She looked at me directly, and her eyes were as dry as her tone. “No one,” she said, and not even her voice could sweeten her blunt-ness, “would arrange our marriage, Pranay.”
I gaped at her wide-eyed and understood there was nothing more to say.
I drove her home in silence. As she opened the car door, she turned to me in her seat. “Thank you, Pranay,” she said. And she leaned over and gave me the briefest, saddest kiss I have ever had. On my narrow, paan-stained mouth.
Then she was gone, and the door of my car clicked faintly closed. She had not pushed it hard enough. I sighed. I would have to open and shut it again, only this time much, much harder.
Godambo was a hit. You were a star after your second film. Maya was noticed — by other producers, by you. They wanted her innocence, as you did.
I didn’t do too badly myself out of that film. Offers came for better roles. As a villain, of course, but not just a secondary one. I got scripts in which I survived till the last reel and in the end fell at the hera’s hands, not in some bumbling accident like that stupid floor trap. I played all the parts a villain could hope for. The rapacious moneylender, the seth-sahukar, preying on the womenfolk of the poor hero’s indebted family. The tyrannical landlord, flogging his servants and lusting after his tenants’ wives as he canters through his extensive domains on horseback (all this when zamindari had long been abolished in the world outside the film studio, but the picture was always set in an undefined, vaguely contemporary period). The city gangster, in checked jackets and ill-fitting sharkskin suits, drinking incessantly, blowing smoke rings at a sequined vamp, and generally having a wonderful time until brought to book by an improbably honest cop for some carefully unspecified crime. I played them all, and as my screen credits grew with my bank balance, I put the money I couldn’t legally show the bank into a place of my very own in Juhu. And I watched you and Maya from afar.
Three films, that’s all you gave her. Three films, all opposite you, for the actress who was the brightest, freshest talent in the Hindi cinema of her day. Three films to prove her worth, to capture the heart of the Indian public and to break mine. Three films before you obliged her to “retire” so you could marry her.
And I wasn’t in any of them. Probably just as well, because I’m not sure I would have been able to bear losing her to you every day, on and off the set. To be obliged to succumb to you on screen, and to watch her succumb to you between takes.
I wonder when it all began. I suppose with Ganwaari, just after Godambo, when Maya made the transition from sisterly schoolgirl to girlish heroine and Abha from heroine to supporting actress. The famous film about the village girl (Maya was a natural for that part, wasn’t she?) who wins a competition to come to the city and spend a week watching her favorite movie star (you, who else?) at work. Surprise, surprise, the worldly-wise Hindi film hero is completely won over by the innocent village belle and spurns his cinematic leading lady (Abha, whose rage seemed genuine) to clinch the ganwaari girl at the fade-out. I hated the film, but it was an unexpected success at the box office; it made Maya, and it confirmed you in stardom. Even then, before it was known that your interest in Maya was extending offscreen as well, I saw the movie as symbolic, a portent. And everywhere I went, on street corners, at wedding receptions, in holiday processions, I kept hearing that wretched song from the film:
Is it true? Can it really be?
Is it a dream, or can this be really me?
Standing he-eere, in your embrace …
Is it true? Can it really be?
Could it be a mistake, can you really see?
That your lo-ove shines on my face …
I’m just a little girl from the heart of India,
I know nothing of worldly sin, dear,
I’m just a village girl with stars in her eyes,
And you’ve taken me by — surprise.
Is it true? Can it really be?
Is this life or a Bombay moo-ovie?
That puts my hand in yours …
Is it true? Can it really be?
Are you, my hero, really free?
To give me a joy that endures …
This doesn’t happen in my part of India,
My heart beats so much you can hear the din, dear,
I’m just a village girl who’s never told lies,
And you’ve just made me your — prize.
Is it true? Can it really be? …
It was true, of course. And the song was played everywhere, on transistors and record players, over Muzak systems and public-address loudspeakers, by radio disc jockeys responding to importunate requests from Jhumri Tilaiya, by two hundred-rupee per evening hired bands at every imaginable public festivity. And every time I heard it I kept seeing that scene from the film where she looked up at you holding her, and I saw an adoration in her eyes that no amount of nervous direction from Mohanlal could ever have placed there. And I knew you had won her.
The next couple of movies made a star out of her and a prophet out of me. Maya and her makeup men managed to combine her fresh-faced innocence with just enough expert artifice to make her a convincing heroine, without losing the quality that made audiences like her in the first place. She didn’t have the figure of Abha or Vyjay-antimala, she couldn’t dance like Hema Malini or Saira Banu, but she captivated every cinemagoer in the country. They loved her, Ashok. She was every man’s sister or daughter, every woman’s ideal. And she could act: she was a true professional.
And then during the shooting of that third film, Radha Sabnis broke the news in Showbiz:
Darlings, brace yourself for a shocker from Bollywood! Your Cheetah has learned that Ashok Banjara, the common man’s superstar, the actor whose success gave hope to every garage mechanic in the country, is about to wed! And who is the brave and noble woman prepared to make Saddy Longlegs the happiest ham in Vers ova? That’s the shock, little jungle creatures: it’s none other than the nation’s sweetheart, Maya Kumari! Is it true? Can it really be? I’m afraid it is, darlings. When the bombshell bursts, don’t say Cheetah didn’t warn you! Grrrowl …
I grrowled a few times myself, in between tears of impotent rage. I drank myself silly for a week. And then I went back to Sunita, not for the last time, and pushed her against the wall. I closed my eyes and imagined it was Maya. It didn’t work, and I wept my drunkenness and shame into the sink, not knowing who I hated more, myself or you.
What you did was a crime, Ashok Banjara. You deprived India of its most cherished celluloid daughter, you deprived the Hindi film industry of its finest actress, and you deprived me. You deprived me not of hope, because by then I had none for myself, but of that last vestige of pride left to a man who has not been rejected for someone else. Once she agreed to marry you, having refused to marry me, I could no longer take solace in telling myself she had given me up for her career. Instead, she gave up her career for you.
You made her do it, of course. All those interviews about “I wouldn’t want my wife to feel she needs to work” — disingenuous bastard. And then you got her to tell the press, “I’m giving up films of my own free will because I want to be the ideal wife and daughter-in-law.” Did anyone believe those words weren’t scripted for her, and rather badly at that? “Ideal wife and daughter-in-law”: does anyone ever talk like that, outside the movies? Come on, Ashok, you could have done better. Couldn’t you for once have had the courage of your characterless convictions and simply announced, “No wife of mine is going to be pawed and chased and hugged in public, not even by me. Maya is being instructed to retire from films to preserve my exaggerated sense of self-esteem.” But no, you weren’t capable of that kind of honesty, were you. I know what you’re going to say: how can I blame you — every single Indian actress has “retired” after marriage, from Babita to Mumtaz, from Jaya to Dimple, who only came back to films when her marriage was over. Why these intelligent and resourceful women should all behave as if the acting profession were incompatible with married respectab
ility, I don’t know. But they’ve set the pattern, and that lets the slimy hypocrites like you off the hook.
Even if you’d stopped at that I’d have found it impossible to forgive you. But you then spent the next five years making it much worse.
Interior: Day
I can’t believe I’m doing this.
Me, Ashok Banjara, leading superstar of the Indian cinema, commander of fees in the range of several lakhs (can’t be too precise, you know how these income tax chaps are), not to mention son of the general secretary of New Delhi’s ruling party, wooing an aging gossip columnist over pink champagne, lip-synching the obligatory inanities that an invisible tape in my head plays back to me from a dozen remembered screenplays. But it is me, it’s my mouth that’s saying these improbable things, it’s my hand that is placed, with exaggerated lightness, on her gnarled and painted claw. Radha Sabnis, the dreaded Cheetah of Showbiz magazine, sits in her lounge, flattered by my attentions, while I pour on the butter that wouldn’t normally melt in my mouth. I have come to make peace.
