Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Actor: There Will Be Trouble Ahead. Stay Strong, Stay Focused

Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Actor: There Will Be Trouble Ahead. Stay Strong, Stay Focused

The first day I cried in Mumbai was when I didn’t have a single paisa in my pocket and took R50 from a friend. It was not the first time I was penniless and it was definitely not the first time I was borrowing money. But that night, as I pocketed that crumpled note, I began to cry. Five years in Mumbai and I was still homeless, penniless and completely out of work. There was not a friend left in the city I had not borrowed from.

I belong to a family of farmers from Budhana, UP. Ninety people  would live in one house and I have seen the darkest days of poverty. So not eating for a day or two or three was never a problem. That was never my struggle. In Delhi, while practicing theatre, I worked as a watchman. Life was tough then but I was always driven to follow my dream – acting.

I moved to Mumbai with R3,000, a packet of biscuits and the assumption that I had friends there to bank on. I reached one friend’s house and tried to give him a hug. He shrugged me off and said, “Rent ka paisa?” That day I realised that in this industry, your friends are also not your friends. I remember begging another friend to let me stay at his room. He said yes and asked me to be his cook. I didn’t mind the job till the day I realised that I wasn’t struggling to be an actor. I was struggling just to stay alive. I moved out of his house with rock-solid determination that day. I was going to make it, I told myself. But unlike in a movie where the hero’s life changes in minutes, mine didn’t. That night, I just went to another friend’s house for shelter.

In some way, you can call my life a comedy of errors. When I got my first break in Sarfarosh (1999), I was asked to be on-set at 7am at Filmistan. I woke up at 4.30am and walked from Four Bungalows to Film City [easily 15 kilometres] in my chappals. I reached by 6.30am, only to realise I was at the wrong set. I ran again from Film City to Filmistan because I had no money to even take the bus. I didn’t get another movie for years. 

Yes, life is terrifyingly difficult sometimes. There were many times when I wanted to leave. But where could I go? I had to make it. The only other choice was to die in oblivion and that I wasn’t going to do. I did so many odd roles – dacoit informer in Jungle, a waiter in Shool, a pickpocket in Munna Bhai MBBS and a local goon in Ek Chalis Ki Last Local. I took roles just to survive another month. But I never gave up. I just wanted to succeed.

My 12 years of struggle ended with Kahaani. Suddenly I was famous. People would recognise me; my name now had some weight. The last scene in Gangs of Wasseypur, where I shoot Tigmanshu’s [Dhulia] character was the culmination of my struggle. When I was enacting that scene, what I saw in front of me were the 12 years – the hunger, rejection, disgrace and tears – and I fired countless rounds. That smirk on Faisal Khan’s face was in fact Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s arrival.
Scorecard
1 Don’t leave anything to destiny – find a way to chart out your own destiny. Rewrite it if you have to.
2 Everyone struggles. So don’t take it personally. Just work hard and hope that you meet the right people at the right time.
3 Rejection is a part of life. Don’t let it bog you down.  Find a way to deal with it.
4 Drop your ego. It will only give you more pain.
5 Once you succeed, remember how hard you worked to get there. That will motivate you and also keep you grounded.