An Ordinary Life Read online

  As the alcohol started taking its effect, every single person began to talk more and more about themselves, their insecurities, their struggles, their depression that had morphed into wrath and resentment, and so forth. In spite of being heavily intoxicated, their insecure egos remained intact; so several of them would not tell each other that they had gone for the same audition. However, they had also decided that they could stop their pretence for a while because today they finally had this open platform to collectively vent their frustrations. Somebody shared a joke. Somebody shared a story. One person called Sitaram Panchwani, whom we lovingly called Sittu Bhaiya, began singing. (Tragically, he passed away recently after a brave battle with blood cancer.) He was among the jolliest persons I have ever met. He was an excellent singer and dancer and an actor par excellence. But his ultimate trait was his great sense of humour, laced heavily with mischief, which showcased itself through a split personality of sorts. Like, for instance, he would participate in a chat, taking one person’s side and suddenly just like that, he would switch sides and take the other person’s side. When confronted that he had swapped sides, he would say, ‘Arrey! But I was on that bugger’s side all the while. His perspective is correct.’ And again, he would swap sides, creating enormous confusion and hilarity. Then he would randomly begin singing. In the backdrop, everyone was getting tipsier and tipsier, and the hours of the hot afternoon spread like paint until they grew into the hues of dusk.

  Abhay Joshi, a good friend who also lives in Yari Road today, was quite a character among us. Another was a chap called Parminder—a talented writer who was once a professor in Patiala, Punjab, until he quit his relatively secure academic life to come to Mumbai and try his luck. Today he has disappeared, I wish I knew where to. Another character was Irshad Kamil, who is among India’s most famous lyricists today, having written lyrics for films like Rockstar, Chameli and Aashiqui 2. Altogether, there were slightly over thirty characters at Ghannu’s flat that day. We kept asking Abhay to shut the fuck up because Sittu Bhaiya was singing a lovely song and we’d rather listen to his melodious voice than to Abhay’s angst-ridden rant. But Abhay being completely intoxicated, had lost his senses. He simply would not stop. When we insisted that he do so, he lost his temper and went into a diarrhoea of abuses so awful that they are unmentionable. It was very unlike him. Neither did he ever get that angry nor did he ever speak like that again. We could barely recognize him. Just when we were trying to take it all in, he got up, turned, picked up the humongous pot of mutton and hurled it right across the room, throwing mutton everywhere and on everyone! As the utensil clattered against a wall, the hot curry dropped all over the pile of half-naked, drunk bodies which screamed all kinds of ma–behen gaalis in chorus. The poor little skeletal wretch of a guy who was sitting right near Joshi got the worst of it all. Boiling hot mutton was all over him. The people, the floor, the entire place now wore a writhing uniform of spicy, brown mutton curry. Everyone was stunned into silence. And it was in that pin-drop silence that Ghannu ultimately realized that his birthday was done for.

  He stood next to the other star of the party, the TV. Sittu Bhaiya was next to it, lying in the middle of the pile of mutton on the floor. They could not dine, but gosh, did they whine! Mutton curry was in everybody’s eyes and they whined and whined and whined about it. Actors love to perform and struggling ones who are starving for a stage, even more so. The latter tend to perform with extreme exaggeration. The line between reality and antics sometimes gets blurred. At that time, a bit of their performance had truth, but more than half of it was drama. An actor in those harsh times also performs in the hope of availing of at least a few drops of sympathy from somewhere. Some were laughing, almost theatrically. Some were crying crocodile tears. Many were fighting. Nobody had any idea what the hell was going on. (Normally, we record videos but strangely none were taken that day. Maybe each one of us was too busy performing to be behind a camera.)

