Had Bollywood not happened to Nawazuddin Siddiqui, we would have probably found him in a blue or grey uniform, sitting at the gates of a posh housing society in Mumbai.
Or probably, he would have lurked around the theatre scene, barely managing two square meals a day.
Bollywood changed his fortunes and made a hero out of this humble security guard.
Had Bollywood not happened, the same English-speaking, ‘high society’ women like Niharika Singh, would have firmly stayed only in his lurid fantasies.
Perhaps the only interaction that he could have managed, would be a brief, ‘Salaam Madam’.
But Bollywood turned him into what he is today — Nawazuddin Siddiqui, the famous Bollywood star.
However, so many years in Mumbai and so many films later, Nawazuddin Siddiqui hasn’t learnt a thing about the word ‘consent’.
We expected Mumbai and Bollywood to educate him. Clearly everybody has failed.
You might say that Nawazuddin Siddiqui is immensely talented as an actor. I concur. No doubt, he is. He has a sea of acting talent in him.
But this is a fact that there are thousands of Nawazs out there in the cold waiting to be discovered and perhaps never will be. He is one of the lucky ones who was provided with the spotlight.
Also, remember one more important thing, his acting talent has got NOTHING to do with the kind of person he is today.
Do or say whatever you want to, you won’t be able to change the humble beginnings of Nawazuddin Siddiqui — a tiny village in the interiors of North West Uttar Pradesh called Budhana (in Muzaffarnagar district) which has a literacy rate of just under 50 per cent.
Nawaz was never ashamed of how he was brought up. On the contrary, he is rather proud of it and refers to it frequently during his interviews.
Thanks to his big Bollywood break, Nawaz actually got to kiss a woman (Niharika Singh) for the first time. Yes, believe it or not, the first time he was able to kiss a woman was in front of a movie camera with tens of people surrounding him.
But trust Nawaz to remember it and describe it to the press later as the ‘first kiss’ of his life.
Don’t be surprised.
Imagine the background — a rustic, backward villager is suddenly catapulted into success and he sees himself surrounded by a bevy of ‘upmarket’ ladies who he has only seen on magazine covers or on the screen of the only nearby cinema hall that was 300 kilometres miles away from his village.
The women he had been in contact with in Budhana either stay in their humble huts cooking on a chulha or sweat it out in the wheat fields.
So, he conveniently did what most people from the same background would do — try to have sex with the women who are clearly out of his league.
That’s exactly what happened when Nawaz started shooting for Miss Lovely, headlined by Niharika Singh, the winner of Femina Miss India Earth, an alumnus of All Saint’s College, Nainital. Singh dropped out of the prestigious Lady Shri Ram College in New Delhi in the second year as she represented India (and won awards too) at the Miss India Earth title in Phillipines.
Nawaz’s reflects in the lurid, titillating passages of his autobiography and proudly describes how he ‘used’ Niharika Singh as a sex object.
The description smacks of conquest rather than love.
Here is the first passage where Nawaz indicates that Niharika Singh fell in love with him while shooting for the film Miss Lovely. Nothing wrong there. But then Nawaz’s imagination takes over.
He describes in great detail how Niharika Singh ‘lured’ Nawaz into her bedroom which will give you a sense that Niharika was madly in love with him and desperately wanted to sleep with him.
He also goes on to say (this is his own signed admission, mind you) that she invited him over to her house on the pretext of cooking mutton for him.
Do the above lines sound exaggerated to you? It sure does to me.
Then Nawaz narrates how Niharika Singh started nagging him and expected him to be a loving boyfriend. Nothing wrong there again. Any woman in a relationship would demand that.
But Nawaz again admits on record that all he needed was sex from her and he would leave her apartment as soon as he was done.
He also admits (on record) that Niharika dumped him the moment she realised his true intentions.
1. Is this version of the story correct?
‘No’, says Niharika.
2. Did Nawazuddin Siddiqui inform Niharika that he is going to write about their affair in such graphic details?
‘No’, says Niharika.
3. Did Nawaz take Niharika’s consent before revealing her identity to the whole world?
‘No’, says Niharika.
