For those few golden minutes, my chain of struggles would evaporate into the smoke and my bloodshot eyes would be dreamy again.
In NSD with family members
Abbu never doted on me or pampered me openly or cuddled me the way Ammi did. He loved me dearly but he had a strange way of showing his affection; with Abbu at my sister Shamiya’s engagement.
With Ammi (extreme left) and my daughter, Shora (standing, extreme left), after Abbu’s death
In the film Chittagong
Receiving the National Film Special Jury Award in 2012 for Kahaani, Gangs of Wasseypur—Part 2, Dekh Indian Circus and Talaash
Acknowledgements
The greatest gratitude to our lovely publisher Penguin Random House and editor Premanka Goswami, without whom this book would not have happened. We could not have asked for a better publishing house! People no longer believe that matches are made in Heaven. Well, people, have faith, for this one certainly is. Premanka, you’re an angel; they truly don’t make ’em like you any more. Not only are you an outstanding editor but also an extremely supportive one. It gives great liberty to authors to focus solely on craft when you know that the editor has their back for all other matters. Thank You!
And there were a million other matters and waves of drama, in spite of which we managed to make the book happen. We could not have, without the support of mastermind Shamas Siddiqui who donned so many hats that they are impossible to count. One of them was playing Wikipedia and filling in the many blanks not only about growing up together with Nawaz in Budhana, but also throughout his life. Thank you, Shamas! You won’t be bugged with a million texts at odd hours any more. Anup Shashikant Pandey, sorry for all the nagging, and thank you for meeting all the requests.
Nawaz was shooting back-to-back. Even after shoots, in so-called ‘free time’, the Yari Road office always had an endless stream of visitors. It was getting impossible for us to sit down for lengthy, intimate, free-flowing conversations. The only way to get that kind of time and space was to accompany him on shoots. Thank you, Shamas, for that brilliant idea! Team Freaky Ali and Sohail Khan Production, thank you for making it happen: without your help, there was no way the book could have met its deadline. Thank you, Prapti Doshi Moorthy, for taking care of the logistics.
Anurag Kashyap, thank you for entertaining Rituparna at short notice and for answering her nosy questions with delightful tales. We understand how busy you were—bang in the middle of post-production for Raman Raghav 2.0. We also tremendously appreciate your generosity, like for letting her sit through the film’s rushes and get a deeper feel of character and preparation. Ghanshyam Garg, aka Ghannu, thank you for being a true golden yaar! We immensely appreciate your patience: sitting for hours upon hours, entertaining a hundred questions and giving extremely deep insights into the grey areas of Nawaz’s early years of struggle in Mumbai and the people who inhabited his life then. The entire section, Part III, Mumbai, would have been impossible without you. Being an actor yourself, who has seen his fair share of struggle, your responses were especially empathetic, thereby allowing us to make a better book.
This book is unique in so many ways. One of them is that it is a complete translation of Nawaz’s thoughts in Hindi, with whiffs of Urdu and Arabic, into English. This is when it helps to be married to somebody whose first language is Hindi and who loves Urdu shayaree. So this list would be incomplete without appreciating Rituparna’s supportive husband, Rajat, who helped answer questions about translating this to that, at odd hours. An odd addition here is her four-year-old son Reyo. The luxury of having a small child around all the time helped her perceive and produce a truer book, one in which childhood plays such a huge role that it is a character by itself. Of course, he was no help at all in meeting the deadline! On that note, thank you, Samsung, for making phones—on which a series of interviews have been recorded—that don’t break when toddlers tap dance on them.
Another thing that makes this book unique is that it was written continents away from Mumbai, in California, USA. That kind of isolation can be demotivating for an interactive book like this one. Thank you, Shamas, yet again, and Tanuja Naik for breaking through it by coordinating those video chats amidst Nawaz’s crazy, busy schedule. We can never express how tremendously we appreciate the invaluable insights from our writer’s group (Shut Up and Write, Silicon Valley Chapter) and our desi friends (Shashank, Vijaya, Anand, Amrita, Navneet, Rachna, Mili and Gaurav) in the San Francisco Bay Area here for constant readings and feedback on the antique Indianness of the book—like angeethi, buraad, akhara, growing up with cattle, and so on.
Rarely has an author become homeless during research as she was kicked out by a crazy landlady at hours’ notice. Thank you, Amrita Chatterji, Mittal Solanki and Ritika Prasad for sheltering the homeless. Otherwise, I’d have had to camp at the Magic If Films office itself. Amrita Chatterji, a special shout to you for providing dongles, SIM cards, Darjeeling tea, Chinese food, transport at wee hours, moral support—and whatnot—at odd hours and odd places, without which this project and one of its authors might have collapsed.
Last but definitely not least at all, the design team at Penguin—Gunjan Ahlawat and Neeraj Nath—the lovely and patient copy editor Shanuj V.C., Rachna Pratap for helping with the contracts, and the bright marketing folks—Preeti Chaturvedi, Peter Modoli and Neha Punj as well as ex-Penguin Aman Arora. Thank you all for this incredible journey!
THE BEGINNING
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