Abused by mother, Bollywood’s biggest child star would be denied food after slaving all day, danced for money on stage; no one from Bollywood attended her funeral

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Baby Naaz, Nargis and Ritu (daughter of Raj Kapoor) at the muhurat of film Boot Polish. Express archive photo

Narrating her life story, Naaz began, “My father, Mirza Dawood Baig, was a story-writer who was not doing well in his profession. Our family had no other source of income and we were hard up for money. It was very difficult to make ends meet and so, I was made to dance on the stage for money. I used to get about a hundred rupees per show and somehow, we managed. Since I loved dancing I enjoyed it in the beginning, but I was too young to realise, that slowly and steadily the whole responsibility of earning a living was being put on my little shoulders. I never realised how and when I was trapped into being the only earning member in the family.”

Naaz began working at the age of four, and realised not long afterwards that hers was not a regular childhood. “I will never be able to for-give my mother nor forget her greed for money,” she said. Naaz was desperate to study and make something of herself. But her mother wouldn’t hear of it. She even rejected Raj Kapoor’s offer to send Naaz to school in Switzerland. Not only did she make Naaz slog like a workhorse, she accepted every offer that came their way.

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Baby Naaz with Dilip Kumar. Express archive photo

Naaz continued in the Stardust interview, “I left studies, for my mother didn’t stop accepting films on my behalf and my father stopped working. My mother was too used to making money out of me and didn’t want to forgo this easy life. She wanted me to work for her comforts and I was both too young and in awe of my parents to refuse. There were no games, no friends, no proper sleep or food for me. Whenever I came back tired from a shooting, my parents were busy with their own problems and had no time for me. They fought with each other all the time. They didn’t even realise that I had come back home and gone off to sleep without food. Even if they did, none of them even bothered to give me a glass of milk. I cannot count the times I have slept without food.”

Naaz didn’t blame her unwell father; she blamed her mother for becoming ‘overambitious’. When Naaz became an established face in the industry, her mother began an affair with a cameraman and kicked Naaz’s father out of their house. For two years, Naaz didn’t see her father, and had no idea where he was. It was during this time that she starred in acclaimed films such as Boot Polish and Devdas. Her performance as a street child in Boot Polish, produced by RK Studios, even earned her a special award at the Cannes Film Festival.

Baby Naaz with her mother and Raj Kapoor. Express archive photo on 04.10.1954

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“I felt choked. I wanted breathing space. I couldn’t take it any more and that is when I first tried to end my life. My ayah used to tell me stories about how people ended their lives by jumping into a well. So, one day when I was all alone at home, I ran to the well. Somehow, my ayah who spotted me, ran after me and brought me home. She was the only one who cared for me. Do you know what my mother did when she heard about my attempted suicide? No, she didn’t take me in her arms and cry, nor did she plead with me not to do it again. She never shed a tear, instead, that woman slapped me hard and screamed at me. I couldn’t believe her reaction and it shattered me. I was more miserable than ever. Things didn’t change with time. They went from bad to worse and I tried to run away from home and jump into the well again. But my ayah saved me a second time too.”

Naaz lamented that even after working for three decades, she was right back where she’d started. Her parents were both dead at the time of the Stardust interview, but her career had basically ended. She found happiness after she married Subbiraj, an actor who was distantly related to the Kapoors. She started working as a dubbing artist. “I have started compering Kalyanji-Anandji Nites here and abroad. I do occasional programmes for the Bombay Doordarshan and a lot of dubbing for some South Indian heroines like Sridevi. So does my husband. Somehow, at the back of my mind there always lingers a feeling that one day a break will come. I’ll get a chance again, when I will be able to prove that I was not just a fluke. I don’t know when I’ll get the name and fame again, but I’ll keep trying…” she trailed off.

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But it was not to be. Naaz died at the age of 51, after suffering from a chronic liver ailment. Her husband said that she would chew tobacco constantly. She fell into a coma in her final days, and passed away peacefully. Filmmaker and journalist Khalid Mohammed wrote in an article for the Daily Eye that no one from the film industry attended her funeral.