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Even as his lifeless body lay with ashen face peeping out of a white sheet, strangely, the only word I could think of to describe Navin Nischol was ‘colourful’. In the 60-odd years that he lived, until he was suddenly snatched away on a Saturday morning last week, Navin managed to pack in much more colour than perhaps men far more successful or famous than him.
A well-spoken, well-educated man from a corporate background, it is hard to imagine that Navin and la grande dame Rekha made their debut with the same movie Sawan Bhadon way back in the early 1970s. It’s even harder to believe that Rekha was the wild, ungroomed, teetering-towards-obesity teenager (she even had prominent upper lip hair that required urgent defuzzing) who had nothing but plenty of oomph, while Navin was the suave gold medallist from the Film & Television Institute of India who seemed set for a long gallop. In fact, filmmaker Mohan Sehgal (who made Sawan Bhadon, a runaway hit in its time) was so confident of his discovery that he had even bound Navin to an exclusive contract, dead sure that this boy would hit pay dirt and payback time would bring in a goldmine.
Accordingly, the next film he made with Navin was scripted with him as a solo hero around whom three heroines were cast. Many laid their bets on Navin as the pivot around whom the film industry would revolve. Even Amitabh Bachchan played second fiddle to him in Parwana where Navin was the romantic hero and the tall, lanky newcomer with the baritone was the frustrated lover.
A decent actor with a charming demeanour, perhaps the only thing that went against Navin very early was that he had terrible receding hair. After Raaj Kumar, Navin was the only other well-known actor who had to wear a wig, a problem that years later brought grief even to Akshaye Khanna. In the 1970s, the hair rescue treatments available to Salman Khan, Sunny Deol and, according to an unconfirmed whisper, even to Ranbir Kapoor, were completely unheard of.
But you can’t blame the hair alone for what happened to Navin Nischol soon after he arrived full of promise. Married to Shekhar Kapur’s sister Neelu, all that Navin did manage very quickly was to get entangled in an extra-marital affair (actually make it a plural). One distinctly recalls a late evening car drive when Padmini Kapila (one of Navin’s heroines whose career also spiralled downwards) and he were squashed together in the back and everybody else giggled as the drunken actor’s hands went wandering all over under her skirt!
It wasn’t long before Navin Nischol’s marriage came apart despite three children. His wife has since turned to Christianity and has found comfort in religion.
So Navin saw it all in that limited lifespan — huge adulation, plummeting fortunes and emotional yo-yos. Add to it a stint in jail. But right up to the last breath, Navin didn’t change. On the contrary he’d shrug off the lows and get ready to party. Our last few meetings were invariably at the bar at Otters Club where he’d readily ask you to join him. I do believe that Navin was always a pleasure to meet as long as you were not married to him or even emotionally involved with him. Because whatever Navin was, he wasn’t one who hid his affinity for the good life and that’s why when his second or third wife (he always had a new woman in his life every few years) Geetanjali committed suicide and Navin was arrested for driving her to the brink with his drinking, I thought it was unjust. Because any woman who came into his life did it knowing the score, there was nothing hidden in his agenda.
Navin was the stereotypical movie star who did it all. And he went the way he’d have liked to go — when he was ready to party the Holi weekend through with his buddies in Pune. “He and Gavaa, another friend, were driving down to Deonar to my house. From there they were to hop into my car and we were going to Pune for an all-boys’ weekend,” said Randhir Kapoor in a cheerful T-shirt. “He collapsed before he got to my house and by the time we took him to Sion Hospital, he was declared dead on admission,” he went on, sounding like he didn’t believe what he’d just witnessed. “We’ve come straight here to his house. Otherwise do you think I’d be dressed like this for an occasion like this? I am in my holiday clothes, yaar,” explained Randhir. As remarked earlier, Navin went the way he’d have liked to go. Colourful till the very end.
PS: Navin would have also liked to have seen that his estranged family was around him as he left home for the last time. Will miss you at the bar, Navin.