Cheetah sits in an imitation leopard-skin pantsuit on an imitation velvet sofa, guzzling the champagne, for which she is embarrassingly grateful, and eyeing me from under artificial lashes with what some lyricist might call a wild surmise. She is of medium height, thin, really thin, like a Bangladesh refugee in costume, and she has a pale death-mask face that seems to have been meticulously disarranged by a malicious undertaker: a hooked nose like the beak of an injured parrot; exaggeratedly shaped eyebrows arched in an expression of perpetual interrogation; a profusion of deep lines that deepen asymmetrically every time she speaks a word; pinched, sallow cheeks; and the whole effect framed by lusterless shoulder-length hair practically dripping with henna. This discredit to the species wields the most powerful pen in Bollywood, and my visit to her is the idea of my new PR agent, Cyrus Sponerwalla.
Cyrus is bespectacled and overweight, but he knows his stuff, and he’s got good ideas like the one that contracted his Parsi profession-derived surname from Sodawaterbottleopenerwallah to its current incarnation. Imagine converting a liability like that into an exclusive, distinctive, slightly exotic sounding name that fits on visiting cards, is easy to pronounce, and is a surefire conversation starter. “Icebreaker,” Cyrus corrects me. “The ice is what you need the soda-water-bottle-opener-wallah for, party-wise.” But Cyrus Sponerwalla is not here to hold my hand, nor the Cheetah’s, for that matter. In making love or war, surrogates just aren’t good enough.
“This is most generous of you,” says Radha Sabnis, the questioning curve of her ridiculous eyebrows suggesting that she doesn’t think it’s anything of the sort. “Pol Roger Rosé, 1968. A wonderful champagne.”
“Orly airport, duty-free,” I lie. I have in fact picked it up from my friendly neighborhood smuggler, the real-life equivalent of the Godambos I crush on celluloid. Ah, the wretched dualities of Indian life: the cinemagoer’s traitorous villain is the Bombayite’s helpful purveyor of necessities unreasonably banned by our protectionist government. “On my way back from shooting Love in Paris. It was the best champagne in the shop.”
“But how sweet of you,” she purrs. “And the Customs must have allowed you only one bottle.”
“Just the one.” I nod. “But then I had only one person in mind to give it to.” I apply slight pressure on her bony hand, resting on the coffee table.
“And what’s the occasion, if I may ask?”
“Occasion? Do we need an occasion?” I laugh disarmingly, but she nods, unamused. “Well, let’s just say it’s our fifth anniversary.”
“I don’t understand.” She seems to be about to move her hand from under mine. The seventy-five-proof gratitude is apparently, like its owner’s soul, wearing thin.
“The fifth anniversary of my first mention in your column,” I say as lightly as I can. It still rankles, but I’ve gone too fast: Cyrus had warned me against raising substance too soon.
“Oh, that,” she says, unperturbed, but noticeably wary. Damn.
“I thought it was time to bury the hatchet,” I plunge in recklessly.
“But there isn’t any hatchet to bury.” She withdraws her hand and pulls out a cigarette.
I am quick to convert defeat into victory. My newly freed fingers reach for the gold-plated lighter on her coffee table just before she can get to it. Our hands meet briefly over metal and butane. It takes me two attempts to light her cancerous weed, but at last I succeed. As she inhales, I pour more champagne.
“You’re right,” I respond (Cyrus would be proud of me). “All the more reason to celebrate. Cheers.”
We both raise glasses. I gulp; she sips. She still looks wary, but one of her hands has dropped idly back into her lap while the other transfers the cigarette in and out of the red gash that passes for her mouth.
“You can’t bribe me, you know,” she says archly. “Not even with Pol Roger.”
“Bribe you?” I laugh insincerely. “The thought wouldn’t cross my mind. No one bribes the dre—, er, the famous Radha Sabnis.” Watch it, Banjara, watch it. One more slip like that and you’re a garage mechanic for life.
She looks at me speculatively. As so often with those of the female persuasion, I find myself obliged to say something.
“Look,” I venture shamelessly, “I’ve always admired you greatly. …”
“Really?” Her eyebrows are most disconcerting, but she is not displeased.
