MUMBAI: It is a story worthy of a Bollywood plot: the son of a north Indian farmer, one of nine children, rising to become the face of independent Hindi cinema.
But Nawazuddin Siddiqui is still getting used to his success.
“When someone is looking at me, I feel they are looking at someone standing behind me, not at me,” the 40-year-old confessed to AFP during an interview at a Mumbai hotel.
“I have not got used to it and I won’t allow myself to feel like a star.”
Winning awards for his roles in internationally-feted films such as “Gangs of Wasseypur” in 2012 and “The Lunchbox” the following year, Siddiqui has become one of India’s most respected actors.
It is a long way from his humble beginnings in Uttar Pradesh state, where he became the first graduate from his village with a degree in chemistry.
After training at Delhi’s National School of Drama, smitten with acting, he landed his first film appearance in the 1999 Aamir Khan movie “Sarfarosh” (Fervour), and moved to Mumbai, the entertainment capital, in 2000.
But he faced years of struggle and bit parts, often earning little cash, before he really became established.
The year 2012 was perhaps his best to date: along with the Wasseypur gangster epic and “Miss Lovely,” both selected for the Cannes Film Festival, he turned heads in crime thrillers “Kahaani” (Story) and “Talaash” (Search).
He said his family are still surprised by how far he has come.
“And you cannot blame them. I am a five-foot six-inch, dark, ordinary-looking man. People didn’t imagine that I would make it,” he said.
“It is the mindset of our country too, that people like (me) don’t become stars. Maybe it’s a result of 200 years of colonial rule.”
Being this “ordinary-looking” outsider to a dynastic industry, Siddiqui struggled to get a designer suit for his first red carpet appearance at Cannes in 2012.
But three years later he just has to pick up the phone, and when he comes to meet AFP he is accompanied by a manager, a valet and a publicist.
Despite his success he says “nothing much has changed.” He still hangs out with old friends “who remind me of our days of struggle,” and goes home to help out on the farm.
Aside from “Talaash” and the 2014 action film “Kick” with Salman Khan, he has mostly avoided Bollywood blockbusters, tending toward more serious “Hindi indie” roles.
But his forthcoming features are big budget flicks alongside A-list superstars — much to the delight of his family, who travel 40 km to the nearest cinema hall to watch his films.
He will appear again with Salman Khan in upcoming romantic drama “Bajrangi Bhaijaan,” and with Shah Rukh Khan in “Raees” (Rich Man), in which he plays a cop who is chasing Khan’s mafia character.
Siddiqui says he admires Bollywood megastars for their longevity — “they’re very well-maintained” — and he wouldn’t rule out doing a song-and-dance number himself, despite his reservations about Bollywood musicals.
Nawazuddin Siddiqui, farmer’s son turned Bollywood’s rising star
Nawazuddin Siddiqui, farmer’s son turned Bollywood’s rising star
Parrots rescued as landslide-hit Sicilian town saves pets
- Residents queued up at a fire service command point just outside the high-risk, evacuated “red zone” to be accompanied inside to rescue pets
- Some locals feed their animals but leave them where they are, because they have no place to take them
NISCEMI, Italy: Pino Terzo Di Dio was in tears as firefighters carried his beloved parrots out of his home, which has been cordoned off as his town teeters on a cliff edge.
They were the latest pets to be saved by firefighters from hundreds of homes that were evacuated in the Sicilian town of Niscemi after a four-kilometer (2.5-mile) long stretch of hillside collapsed.
“They are scared,” Di Dio told AFP, his voice breaking as the emergency workers carried the parrots — four cockatiels and a parakeet — out of his house in two cages, buffeted by the wind.
The town, built on unstable terrain, was battered by a powerful storm which hit southern Italy last week.
There were no deaths or injuries from Sunday’s landslide, but experts say the gulf could extend when it rains again.
- ‘Lost everything’ -
Residents queued up at a fire service command point just outside the high-risk, evacuated “red zone” to be accompanied inside to rescue pets or gather belongings from important documents to clean underwear.
Some locals feed their animals but leave them where they are, because they have no place to take them.
Di Dio said his bird feeders were full but one of the parrots “tends to knock the water onto the floor,” and feared they may have been without water for days.
The 53-year-old said he had been moving between friends’ houses since the disaster.
“It’s been four days that I’ve barely washed. I smell like a goat, but that’s fine,” he said.
All his attention was on the yellow and grey birds, aged between seven and 13, and where they will go now.
“Let’s hope that someone with a kind heart will take care of them. The important thing is that they treat them well,” he said.
“I don’t have a home, I’ve lost everything.”
- ‘Help us’ -
Firefighter Franco Turco said emergency workers had rescued “quite a few dogs, cats — and now parrots.”
The team was working out how to rescue horses in fields below the baroque town, where deep fissures caused by the landslide were complicating access.
In the meantime, some 24 firefighters have carried out 80 missions to recover belongings in the red zone, which extends 150 meters from the cliff face.
But not even they enter the 50 meters buffer zone before the edge.
Some residents “have cried, have hugged us,” he said.
In the same building as Di Dio’s parrots, a woman who did not want to be named pulled a shopping trolley and black plastic bags full of belongings out of the house and onto the street.
In her arms she carried a ceramic statue of the Madonna, which had once stood at the foot of her stairs.
“May the Madonna help us,” she said.
