Why Indian cinema doesn't deserve Nawazuddin Siddiqui

Haunted by his wife’s death, who died while trying to cross a mountain, Dashrath Manjhi chisels away at the very same mountain for over 20 years to carve a path through the 360ft long, 30m wide and 25ft high hillock. Had the mountain not been there, Dashrath could have taken his injured wife to a hospital through a 15km route instead of the 55km one that separated their village from the nearest town.

Now, imagine a film based on Dashrath Manjhi. If anything, this real-life story doesn’t need to inject any more drama. Yet, Ketan Mehta’s Manjhi - The Mountain Man (2015) ends up getting it wrong.

However, the film is still effective largely because of Nawazuddin Siddiqui, the actor who plays the title character. In the longer run, the film might find a hallowed place in the list of exclusive Bollywood biopics that aren’t based on famous people. But in the short run, the audacity of real life Dashrath Manji might unwittingly display the tragedy of the reel-life Manjhi, Nawazuddin Siddiqui.

In the three years since his breakthrough role in Gangs of Wasseypur I (2012), which transformed the familiar face that had been struggling for almost a decade and a half into an overnight star, Siddiqui has been called one of the finest actors in India.

Yet, somewhere, Bollywood doesn’t know what to do with this powerhouse of talent. Shatrughan Sinha has even labelled Siddiqui the find of the century and the cinema that allowed the former to metamorphose from a popular villain into a leading actor is at a loss with Siddiqui.

The way Dashrath Manjhi’s story - which can put the best minds in fiction to shame - doesn’t need any embellishments in order to convey the drama, Siddiqui has proved time and again that he doesn’t need a special role to come up with a character that the viewer wouldn’t be able to forget in a hurry.

Perhaps that’s the reason that the critics, as well as the audience, recalled him in New York (2009) or Peepli [Live] (2010) and thanks to his impressive presence in Paan Singh Tomar (2012) and Kahaani (2012), he was more than a known face by the time he appeared as Faizal Khan in the first part of Gangs of Wasseypur I.

The lavish praise from critics and the adulation of the audience didn’t translate into people thronging to cinema halls to see Siddiqui perform in the sequel, which was essentially centred on his character, Faizal Khan.

As interesting as it was to see Siddiqui’s brief role garner more acclaim than the main lead, played by Manoj Bajpayee in Gangs of Wasseypur I, it was as surprising to learn that the sequel couldn’t attract as much attention.

2012 was a watershed year for Siddiqui, who was largely out of work for years and made ends meet by conducting acting workshops. The year saw two of his films, Gangs of Wasseypur and Miss Lovely (2012) being featured at the Cannes film festival.

The extent of Siddiqui’s struggle could be judged from the fact that the former alumnus of the prestigious National School of Drama (NSD) once featured in a nondescript role next to Aamir Khan in Sarfarosh (1999) and, post-2012, found himself in a top-billed role next to the same star in Talaash (2012).

Siddiqui’s tenacity to catch a break is the kind of tale dreams are made of - the way reams were dedicated to the hardships that he underwent in his journey from Budhana, a small town of Muzaffarnagar district in Uttar Pradesh, to being one of the most sought after names in Bollywood is a testimony of that. The actor, too, has never shied away from sharing details of how he couldn’t even manage to make Rs 250 a month, which was his share of the rent for the flat he shared with six to eight people in the late 1990s when he shifted to Mumbai after graduating from NSD, or how he slept on an empty stomach for nights on end when he was out of work.

Even after Gangs of Wasseypur was screened at the Directors' Fortnight at Cannes and enjoyed great press along with a standing ovation, the topic of interest for a major section of the press was how designers whom he had approached refused to tailor a tuxedo for his appearance at the festival.

Perhaps the manner in which Siddiqui went from being a non-entity to the "Breakthrough Talent" at the GQ Men of the Year Awards, 2012, only made the story of his difficulties in getting there more poignant. It made for a good copy for scribes and unfortunate as it is, it still makes for the best copy when one thinks of Nawazuddin Siddiqui.

What’s more unfortunate is the fact that backstory seems to inspire filmmakers more than Nawaz’s powerhouse of talent. Many of them seem to be mistaken like the legendary American filmmaker Frank Capra, who, for years, thought that drama was when the actors cried on screen only to realise that real drama was when the audience cried. In the last four years, if one were to omit Kahaani and Paan Singh Tomar that he must have signed prior the release of GOW, Siddiqui has had about ten releases and amongst them, his performances in The Lunchbox, Badlapur and Bajrangi Bhaijaan stand out.

Even in these, it’s only in Badlapur where he has a central role and, therefore, Manjhi was an important film for him as this was his in every sense of the word. Suffice to say with the kind of a letdown that Manjhi has been in respect of the potential it had for Siddiqui as an actor, Bollywood hasn’t been able to do justice to Siddiqui. Not yet, at least.

But the bigger question is that will the trade not allow him to go beyond good supporting acts like in Gangs of Wasseypur I, The Lunchbox or Bajrangi Bhaijaan? Much like Ketan Mehta going over the top with histrionics in a story that is filled with natural drama and ruining the possibility of making a great film in the bargain, could the industry, as well as the media’s silent obsession with Siddiqui’s real-life voyage, hamper his reel-life prospects? There seems to be greater focus on the fashion in which Siddiqui arrived than in giving him something truly substantial now that he’s here.

Strange as it may sound, like Konstantin Stanislavsky, the father of the famous "method" acting urged his students to "Love art in yourself, and not yourself in art", the industry needs to give the art within Nawazuddin Siddiqui a tad more chance than the man himself. For it will be a tragedy if someone born with the ability to change perspectives is made to squander away his unique gift.