Success is most often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable. Failures are a part and parcel of life. I am a big movie buff, love watching movies and discussing its technicalities and performances avidly with friends. We discuss about actors, directors, screenplays etc of a particular movie. One fine day the movie which we were discussing was Sriram Raghavan’s “Badlapur” and the topic shifted to the most talented actor Bollywood has, Nawazuddin Siddiqui. We talked about his minute acting nuisances and his awesome screen presence. That day something strike me of his presence in this glamorous industry. I was told that he is a part of the industry since 1999. I was astonished. I quickly googled about this man, who being 16 years in the industry still was a unknown or is familiar only now. The information I found was very emotional and heart wrenching but a satisfying one.
Nawazuddin Siddiqui is from Budhana a small town of Muzaffarnagar district in Uttar Pradesh from a Muslim family, where his father is a farmer. After graduating in science from Gurukul Kangri University in Uttarakand, he worked as a chemist in a petrochemical company for a short while. But boredom set in soon, and he moved to Delhi, where he worked as a watchman. However, after one year there he joined a theatre group and started watching plays, while working as a watchman at an office. He graduated from the The National School of Drama (NSD), New Delhi in 1996 for his theatre academics.
After graduating from NSD, he shifted to Mumbai. In 2004, which was one of the worst years of his struggle, he couldn’t pay any rent. He asked an NSD senior if he could stay with him. The senior allowed him to share his apartment in Goregaon if he was willing to cook meals for him. Nawazuddin made his Bollywood debut in 1999, with a small role in Aamir khan starrer, Sarfarosh. After that, he hung out at film studios and shootings but only got stereotypical roles. After moving to Mumbai he tried to get work in television serials, but did not achieve much success. He did a short film The Bypass in 2003, where he appeared with actor, Irrfan Khan. Beyond that between 2002–05, he was largely out of work, and lived in a flat he shared with four other people, and survived by conducting occasional acting workshops.
His appearance in Anurag Kashyap’s Black Friday (2004) paved way for other powerful roles. His first lead role in a feature film was as the wedding singer Chakku in Prashant Bhargava’s Patang (shot in 2007-2008). Nawazuddin was noticed in the film “New York”. However it was his role of a journalist in Aamir Khan Productions’s Peepli Live (2010), that first got him recognition as an actor. He became a household name post Kahaani (2012), where he played the archetypal short-tempered intelligence officer Khan. Anurag Kashyap’s gangster epic Gangs of Wasseypur followed which furthered his fame.
From being a watchman to a talented actor in Bollywood, Nawazuddin’s journey is quite interesting. It showed the positive instance on the way we should look at life. He didn’t give up at any point of time. 19 years in the industry he was, and look his love for the art. I look up to him in many ways to be patient and wait for your chances. His inspiring story is indeed my look up story which inspires me a lot. What’s your?