Here is her statement.
This means Nawaz not only wrote this ‘story’ without her knowledge, he went about publicising the release of his autobiography based on this story knowing fully well what it would do to the reputation of Niharika Singh.
He even admitted it in veiled manner yesterday that he was fully aware that Niharika’s name will be sullied in the industry and that it would greatly upset her.
He could have still gone ahead with his story without publishing Niharika’s name but that would have meant less publicity as nobody is interested in blind items. So, he did what you and me (those educated in proper schools) wouldn’t think of doing in the first place — he revealed Niharika’s true identity to the world as a woman who ‘enticed’ Nawaz into her bed.
All this without her consent or knowledge, effectively throwing her to the cannibalistic gossip mongers who thrive on the fringes of Bollywood.
The result is for all of you to see — the press has woken up to the fact that Niharika Singh exists and her phone has not stopped buzzing since.
Her name and photo is splashed across websites, most of them painting her as a woman with high libido, who went to bed with a man like Nawazuddin Siddiqui.
Incidentally, Niharika is not the only woman he has spoken about in his book, he has also spoken about a waitress from New York with equal disdain with whom he had a one night stand.
He has also written about a Jewish girl, who he was two-timing with Niharika (again, as per his own admission in his autobiography).
(Update: Nawazuddin Siddiqui was actually three-timing. Niharika Singh has now revealed that Nawaz never told her and his Jewish girlfriend that he had a wife tucked away in his village)
Those passages too were leaked to the press as a precursor to the release of his autobiography.
What does this say about the kind of man Nawazuddin Siddiqui is?
I have gone through several autobiographies by film stars in India and nobody has ever disrespected a woman like the way Nawaz has done to Niharika Singh.
Though Nawazuddin’s acting talent evolved with time, the villager in him quite didn’t migrate to Mumbai.
That is why I say that deep inside his mind, Nawaz is still the same security guard who lusts after educated English-speaking, career women in a posh housing society. The kind of woman who would never even acknowledge his ‘Salaam’ on their way out.
But you see, Nawaz is the lucky guy. He is the lucky villager from Uttar Pradesh who has been able to bed the women of his dreams — a national beauty pageant winner, a blonde waitress from New York…. the list goes on.
Congratulations Nawaz! I am now going to buy your book in the hope that you have given more lurid details of your candlelight encounters with your women.
Hope you are celebrating with your brethren in your rustic village, Nawaz. You have done something that most of your childhood friends can only fantacise about.
Heartiest congratulations to you.
PS: For the record and context, there was actually a police complaint (FIR) lodged against him for assaulting a woman in a parking lot (Nawazuddin has maintained that he is innocent).
Bollywood Journalist 
written in very poor taste..which possibly far exceeds the ‘poor taste’ of the subject. repeated reference to village and poverty and class difference only shows how irked and vulnerable is this writer to see somebody breach the economic barrier. Wish her luck with her entitled outrage…..
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Dear DirtRoad, You are anonymous. I am not. You haven’t applied your brains here. Let me help you. We all knew about Nawazuddin’s past and his affairs. For more than a decade. Yes. Yet, there is not a single article where we have outraged about it. You know why? Because it is normal? But not caring about a woman’s consent is NOT normal. Sullying her reputation is not normal. This is what he has done. He has not risen beyond his parochial mindset, this is what we are screaming about. Hope you get it now.
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Dear DirtRoad,
If you read the article well, you would realise that the writer has no issues with Nawaz being a man from a village, but the fact that he doesnt know how to act responsible. If you are at a position where you can influence young minds, you cannot promote an attitude that doesn’t not approve concent. The actress wasn’t asked if the book could use her name or her private moments for publicity. This is what the writer here has an issue with. I hope and pray that you learn to look beyond your favourite actor.
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Dear DirtRoad,
If you read the article properly the writer here has no issues with Nawaz being from a village his issue is that Nawaz has no sensibility of thinking once before using a ladys name and her personal moments for his books publicity without her ‘CONCENT’. He broke a person’s trust. What she did with him was in her private room because she trusted him.
