Somewhere in the cacophony of the Great Indian Road show — the 2009 parliamentary elections — one little voice has been muffled. Actor Nagma, Congress party’s star campaigner, is disappointed. She’d thought she’d be the party’s candidate for Mumbai’s North West constituency. She’s not.

“For six years I have been with them and campaigned for them,” she says. “Though I respect Soniaji and Rahulji, I also value myself as a person. If you don’t value and respect yourself, nobody else will. My ultimate goal is to serve the country, the party or medium does not matter.”

The party ticket has gone to Gurudas Kamath — and Nagma is in her corner, quietly licking her wounds. There has been no loud protest, no storming out of meetings. Instead she sits in her flat in Bandra, pondering over the fate of women. “You know, women are treated like objects. But they have substance. They are not just an item number to be looked at — they have more to them than that.”

It’s difficult to link bitterness with Nagma. She has bounced right back every time she’s met with a stumbling block. She gave a decent burial to her controversial filmi past — when her name was linked with a whole host of co-stars — and thought she’d embark on a fruitful political career. For the time-being, at least, her plans have been put on hold.

At 37, and still with a jaw-dropping complexion, Nagma looks thinner than the plump picture she once was. She is dressed casually in knee-length pants and a simple top. We are sitting in the visitor’s room in her apartment — the only one on the fourth floor of a comparatively new building near the sea. The room looks like a spare room, filled with all the stuff that you don’t want elsewhere — a mirror-inlaid table, a small couch and an exercycle.

There was a time when Nagma commanded the headlines. Not so long ago, her alleged affair with cricketer Sourav Ganguly had the tabloids screaming with joy. Rumour had it then that the two had a secret marriage in a temple. No one really knows what transpired, but Ganguly was soon back home, with his wife and child. And Nagma was, once again, sitting all by herself.

She won’t take names, but has clearly not forgotten the episode. “It is strange. One person among millions becomes special. Our field gives us a platform to meet different sorts of people. Of course, when two people from different backgrounds who are well-known in their fields meet and like each other, people try to make too much of it. The world does not like to see two famous people come together. So much so that it gets into an area of destruction — and you let go.”

She pauses for a while and amends her words. “I wouldn’t want to say ‘let go’. You cannot let go of anyone, especially if that person has brought meaning to your life. If you have shared two nice moments with that person, the relationship, the feeling or that moment can never go. I think friends always remain friends. I think if a relationship is genuine, it doesn’t go away. People fight even in their own families. In this case there was no fight, of course.”

When Nagma talks about families, you can’t but remember that her father was the late textile magnate, Arvind Morarji. At birth she was christened Nandita by her father. Nagma’s mother re-married later, and she grew up with her Punjabi foster-father and her siblings, one of whom is the south Indian star, Jyothika. She says she moved towards spiritualism after Morarji died of cancer in 2006. “He had all the money in the world. He was only 58 — but his life could not be saved.” But Nagma didn’t try to catch up on those lost years with her biological father when he was on his death bed. “There were lot of unanswered questions and emotions. But when you are sick, you really don’t go into that area. You just live for the moment.”

Nagma’s life has been like a rollercoaster — a series of ups jostling with the downturns. Some 20 years ago, when she made her debut with Baghi — playing an underage prostitute rescued by Salman Khan — Bollywood fell in love with her. Many thought that Nagma would go places. She did — she went south.

It was good she did — for her career in Mumbai was going nowhere. First she got sucked into an array of formula films. Though people remember her as a siren in Feroze Khan’s Yalgaar — where she famously cavorted around in designer lingerie with Sanjay Dutt — her Hindi movie career never really took off, and there were too many stories about her that had little to do with cinema. Yalgaar had gathered its own share of controversies as it was said that some mafia characters from Mumbai, including Dawood Ibrahim’s brother Anees Ibrahim, mingled with the cast and crew of the film in the Gulf when the film was being shot. And Nagma’s name was being freely bandied about.

Like many spurned by Bollywood, she moved to the south — and, unlike many others, she flourished. For over a decade from the mid-nineties she was the reigning queen in Tamil Nadu and elsewhere in the south. But one fine day, when she was at the peak of her career, she walked out bag and baggage and landed in Mumbai where she went on to start an eponymous clothing store in Bandra in 2003.

The story goes that she left Tamil Nadu because of death threats after a fallout with south Indian actor Sharath Kumar. Apparently Sharath Kumar doled out huge sums of money to her when they were close and later when some financier knocked on his door, he directed him to Nagma’s house. Nagma, of course, has another story to tell. “I quit south Indian films because I was bored. The fans in south India were also quite demanding. They would come in busloads and land at my bungalow at unearthly hours like 5.30 am and demand an audience. If I failed to turn up, they would break the gates and the compound walls and threaten to storm in.”

Controversy continued to dog Nagma, even as her career took a new turn with Bhojpuri films. Nagma was linked with another married man, Bhojpuri star Ravi Kishan. The rumours started as a trickle, and soon threatened to snowball into a scandal. So Nagma did what she’s best at — she walked out. “I don’t understand why one cannot bond well with one’s co-star. What is wrong if we are comfortable with each other? In reel life, we play husband-wife or lovers, so you need some comfort level outside of the camera as well.”

Nagma goes back to what she’d started with — women. “The problem is that I am single and so an easy target. A boyfriend or a husband would have buffered me against such allegations and link-ups. Khaya peeya kuch nahin, glass toda, baara aana” (What did I eat or drink? Nothing — but I broke a glass and had to pay up for that).

Marriage, however, is not an option for her right now. “I have to give 100 per cent to marriage. I am quite content with my life as it is now. If somebody sweeps me off my feet, then it is another story, even though I am not a die-hard romantic. I would like somebody who is simple, down-to-earth, level-headed, good-hearted, soft-spoken, who has a good sense of humour and who would also encourage me in whatever I do.”

That’s a tall order — but Nagma is in no hurry. “Well, you have to really wait for somebody like that. I just feel that marriage is a commitment for life. It has to be god-made, god-sent. When it has to happen, it will.”

Meanwhile, there’s god. Nagma stresses her god is with her 24x7. “I am not religious or dharmik, but god is my best friend. He is holding my bridge. When I turn back and look at my life, I see so many controversies. But god has been there looking out for me. He is my guiding force.”

Spurned — this time by the Congress — Nagma would be finding solace in her god once again. Right now she feels rejected, as she possibly did when she parted with the men in her life. At some point, though, she will — as she has always done — let go.