Shiney Ahuja

QAMYAB – THE FORGOTTEN GEMS OF BOLLYWOOD

Qamyab is our humble tribute to all those lesser-known actors, one hit wonders and junior artists who we see umpteen times but don’t know about; beyond their faces. These actors have been an integral part of Bollywood but didn’t get their due. This series is our sincere attempt to put a name to these faces, familiarize them to our readers and celebrate their achievements in life – however big or small. We believe that every artist contributes in his/her own way to the cinema’s success. Qamyab will explore the unknown lives of such actors and artists as we believe even these forgotten gems of Bollywood deserve their due recognition today.

Since its inception, Bollywood and controversies go hand in hand and every actor worth his dime, is said to get embroiled in some scandal or the other. Ego hassles, cat fights, drunken brawls, extramarital affairs, casting couch, etc are common gossip makers in this entertainment industry. Few rumours turn out to be true while some get dismissed as fake and plain hearsay. It is on a very rare occasion that a controversy assumes such gigantic proportion that it destroys an actor’s career forever.

Our forgotten gem for today, faced this unfortunate controversy which virtually nipped his budding career. The actor is Shiney Ahuja, a handsome guy who had tremendous talent in him and was expected to make it big in the Hindi film industry. Most of our readers may probably know about the controversy we are referring to – the alleged rape of his housemaid.

Shiny Ahuja was born on 15th May, 1973 in a Delhi based Punjabi family. His father served the Indian Army while mother was a homemaker. Shiney did his schooling from St. Xavier’s School, Ranchi and Army Public School, Dhaula Kuan and later attended the Hansraj College of Delhi University. He started theatre soon after and joined Barry John’s TAG (Theatre Action Group), where he was spotted by John and later, joined his acting school in Delhi. Around the same time, Shiney also took up modelling assignments.

His first commercial was for Pepsi after which advertising offers started raining on him with top brands like Cadburys, Citibank and many more. Shiney Ahuja also appeared in Stereo Nation’s popular music video ‘Pyar Ho Gaya’ in 2000.

Around early 2000s, noted director Sudhir Mishra was auditioning for Pritish Nandy’s production titled Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi (2005). He happened to watch Shiney’s Pepsi ad and called him for this audition. The film was based on three central characters which were played by Kay Kay Menon (Siddharth Tyabji), Chitrangda Singh (Geeta Rao Mehta) and Shiney Ahuja (Vikram Malhotra) set against the backdrop of the Indian emergency period in the mid ’70s.

Shiney Ahuja auditioned for the character of Siddharth Tyabji but later, requested Sudhir Mishra to also audition him for the character of Vikram Malhotra. Interestingly, he bagged the role of Vikram Malhotra over two hundred other aspirants.

Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi was a huge critical success travelling to various international film festivals since 2003 before releasing in Indian cinemas in 2005. In the following year, Shiney Ahuja won several trophies for best debut at various functions like Filmfare Awards, Screen Awards, Zee Cine Awards, Stardust Awards and IIFA Awards.

Apart from these awards, what made Shiney catch the audience eyes was his next controversial film titled Sins (2005) which was released in the same year and is often mistaken to be his debut film. This film was based on the true incident of a Catholic Priest in Kerala falling in love with a young girl.

Even before its release, Sins ran into trouble when its posters were splashed all over showing half cut face of a man (Shiney Ahuja) dressed as a priest with a rosary in his hand and a nubile girl lying on his lap.

The Catholic Community objected to this poster and requested to ban the movie for showing their religious head in a poor light. Moreover, news circulated that the film had many intimate scenes between Shiney Ahuja and the girl played by Seema Rahmani. This irked the Catholic Community all the more and they called for a ban on Sins submitting multiple petitions for the same. Nevertheless, Sins secured a theatrical release with all those sex scenes intact but this controversy made Shiney Ahuja a known face.

Shiney had two more releases in 2005 – Kal: Yesterday and Tomorrow and Karam but both these films failed commercially. He played the lead role in Kal while supporting John Abraham in Karam.

The year 2006 proved to be lucky year for Shiney when he got his due in Bollywood with the huge hit Gangster. He played the titular role in this movie with debutant Kangana Ranaut and Emraan Hashmi forming the principal cast. Not many know that Gangster was initially planned by Mahesh Bhatt with Pakistani cricketer – the Rawalpindi Express – Shoaib Akhtar in mind. The role landed in Shiney Ahuja’s lap when Akhtar refused the offer for some reason. Gangster became one of the biggest hits of that year and earned tremendous appreciation for Ahuja.