  It was an ocean of chaos, not unlike a battlefield filled with confused soldiers. Somebody washed Sittu Bhaiya’s face with great difficulty. He came to his senses. Shortly after, he proceeded to leave and on his way, he winked at Ghannu. ‘Give me a Gold Flake at least, Ghannu!’ That was how our crowd was. Even as their eyes stung with traces of spicy mutton curry, they demanded smokes. The juxtaposition of Shakespearean comedy amidst rivers of personal tragedies was their existence.

  Some more of the drunkards started to come to their senses and began scooping up titbits of the star dish; whatever they could salvage, they did. Miraculously, there were still leftovers in the pot. It then struck them that since they had come all this way at least they should eat whatever they could of the feast. They were still a little tipsy though. And somebody began to randomly abuse the chap who had cooked the mutton. They gobbled the food and giggled simultaneously. ‘You made this seventeen-layer mutton dish?’ someone asked, laughing in ridicule. The rest joined in the derision, not realizing in the flow of their collective sarcasm that they had gotten the number of layers wrong. ‘What is this! Seventeen layers? Or shit?’ One began, others followed. As if like a race in which you pass the baton on, the chain of mean criticism went on and on. Their mouths performed the oxymoronic double duty of spewing out scornful remarks about the very dish they were lapping up like hungry dogs. They licked their fingers and wiped their plates clean and even packed up whatever little leftovers remained of the leftovers, to take home, never ceasing to complain about how awful the dish was as they walked out.

  The guy who had mainly cooked the dish was a relatively rich guy—he later shifted to Rajasthan; he actually owned the house and had given it on rent to Ghannu. In the end, it was just him and Ghannu who were left. Painstakingly, they wiped the mutton curry off the walls, cleaning their abode all night long until it looked habitable again.

  The very next morning, this same crowd returned, somewhat sober, but still slightly shameless. (Ghannu’s house was a sort of dharamshala. The key was kept at a certain secret place that everybody had access to. Everybody could go there to hang out or to make out with their girlfriends.) Now, the same guys who had fought, apologized to each other, saying let bygones be bygones. This sounded like an excellent idea and everyone concurred. So they sat down and got drunk again.

  Many such events happened all the time. One of these happened when Vijay Raaz had just become a big star, while I was still bitterly battling dark nights of struggle. Jeevan, who was Ghannu’s friend and lived with him, happened to be there. (Back then, he too was a struggling actor. But since success was so bloody hard to come by, he quit everything and headed to Delhi where he is today an established member of the Aam Aadmi Party.) Incidentally, Jeevan was also an old friend of Vijay Raaz’s; they were friends from their college days. He began to express his appreciation for Vijay Raaz, mildly at first, and soon enough moved on to build towers of praise. I was sitting there depressed in a corner, listening quietly. He went on and on, and it got louder and louder. I snapped and lost it! I asked him aggressively, ‘What’s so great about him, huh? What the fuck is so great about him?’ A pin-drop silence ensued. That is how these relationships were. I hung out with these guys and yet behaved like this, letting my ego get in the way. They were no different.

  Some days later, Vijay Raaz—who like another friend, Sonu, used to affectionately call me Bakri—confronted me. ‘Bakri, what were you saying about me to Jeevan?’

  I said nothing.

  ‘Have I offended you? Have I said anything to you? Or about you? What, yaar!’ he said, confused about why I had behaved that way.

  Slowly, softly I began to string some words together to explain exactly why. ‘Jeevan was raving about you,’ I said in a low voice. ‘He was going on and on and on. I lost it.’ My voice got firmer. ‘Why are you so great, Vijay Raaz? I am also no less of an actor. In fact, if there is one thing brilliant about me, it is my acting. The only difference is that you are successful today. And I am not. You are a star and I am not. But that does not m
ean that you are a fantastic actor and I am not.’

