Everyone knows of Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s struggles and his pedigree as an actor. How his all consuming talent made him never give up even while homeless, until he finally arrived in his own right despite not having the Bollywood hero look.
It is also a reflection of how much he is considered an actor and not a star that his love life has not been a matter of speculation. As it turned out, the man who blew the lid off that is Nawazuddin himself. And this comes in the wake of a biography of his being just released.
In it he candidly talks about an affair he had with Niharika Singh, his co-star in the movie Miss Lovely. It begins with him finding her in a gloomy mood for some days during the shooting and inviting her for dinner in which he prepares a terrible mutton dish. She then calls him home for a dinner and when he arrives finds hundreds of candles and her in a beautiful state leading to a physical relationship.
And Nawazuddin states that it lasted for a year and a half, ultimately breaking because of his own insensitivity. While she wanted conversation and intimacy, he was not really interested in that. An extract from the book in his first person notes, ‘I had a plain aim: go to her house, make out and leave. I could not talk lovey-dovey too much. It finally struck her that I was a rascal who cared only for himself. (Actually, all the girls I have ever been with have had this same complaint about me. I would only come to them for my own needs. Otherwise, I might not even take their calls.)’.
The question that pops to mind about him recounting such private affairs is whether he was justified in taking Niharika’s name. Her reaction suggested that he had not taken her consent to do this. She spoke about him writing about her only to sell his book. And then she dropped some information about him too. She said that he had had a wife in his village and that he had kept this hidden from her when they had the relationship.