By Sharanya Gopinathan
Nawazuddin Siddiqui may have set a new record! A mere fifteen days after its release, he’s hastily withdrawn his memoir An Ordinary Life, co-authored by Rituparna Chatterjee, after two women he wrote about spoke out indignantly about his portrayal of their relationship with him.
He named his Miss Lovely co-star Niharika Singh, and detailed the story of going to her house to eat mutton (in thanks for the admittedly terrible mutton dinner he cooked for her once) and finding her ready to seduce him. Niharika Singh, for her part, said about the account, “Nawaz and I had a brief relationship in 2009 during the making of Miss Lovely that lasted less than a few months. So today, when he paints me as a woman in fur enticing him into her bedroom with candles, or desperately calling him and emailing other women on his behalf, I can only laugh.”
A Delhi-based lawyer named Gautam Gulati, who admits he has never met Niharika Singh, doesn’t know her and has nothing to do with her, has taken it upon himself to lodge a complaint with the National Commission for Women, requesting a direction to register an FIR under sections 376 (rape), 497 (adultery) and 509 (insulting the modesty of a woman) of the IPC, which at this point seems highly excessive.
Another actress Siddiqui wrote about, Sunita Rajwar, also called Siddiqui out on the accuracy of his portrayal of their relationship. About his break up with Rajwar, Siddiqui wrote, “maybe she wanted to date someone successful, not a struggling, desperate actor who was out of work”, and also that she once painted hearts on the walls of his room. Rajwar rubbished both claims, and says that Siddiqui was always a sympathy-seeker and that’s why he made it seem like she broke up with him because he was poor. She said the real reason she broke up with him is that she found out he had been sharing details of their relationship with other people, which is really seeming on-brand for Siddiqui right now.
In the midst of the short-lived controversy, Siddiqui announced his withdrawal of the book with this tweet:
https://twitter.com/Nawazuddin_S/status/924975058623324161?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw