What happened to Nawazuddin Siddiqui? The brilliant actor who shook you to the core of your conscience with his 5-minute appearance in Kabir Khan’s New York which was released on June 26 in 2009 is reduced to doing a hideous drag act in Tiku Weds Sheru.
Flashback to 2009. When a small-part actor called Nawazuddin in New York on a camera-within-camera tells Katrina Kaif about the humiliation, torture and indelible wounds that he suffered during detention for suspected terrorism, you are no longer watching a bright sassy film blending terrorism and entertainment. You are watching a slice of life. Make no mistake about that.
There was something extraordinary about Nawazuddin Siddiqui when I saw him for the first time in Kabir Khan’s New York. He played a victim of cultural targeting.In a monologue that rips a hole in your soul, Nawaz’s character comes on camera to tell us what was done to him and his family by the cops on suspicion of terror activities.
The voice, the eyes, brimming with unspeakable pain,it looked like a video recording of a real-life victim, like a Jew or a Kashmiri Pandit telling us what he has gone through during the holocaust.
When I asked Kabir where he had got that documentary footage he laughed, “No no that’s not real footage. That’s a brilliant unknown actor named Nawazuddin Siddiqui.”
Cut to Nawaz’s pathetic attempts at playing the lead in Afwah,Jogira Sarara and Tiku Weds Sheroo. Is this the same actor who made such a chilling overpowering impact in just five minutes in New York? It is time for Nawaz to take a break, reorganize his priorities as an actor .