In October 2012 when I met Nawazuddin Siddiqui in the corridors of a plush New Delhi hotel, the actor was anxiously looking for the gym. I thought it was a joke and said “You too!” thinking of Bollywood stars’ fascination for abs. But Nawaz was serious. He was about to leave for Bodh Gaya to play Dashrath Manjhi and director Ketan Mehta had told him to get in shape.
Cut to August 2015, and Nawaz joins the dots. “I changed the characterisation once I reached Gehlour. I thought the place will be populated by poor, subdued people. But there everybody’s tone was like ka hai re bhaiya . I realised I have to raise the pitch to make it sound authentic. I could not work on my body here but the shooting was such hard work that my body started taking shape. We had to start at 3 a.m. from Bodh Gaya for the shooting site.”
‘Used a real hammer’
Then one day he felt he was just acting. “I like to minimise acting. So I asked for a real hammer of the same weight that was used by Manjhi. If you use the real property, it gives you confidence. My dialogue delivery changed. The weight of the hammer translated into my performance.”
This was not his first time for such a feat. “In Gangs of Wasseypur , the guns were of the same size and weight; only the bullets were fake. The trigger and the recoil effect added to the performance. This time it was difficult. I had to constantly remind myself when Manjhi could do it for 22 years; I can do it for 45 days,” says Nawaz.
Deconstructing his craft, the actor goes back to his days at the National School of Drama where he absorbed Bharat Muni’s Natyashastra . “Bharat Muni says creating rasa is the job of the actor and he should let the audience savour it ( ras ki utpatti karna actor ka kaam hai, ras ka swad lena audience ka ). In our films it is often the opposite. The actor creates the rasa and savours it himself. You don’t cry; make the audience cry. I have to create a situation where the audience offers me a hand and I take them along the journey of the character.”
On piracy
The fact that Manjhi got leaked on the Internet doesn’t worry him. He says the version that has leaked on the Net is a rough cut of the film.
“If you watch the film on a laptop you will miss the depth of the mountain and its relationship with the man. I am not concerned because those who have a habit of watching pirated versions watch even Fast & Furious and Mission Impossible on laptops. For them a film is one of the numbers that they want to achieve by the end of the month. Something that they like to boast about among friends and colleagues. If you ask them about the emotional appeal of the film they start stammering. Had I not watched Ek Doctor Ki Maut on the big screen I would not have been an actor today. I watched it at Manzar Theatre in Pragati Maidan,” says Nawaz, adding that Manzar was the place which opened the window to world cinema for him.
Talk of Manzar takes him back to the seven years he spent in Delhi doing theatre. “The first play that I watched was Sakshi’s group Uljhan where Manoj Bajpai played the lead role. Soon I joined the group.”
Modest beginnings
Nawaz, who hails from a farmer’s family from Budhana village in western Uttar Pradesh, admits that for him, theatre is not just a passion but a source of income as well. “Things changed when I got admission in the NSD. Till then it was the issue of survival. At the NSD, I didn’t have to worry about food. There everybody was equal. And even if someone carried elitist thoughts, after a few performances, opinions gave way to admiration. That way art is a great leveller. People come to watch your performance. If you are good, nobody can snatch your fame. The audience don’t ask which village or economic background you hail from.”
Recently he made news for playing a Pakistani journalist Chand Nawab in Bajrangi Bhaijaan . Later a video of real life Chand Nawab surfaced on YouTube.
“Kabir (Khan) told me before the shoot to have a look at the video. On the night before the shoot I watched it at least 100 times. If you had woken me up that night you would have found Chand Nawab in bed,” grins Nawaz.