If you are at a level where you can influence minds, influence them in the right direction and not towards where he can use and throw a ladys trust. I hope you re read the article and see beyond just your favourite star.
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Yeah, the author almost sounds like he wanted to sleep with Niharika and appears jealous that Nawaz got to sleep with the Nainital lass but he couldn’t.
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Dear someone, as part of the wordpress press settings, I get your exact location, device, IP address and some other details in the advance settings. So as a moderator, I have an idea who you are. We don’t publish comments here that are flimsy and targeted just for harassment. We won’t expose you but you surely expose your mentality by saying that I wrote the article because I want to sleep with Niharika. I will still not expose you but would forewarn you that any further comment would only expose you more and more.
If you criticise the article and you have a valid criticism (even if its harsh) we will publish it.
There is a reason why we don’t publish comments like yours, engaging with nameless people like you takes away our time. It’s not worth it.
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Anon: the first rule of civil discourse and critical thinking: attack the argument and not the author.
Soumyadipta: what’s even odder about Nawaz’s personal narrative is that he did a degree at NSD, and obviously learned nothing about treating women respectfully, as fellow humans. There are plenty of educated, talented women who come to train there, even though they may not be from well to do families.
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Nawaz must be glad he and his ‘affair’ is news now! Unfortunately People will pick up this biography (value of raddi or toilet paper) only to read the juicy encounter! It is pertinent to understand why Nawaz needs a biography! My Kashmiri watchman has more meaningful story after being discriminated (after a Kashmiri boy raped and killer a lawyer) to continue being polite, offer courtesy- it only shows that every watchman cannot be Nawaz but Nawaz just showed that he can’t be graceful to turn a leaf which my watchman did gracefully! Move on Nawaz you are worthy of what your thoughts are! You are a man on that stool by the door!
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Nawaz was caught up in a domestic violence case back in his village in 2016, and I thought he was just getting dragged into the mud by his vindictive bhabi. Now, I am not so sure. This is pure patriarchal mentality, spectacularly displayed. Doesn’t matter if you’re privileged enough to escape the village rut and become successful in a cosmopolitan city like Bombay. I guess, classy behaviour is something else, it has to be earned, much more difficult than breaking into bollywood stardom.
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Oddly this article reminded me of an incident where my husband was very upset, he couldn’t believe how this office chai wala was boasting about his 1st night with his wife. He was telling this to everyone at work, showing a picture of theirs from the wedding, he had told all the lads (who had attended his wedding) the next day on how many times and the different positions he had tried with his wife on their first very night together. He was also a villager from UP who had left his wife behind in his village and had come back to his work in delhi.
I worried to how the perspective of those local guys who had heard his stories might have changed about his wife. He dint care, he just enjoyed boasting about it.
Nawaz is a brilliant actor but that doesn’t make him a better person. To narrate your torrid love story like this is without any concern doesn’t make you any better than the chai wala at my husband’s work.
Is Nawaz writing his auto biography or an erotica? As a woman I hope such men never ever get any women in their life so that they can disrespect them.
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Oddly this article reminds me of a time when my husband was clearly annoyed with the chai wala I had caught him screaming at him in his office. This guy had just come back from UP after his wedding and I couldn’t understand wh at couldve gone so wrong. This chai wala was narrating his 1st night stories to every man in the office. Ofcourse all the men were trying to trouble him asking him embarrassing questions (which is not new) but this guy was giving all graphic details along with how many times and different position.
He apparently had started telling these stories from the very next morning, to the local lads who I feared wouldn’t ever be able to look at his wife with respect. Who was still in the village because of some ritual they have of keeping the wife with her in laws for a year or so. But he was back to delhi alone to resume his job. But I realised he dint care what his friends in the village must be thinking of her, but he was enjoying boasting about it.
Nawaz is a brilliant actor, but this doesn’t make him a good man. Money never makes you a good person. Your thoughts, attitude and behaviour makes you a good human.
If Nawaz has done exactly what the chai wala had done then, he is no better a person than him!! You can’t talk about your intimate details with someone else be it a man or a woman you’ve had your encounter with . PEROID!
