Nawazuddin Siddiqui is one of the finest actor Bollywood has ever got. But there are some mysteries related to his life, which will be revealed his biography which will be out in market in sometime. But, before that some excerpts from the book, related to his relationships, are already creating ripples.
I was performing in a play in Mumbai which was when I finally had my first romantic relationship. accidentally, she too happened to be an NSD graduate, though we had never met there. It was very sweeII t, like rain is after a very long spell of drought. Sunita had fallen madly in love with me. Every day, she would come over, hang out at my house in Mira Road and scrawl our names in tiny font all over the wall. You remember those old-fashioned hearts with the names of lovers in it, sometimes with an arrow across it, sometimes without? Her doodles were something like that. It seemed to my roommates that every day she covered one wall with her art of love. We saw each other for about a year and a half. She was a Pahari girl. Then she went off on a holiday to her home town in the hills to see her folks. When she returned, Sunita would not take any of my calls. And when she did at last, I was flabbergasted. After such a deep, passionate love, she simply said, ‘Nawaz, you focus on your career. And I will focus on my career.’ She cut off all contact after that and I plunged into another deep, deep depression. I took a bucket of fresh white paint and began to replace her artwork on my walls with the blank canvas that they were before. With every brush-stroke, I tried to erase her off my heart as well. But, of course, the brush refused to do double duty and erased only the marks on the walls, not the scars on my heart.
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 exgirlfriend’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.
Nawazuddin’s book gives a glimpse of his once-serious relationship with a Jewish girl called Suzanne. She was from New Jersey, and came to Mumbai and was living with Nawaz for some time. She kept extending her visa every few months, says Nawaz in the book. He nearly decided to marry her and wanted to propose to her. But she was scared of marriage since the time coincided with her brother’s divorce. “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,” says Nawaz in the book.
Suzanne kept mailing Nawaz long after she left for New York. By this time, the shooting of Miss Lovely had begun and Siddiqui was in a relationship with Niharika Singh. Nawaz says in his book that he didn’t have the courage to reply to Suzanne’s emails. And then all hell broke loose. While he was checking his mails one day, Niharika happened to spot an email from Suzanne. Niharika took on the task of clarifying that Nawaz’s relationship with Suzanne was over. “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,” Nawazuddin describes. Soon, Niharika made sure that he snapped all correspondence with Suzanne.
It was right after his break-up with Sunita, his first girlfriend, that Nawazuddin wanted to end his life. He says in the book, “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 sense prevailed and a ‘metaphorical slap’ shook him out of his reverie. He decided at that point that he would never be emotional in any relationship. And never again was he ‘that vulnerable, not even with my wife’.