  * * *

  Our little tribe of struggling actors grew, and in spite of our cruelty, insanity and selfishness, we were together. It became a sort of a dysfunctional family. We strangled each other, but also looked out for each other in strange ways. Once, Jogibhai called up another friend, Hemant Mishra, who too was parched for work, several times about a shoot but the bugger was not answering. So he called Ghannu and asked him to go up to Hemant’s apartment and inform him. Ghannu went to his house and rang the doorbell. There was no response. He pressed it hard and long, and yet no response. He tried and tried several times. Just when he was about to give up and leave, a voice came from inside. ‘Who?’ Ghannu answered, ‘Ji main, Ghannu!’ They were friends but the bugger would not open the door. He was a bit of a stoner. Rumours had it that he even had a pretty little line of pots of marijuana plants growing healthily in his balcony. So again, Ghannu rang the bell. Again he asked, ‘Who?’ Again he answered, ‘It’s me, Ghannu!’ This strange scene might have been repeated three times. Then finally, he decided to bestow upon Ghannu the grace of opening his front door.

  ‘Haan, bhai. Tell,’ he said.

  ‘Tomorrow, you have a shoot of Sahib, Bibi aur Ghulam,’ said Ghannu. ‘They have asked you to wear a white shirt and a pair of black pants.’

  ‘I don’t do such shoots. Get lost,’ he declared, slamming the door on Ghannu’s face.

  He was one of India’s finest actors, but was starved of work. He did not have the luxury of choice or even the right to make such declarations in that kind of a desperate situation. And yet, he refused to go to such shoots where he had to bring his own clothes. Such is our breed I guess.

  There were days when he smoked up so much that he could not even utter dialogues. Once, perhaps subconsciously inspired by him, I decided to do a little experiment. I too got high, just a little high, not too much, and went on a shoot. I had no idea that it would make me so sleepy that the dialogues I had just worked so hard on learning seemed like I had mugged them up a month ago. When the director said ‘Action!’, I began saying my lines. But they were haphazard and out of sequence. The beginning went to the end, the end to the middle, and so on. The entire flow, and therefore the entire scene, was ruined. The director lost it. ‘What the hell is wrong with you? Why are you saying the latter stuff first, and the first stuff last?’ he shouted. ‘At least I am saying the lines!’ I said. How could I tell him that while I appeared all right externally, from the inside I was done for! My experiment failed badly. I pulled my ears and swore to never repeat this again.

  * * *

  Having no money to eat was a daily phenomenon for us. There was a time when I was with Ghannu in Vanrai and even he was in the same boat. He could not even get groceries on credit from the local grocer because his bills there were already overdue and he had no way to pay him. We put our minds together to devise a meal. A boy called Rakesh had recently come from NSD to Mumbai. New arrivals always had a bit of money. We called him Rakesh Kaala—the surname bestowed lovingly by his friends as an ode to his skin colour. Ghannu called him to congratulate him on his arrival and asked him that since he was now in Mumbai, should he come and meet him? And Nawaz Bhai was with him as well, so should both of us come? Our phone call was made strategically at lunchtime. ‘Come, come, please come. I will make you a wonderful dal you’ll never forget. And steaming hot rotis,’ he said. ‘No! No! Don’t go into so much trouble. We were simply calling to congratulate you,’ said Ghannu. ‘No! No! You must come. My dal is out of this world,’ he insisted to our concealed delight. And so we went to his house.

  As we chatted, he put the lentils in the pressure cooker and all of us went to the living area to continue our conversation. Fifteen fretful minutes of hunger passed. ‘Bhai Rakesh, your dal is cooking and yet there is no sound of a whistle from your cooker. What’s wrong?’ I asked him. ‘Arrey, Nawaz Bhai, I am cooking, right? You don’t need to worry at all. You please relax. Sit here comfortably. And tell me, what all are you up to? We have so much to catch up on. Your picture is coming, right?’ he said and we got talking about Sarfarosh.

  Half an hour passed, without the whisper of a whistle. Again, I asked him. Again, he replied, ‘Arrey, Nawaz Bhai, I am cooking, right? You relax. Trust me.’ I was dying of impatience but, of course, my impatience could not risk exposure. ‘Should I help?’ I volunteered. ‘Please let me.’ He got up, ‘Arrey, Nawaz Bhai. No! No! No way! You sit, please.”