As a woman I hope and pray that such men never get any women in their life because these men don’t know 1 how to respect the other person who has trusted them with all her heart and 2) because they still don’t understand that there is something called as privacy. Private moments are to be kept private!!!
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Why are you deleting my comment, Bollywood Journalist? Did I hurt you? Awww
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We have answered you earlier. Here is the answer one more time.
Regards,
Soumyadipta
Dear someone, as part of the wordpress settings, I get your exact location, device, IP address and some other details in the advance settings. So as a moderator, I have an idea who you are. We don’t publish comments here that are flimsy and targeted just for harassment. We won’t expose you but you surely expose your mentality by saying that I wrote the article because I want to sleep with Niharika. I will still not expose you but would forewarn you that any further comment would only expose you more and more.
If you criticise the article and you have a valid criticism (even if its harsh) we will publish it.
There is a reason why we don’t publish comments like yours, engaging with nameless people like you takes away our time. It’s not worth it.
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This article is patronizing and dripping with classism. Just replace “villager” with “dalit” or “African” and see how totally inappropriate and unacceptable this article becomes. Your prejudice is deafening.
Now, I agree completely that it is highly inappropriate and unethical for Nawaz to publish the intimate details of a love affair or relationship without obtaining consent of the relationship partner – man or woman – especially if he is naming names.
But how does this “tarnish” or “sully” *her* reputation in any way? She’s a grown adult in a consentual relationship with another grown adult. Turn the tables… if Niharika wrote an autobiography saying she was in a brief affair with Nawaz to use him for sex, would you claim that Nawaz’ reputation had been tarnished?
It’s your notion that a woman’s reputation can be ruined by such claims which is patriarchal, parochial, sexist, and last-century. In fact, to my ears, your backwards notion of a woman being devalued because of non-marital sex is much worse than Nawaz doing a kiss and tell.
Privacy and discretion and trust are essential to ethical behavior, but because they matter in and of themselves, not because the higher goal is to protect a woman’s –
and only a woman’s – reputation.
Ironically, where I live, if a guy were to publish such a thing, it’s his reputation that would be ruined, not hers. Now that he’s admitted that he only uses women for sex, I’ll be sure to not answer my door if he comes knocking lol. Plus I am not interested in contracting an STD, which I am sure that men who sleep around are carriers for.
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Hi there,
That you think the article is sexist, is your point of view. That part cannot be contested, you are entitled to it.
Whatever happens in your country, again you know best.
But in Bollywood, things don’t work this way. There is a reason why women in Bollywood don’t talk about their relationships. Once their secret relationships come out, they are subjected to gossip and scores of articles are written about them and published online and offline. The Bollywood gossip mill is a million dollar industry in itself. So yes it affects her reputation.
It also incidentally affects her profession. Bollywood is largely unorganized and still run by a few powerful people. They are all divided into camps. Once you get exposed in a relationship or out of it, you automatically lose out on chances of working with the people who are close to your former partner.
In this case, it is likely that all friends of Nawaz will stay away from casting Niharika in their projects because they don’t want to upset Nawaz and want to continue their association with him.
Remember Here, Nawaz is in a position of power and influence, not Niharika.
Lastly, patriarchy and mentality is the way you speak about your women, that’s applicable anywhere in the world. In placed like rural Uttar Pradesh, patriarchy is nauseating and actually a mob culture so deep rooted that it will perhaps take a hundred years to uproot.
So, to understand where I come from and my words, you need to understand the problem of patriarchy in India.
You take care and have a nice day.
Regards,
Soumyadipta
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https://www.ndtv.com/entertainment/nawazuddin-siddiqui-talks-about-his-one-night-stand-with-waitress-almost-two-timing-and-more-1765870
An underdog persevered in the creative realm driven single-mindedly, focussed & dedicated to one’s pursuits burning all boats & leaving it all behind, a leap of faith from that bridge where everyone tells you not to jump into the great unknown of uncertainties or wake up spiritless in a boulevard of broken dreams when ambition has wrecked it to bits … Faith in one’s own abilities and a crazy dream that it can be achieved with mad dog determination, only if you keep at it long enough, that you’ll get there someday. It’s a long lonely pursuit in this highly insecure and fickle profession & along the way rarely do you come across people in this line of work who share your views, your enthusiasm & who’s company makes these hardships bearable & persisting as an artist worthwhile. An ordinary life takes an extraordinary turn through serendipity (not undermining the talent). When Fortune takes a shine on you, the doors of privilege are held wide open.
