Nawazuddin Siddiqui's comic turn

‘It takes courage to make a fool of oneself’, Charlie Chaplin's motto seems to be the inspiration for actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui as he gets ready to play a comic role for the first time in his Hindi film career in Dhoomketu, produced by Anurag Kashyap.

Siddiqui has till now played serious roles such as that of Asghar Yusuf Mukadam, Dawood Ibrahim’s henchman, in Black Friday (2004); local journalist Rakesh Kapoor in Peepli Live (2010); Intelligence Bureau officer A Khan in Kahaani (2012); and Faizal Khan in Gangs of Wasseypur-Part II, who merrily emptied a gun into his enemy Ramadhir Singh. "Shooting for Dhoomketu will start in October and get over in December. Anurag is also acting in the movie,” reveals Siddiqui, on a visit to his alma mater, National School of Drama (NSD) in New Delhi.

Lunch Box, which releases next month, will also see Siddiqui in a light-hearted role. Also coming up is Mountain Man on the life of Dashrath Majhi, who singlehandedly cut a road through Bihar’s Gehlour hills after his wife died because he could not take her to the hospital in a nearby town 70 km away.     

Ask him whether a comic role will be a challenge and Siddiqui's reply reminds you of Chaplin — “In comedy, you should think that you are not smart but a fool.”

Besides, at NSD, Siddiqui reveals, he was known for his comic roles. “A majority of the plays I did at NSD were comedies and people would turn up to see me in those plays." Among these are a Sanskrit comedy called Abhimarak directed by B V Karanth in which he played the vidushak (jester), Ek Cigarette by B R Ankur, Dus Din ka Anshan by Vaman Kendre and Leena by Saurabh. He also acted in plays by Moliere, the great French satirist, and in plays made in the Parsi theatre style popular in the late 19th-early 20th century, and known for their loud dialogue and melodrama. Siddiqui will, undoubtedly, draw from this experience for his comic roles on the big screen.

The actor also has a fun side, reveals his NSD batchmate and roommate Rajeev Gaursingh, and “would pull a lot of pranks on our batchmates".

Siddiqui's experience with comedies didn’t, however, help him in Mumbai. “When I moved to the city in 2000, my appearance made people think that I could not do comic roles. They preferred me more for intense and serious roles,” says Siddiqui. But even these roles were few and far between as Siddiqui struggled to get a break. Sometimes, he even thought of quitting. 

But there was humour too in the struggle. “Once a friend asked for Rs 50, and said that he too would put in Rs 50 and by evening earn Rs 500. Somebody had advised him to buy coriander leaves from Dadar wholesale market and start selling it. But whoever advised him didn’t tell him that coriander leaves need to be sprinkled with water. So the leaves dried and the entire money was wasted,” he says laughing.

Siddiqui plans to visit NSD more often in the coming months and watch the comic plays staged there to reconnect with his comic skills.

(With inputs from Neeraj Thakur and Priyanka Sahay)