together with someone I loved. I decided to settle for an arranged marriage. So I called Ammi one evening and told her that I would marry whoever she selected for me. The family was living in Dehradun those days. Ammi picked a lovely girl called Sheeba who hailed from Haldwani, which is near Nainital. I got married a few months before the shoot of Patang. Ahead of Haldwani, lie Bijnor, Najibabad, etc.; most of Sheeba’s family had settled in Haldwani and around it.