Love blossoms under the strangest of circumstances. Abstrusities of the heart cannot be articulated , best expressed delicately only through poetry. Two people lose themselves in time, in a microcosm that is exclusively their own, blissfully disconnected from the harsh realities of life. That space is their private domain. It’s their sanctuary … their refuge … their secret garden. Memories that were created and lived ‘together’ as their love bloomed. It holds sanctity … it truly meant something only to the lovers who were fortunate enough to have been able to experience the joys and magic of the love they had discovered. It’s an intensely personal treasure trove of indelible experiences.
Is it then gentlemanly, with the demise of the relationship to have exclusively held the key to that secret garden all along, and when suited to your convenience, ravaged and plundered all that you once held so dear, by trivialising those priceless memories reducing them to cheap gimmickry in such an exploitative manner. Isn’t this blatant abuse of privilege ? A privilege afforded to you by so many mystical variables that fell into place at the right time, over which you had no control over, in the larger scheme of things. When you think back in retrospect in a memoir, shouldn’t one be reflecting upon such things rather than petty glorification of sexual conquests as any ‘ordinary’ chauvinist would do. With no compunctions whatsoever that the people you are reminiscing about perhaps value their privacy immensely and are peers working alongside, still trying to gain a foothold in this most difficult realm of work. It’s basic decency that you don’t name a living person ( especially a known personality/ more so a paramour ) in a memoir if it brings any potential unwelcome repercussions. (Even Brando respected that unsaid decorum in his autobiography). It’s the lowest panders of a venal publication & the nadir of journalism if the subject (himself didn’t have the gumption, scruples or) wasn’t made aware of this absolutely critical aspect which has been so flagrantly disregarded.
There was a beautiful scene in Saving Private Ryan , a conversation between Matt Damon’s char. Ryan & Tom Hank’s’ char. Captain Miller –
Captain Miller: Well when I think of home, I… I think of something specific. I think of my, my hammock in the backyard or my wife pruning the rosebushes in a pair of my old work gloves.
Private Ryan: This, this one night, two of my brothers came and woke me up in the middle of the night. And they said they had a surprise for me. ( goes about narrating a juvenile, giggly anecdote) That was two years ago. Tell me about your wife and those rosebushes?
Captain Miller: No, no that one I save just for me ….
Alas, an ordinary life was given extraordinary opportunities, but the evolution as a person, a gentleman has been far from it. A great person could be a great actor , but the converse doesn’t necessarily have to be true.
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https://www.mid-day.com/articles/nawazuddin-siddiqui-people-are-thriving-on-mediocrity-in-bollywood/19827173
Nawazuddin still doesn’t get it. He says”I was judged based on five pages of my 209-page-long memoir. The relationships in my life mere made five pages of the whole book, but that was sensational for everyone.” Lets say, I buy him best clothes and perfumes and take him to a 5 star hotel in a Limousine. There I slap him senseless for 30 seconds in front of everyone and then proceed to order awesome 10-course dinner for him. What will he remember?
He keeps talking about some TRUTH- some god given gospel, as if he is some kind of a prophet. NO, he is not a prophet of any sorts. He is merely getting space in the media because he is the flavour of the season. By hurting other people in the garb of speaking truth is self-serving and immature. Being a decent human is better than a false prophet.
Nawazuddin is either naive or pretending to be one regarding the biopic. Everybody has something positive and trying to show only that without showing how they have harmed people in the name of religion and regionalism is called WHITEWASHING. So, its good he is getting lot of work, but PLEASE, give us break from this PR talk about great acting oppurtunities. This is why lot of people find Bollywood hypocritical and disgusting.
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