  An entire hour crawled by, the only sounds were those of our voices. Again, I asked him. Again, he said, ‘No! No! You are my guest. Sit!’

  Some minutes later, I could take this polite torture no more and furiously stormed into the kitchen to investigate. And guess what I found? The gas stove had not been turned on in the first place! No wonder there were no whistles. It was like a story from a Chacha Chaudhary comic, only our brains did not work as fast as his.

  ‘Kameena (Rascal)! For one entire hour you made us sit and wait!’ we wailed.

  Finally we cooked together, then ate as much as we could—who knew when the next meal would be? But, for now, we felt like kings, and then surrendering to food coma, we took a peaceful siesta. When we woke up, Rakesh Kala said that he had gotten a particular address and a phone number and he had to go there. ‘Ghannu, Nawaz Bhai, please, both of you also come.’

  So the next morning at around eleven, we went with Rakesh Kala to look for this address in Yari Road, near the Mandir Masjid area. We spent all morning hunting. Morning turned to evening but we could not find the place. Only after snatching the paper from Rakesh Kala did we realize why. It turned out that he was looking for Bihari Road, not Yari Road! So he was looking for an address that did not exist. I whacked him under the ear. ‘Saale, Bihari Road will be in Bihar or in Maharashtra! Use your bloody common sense!’ After an entire day of futility, we returned to our respective homes.

  Religious differences did not matter to us. Near Shirdi, which is famed for its temple of Sai Baba, is the Shani Shingnapur Mandir. Once, a whole bunch of us—Rajpal Yadav, Sanjay Sonu, Vijay Raaz, Ghannu and myself—went up there together to pray for luck. Whoever entered the temple must wear new clothes, bathe as per Hindu rituals, and then wear the attire they give you at the temple. All of us did this with full faith; it did not matter what conservative religious upbringing we had.

  Religion never divided us. Our debates were more creative in nature. Ghannu’s little room was a hub for these hot discussions. People would burst in at odd hours to find the place already teeming with mates engaged in passionate debates. ‘What do you know about acting?’ That was often the spark to start it all. Fights would happen. Phone calls would be made. That day, when all these artistes were swimming in mutton, one friend, Joshi, called a friend, Yogesh, to discuss this subject. But partially due to the heat of the moment and partially due to the fact that he was tipsy, he dialled Yashpal, another friend who lived in Delhi. He abused him for almost an hour before finally allowing Yashpal to speak and enlighten him that he was Yashpal and not Yogesh. And every fight would wrap up with concerns about food and what we should cook.

  Once, Hemant Mishra and another member of our tribe called Jarnel had a massive quarrel. Jarnel had cooked some mutton. He then asked another friend to go to Hemant’s house to deliver it. He rang the doorbell. Hemant opened the door. ‘Jarnel has sent this mutton for you,’ said the friend. Hemant slapped him so hard that the bowl of mutton fell to the floor. ‘Beta, I did not slap you. I slapped Jarnel. Go and tell him that,’ he said and slammed the door. The poor boy, beaten up for no reason, began to cry badly.

  Another time, I followed a girl, my junior from NSD, in Mumbai while she was going to the bus stop. I was completely inconspicuous to her but I had a massive crush on her. Then I noticed another man ahead of me who had been following her as well. It happened to be my buddy Rajpal! We were following the same girl in exactly the same way.

  That is how our days were. We f
ought, we bonded, we partied, we abused each other, we beat each other up . . . But those days were priceless. Even if we were cruel to each other, our friendships were priceless.

  14

  Relationships

  I was performing in a play in Mumbai which was when I finally had my first romantic relationship. Incidentally, she too happened to be an NSD graduate, though we had never met there. It was very sweet, 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 brushstroke, 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.