“Really.” I am determined now. “Best writer in Showbiz” — I quickly see this would not be enough and hastily add an expansive suffix — “-ness. In show business,” I repeat for good measure. “Really perceptive, insightful. Everyone thinks so. And I’ve always said to myself, Ashok, I’ve said, what a shame it is that you don’t know Radhaji better. Why should you condemn yourself perpetually to being on her wrong side?”
“A-ha.” That’s all she says. Inscrutably, she knocks some ash into a brass bowl.
“So I thought, why not come and see you? Show there are no hard feelings, you know, from my side at least. And really, answer any questions you might have or anything. Just to show you I’m not such a bad chap after all.”
“But I have no questions.” This sounds tough, but with that extraordinary face it is impossible to be sure she means it to be. The body language is more promising. She has crossed her legs again, and her knees are pointing toward me. Mustn’t give up hope.
“Well, maybe I do. You know, perhaps you can tell me what you think I’m doing wrong. Give me some advice.”
“Advice?” She uncrosses and crosses her legs again and leans back on the sofa. “What advice could I possibly give you?”
“Tell me” — here I place my hand once more on hers — “how I can become a good enough actor to win the praise of Radha Sabnis.”
She gives me a twisted smile, but doesn’t move her hand. “Now that would be something, wouldn’t it?” she asks, and the lines on her face fall into an indecipherable disarray.
I decipher them my way. I get up from my chair, walk around the coffee table, seat myself next to her on the sofa, and take her hand firmly in mine. “I need your advice, Radhaji,” I implore, looking earnestly into her eyes as if emoting for a close-up.
She doesn’t flinch. “Are you sure that’s all you need?” she asks, stubbing out her cigarette with deliberate care.
Christ, I was afraid of this. I had warned Cyrus: I’ll turn on all the charm you want, Sponerwalla, but don’t expect me to so much as kiss the witch. To which he’d said, “Look at it this way, man.” (Cyrus’s American PR slang was always a decade out of date.) “No one knows whether she’s thirty-eight or eighty-three. Approach her in the spirit of scientific inquiry, Ashok. Market research, man. Like, we do it all the time. If it comes to that, you might be the first real human being to find out, truth-wise.”
Radha’s loaded question hangs in the air: “Are you sure that’s all you need?” She seems to expect a reply. Despite myself I murmur, “Perhaps not.” Let’s play alo
ng, flatter the hag.
“Hmmm.” She puts down the champagne glass. “If you insist.” And before I even realize what is happening, she has put an arm around my neck and brought her mouth down on mine.
Kissing is one thing they don’t practice in the Hindi cinema: our censors don’t like it. But no amount of practice would have prepared me for kissing Radha Sabnis. I am buffeted by a mistral of cigarette fumes, then swept away into alternate waves of asphyxiation and resuscitation. Holding my own in the exchange is like trying to out-blow a vacuum cleaner. I am still orally imprisoned, eyes shut in breathless disbelief, when I feel her fingers explore my T-shirt like a skeleton searching for a burial ground. My eyes rounding in horror, I attempt to pull myself away. But I’m obviously not trying hard enough. My lips remain locked on hers and I am aware of the pressure of her teeth: there seem to be about two thousand of them, each as large and strong as a key on Gopi Master’s harmonium. She must chew neem twigs before breakfast, and unfortunate actors after. As I try to move she half rises, mouth still glued to mine, and pushes me down with a firm hand. Boy, she’s strong. The other hand is pulling my T-shirt out of my waistband. Christ, this is serious! Eyes closed, I put out a hand to stop her and discover something softer and fuller than I expected upon her anatomy. The appendage seems vaguely familiar, like an old friend encountered in a strange country. Reacting instinctively, I squeeze. Without moving her mouth, Radha Sabnis moans into my throat. I open my eyes in amazement to see what the hell I am up to and close them just as quickly. I must move my hand, the woman might get the wrong idea. But I can’t — my arm is pinioned to her chest by the way she has positioned her body.
For a brief moment I contemplate surrender. Isn’t that what inevitably happens in our filmi “rape scenes”? But wait a minute, not to me! I’m a hero!