The same year, Shiney got a chance to work with Mr. Perfectionist Aamir Khan in Aditya Chopra’s Fanaa (2006). It was just a five minutes role rejected by Abhishek Bachchan but gave Shiney a good opportunity to get associated with a superstar and big banner like Yashraj.

In mid-2006, Shiney had another notable release in Woh Lamhe (2006). This film’s plot was based on the life of actress Parveen Babi and her relationship with director Mahesh Bhatt. Shiney played Bhatt Saahab in this movie and again earned accolades for his performance.

In 2007, Shiney made a mark in the Anurag Basu directorial Life In A Metro which had an ensemble cast. He conjured an amazing chemistry with the gorgeous Shilpa Shetty in this movie. His biggest hit came the same year in form of Priyadarshan’s Bhool Bhulaiyaa. This film was horror comedy starring Akshay Kumar and Vidya Balan with Shiney Ahuja in a pivotal role as Vidya’s husband. A flop titled Hijack (2008) followed but it didn’t impact his career at all.

Life was progressing well for Shiney Ahuja, professionally as well as personally as he had gained recognition in the industry within a few years. He was living a blissful life with his wife Anupama and they were blessed with a daughter named Arshiya in 2007. They also bought their dream home in this period and things couldn’t be better!!

Unfortunately, his personal life got shattered in June 2009 when Shiney was accused by his maid of raping her. He was immediately arrested and charged for the heinous crime according to the Indian Penal Code. Shiney denied the charges levelled against him with his wife Anupama strongly supporting him in the matter.

The court trial went on for a long time but finally, Shiney Ahuja was granted bail in October 2009. He was asked to stay away from city limits until the trial recommences and hence, shifted to his father’s home in Noida. The fickle Bollywood was super quick in disassociating itself from him and many of his completed films found no takers.

Eventually in 2011, the maid turned hostile and changed her statement completely stating that she was never raped or threatened by Shiney. Surprisingly, the judge didn’t agree to her statement and opining that it was given under pressure, granted seven years jail term to Shiney Ahuja. Despite this negative judgement, Shiney got some relief as he was immediately granted bail and a chance to appeal to higher court.

Shiney Ahuja started looking out for work in Bollywood but by now, nobody wanted to work with him. His completed film Har Pal with big names like Dharmendra and Priety Zinta didn’t find any takers and still, hasn’t seen the light of the day.

His insignificant film titled Ghost (2012) made it to the theatres only to bomb badly. Like Sins, this movie also faced backlash from the Catholic Community for showing a women crucified on the Holy Cross.

A couple of years later, it was reported that Shiney Ahuja would be making a comeback in a negative role with Anees Bazmee’s multi-starrer movie Welcome Back (2015). He even gave an interview stating this was the comeback he was waiting for all this while.

Welcome Back was a reasonable box office success but Shiney Ahuja played a miniscule role of Honey, the drug addict son of the main villain Wanted Bhai (Naseeruddin Shah). The film didn’t help in reviving his career at all as he didn’t receive any offers post this performance.

In fact, nothing was heard about Shiney Ahuja after Welcome Back. Sadly, neither Bollywood nor the audience welcomed him back. Few months after the film’s release in January 2016, Shiney’s lawyer appealed in court to grant him justice.

Ironically, Shiney filed a case against the makers of Great Grand Masti (2016) which had Sonali Raut playing a maid named Shiney which was indirectly mocking him. This case was eventually settled out of court.

As of today, the Shiney rape case is still pending in High Court and as per latest update, the court has given him permission to get a new passport for ten years and also eased his earlier restriction of not travelling abroad without court approval. While Shiney Ahuja is living a reclusive life with family, his Bollywood career is virtually over. He was rumoured to be participating in a season of Bigg Boss TV show but even that didn’t happen.

The Hindi film industry, which once honoured him with several awards for best debut, has forgotten him just as quickly. Reports claim that Ajay Bahl’s highly acclaimed Section 375 (2019) was inspired from Shiney Ahuja’s rape case as its writer, Manish Gupta was Shiney’s close friend.

Even after fourteen years, there has been no clarity on what exactly happened on that fateful day in June 2009. But it did end the career of a rising star forever. Alas!