‘Yes, yes,’ said Sampath, and Srinivas went out. He walked along the open drive of the studio. So many people, so busily engaged, and going from place to place with a serious preoccupied air for at least ten hours in the day. ‘With this manner of theirs, why can’t they do something worth while?’ he reflected and went on. He came to the art and publicity block.
In his room Ravi was busily working on a publicity poster. He was sitting on the ground with a huge board leaning against the wall. He was clutching a brush in his hand. A huge outline of Shanti was pencilled, and he was colouring it. It seemed to be an enlargement of the little pencil sketch he had done long ago. Its eyelashes were so full of life, its eyes shone so much with light, and a ray of light reflected off a diamond in the ear; it was coloured so elegantly that it seemed a masterpiece worthy to hang in any art gallery. Srinivas stood admiring it.
‘How do you like it?’ Ravi asked.
‘Is this the portrait you mentioned?’
‘Oh, no, this is only a poster for a theatre gate. The other’s in oils and is my own.’
‘Where is it?’
‘There, turned to the wall.’ Srinivas saw the back of a wooden board in a far-off corner. He made a motion towards it, asking: ‘May I see it?’
‘Oh, no, it’ll probably be years before I can let anyone see it…’ He put away the brush, sat down in a chair and said: ‘It gives me a feeling of being near her when I do this. I want nothing else in life when I’m doing her picture, even if it is only a poster. Do you think he is quite truthful in saying that she is different?’
‘Don’t you worry about all that,’ Srinivas implored.
‘I am not worrying. I see her going home every day, sitting close to Sampath and touching him; they are always together. He doesn’t allow me to approach her at all. Does he take me for a fool?’ he laughed bitterly. ‘I’m not going to talk to her, even if she comes and speaks to me. She is pretending she is someone else.’
‘Don’t keep brooding over all that, Ravi; you do your work and forget the rest.’
‘Practically what I’m doing now. What else should I do? As long as I’m doing a portrait like this, even if it is only a poster, I’m at peace. Let that fellow keep her to himself, I don’t care; I’ve got something better out of her.’
All round the room there were preliminary advertisement layouts. One of them said: ‘Golden opportunity to see God himself Ravi pointed at the caption and said: ‘How do you like the lettering? This is the advertisement slogan I’m asked to write out.’
‘God has never had a worse handling anywhere.’
Ravi merely shrugged his shoulders. ‘What do I care? I just do what I’m asked. If they want me to write “I’m an unmatched fool”, I will provide the required lettering for it. What do I care? I tell you, we have an art director who is fit only to be a clock-winder in the studio. He cannot even draw a straight line or a curve, but yet he is our boss, and we get our salary only if he approves of our work.’ He laughed uncontrollably. The veins on his forehead stood out like pipes, and he spoke loudly. He was very careless in his talk and seemed to want to challenge everybody with his remarks. He did not bother either to subdue his voice or speak discreetly. He seemed to have become very garrulous, too. This Srinivas suddenly noticed in him; and he also saw that his complexion was turning yellow and waxen. ‘I say, you must take care of your health. Why are you neglecting yourself in this way?’ Ravi made a wry face at the thought of looking after himself. He got up, looked at himself in a looking glass on the wall with distaste. ‘This is the best that can be done about you, my dear chap,’ he said, addressing himself. ‘Don’t demand further concessions. You are being treated better than you really deserve.’ And he once again broke into a laugh. He interrupted it to explain: ‘You see, my director wants a dozen different advertisement posters to be ready, and then we have the actual work on the sets. I go on working here all night nowadays. I have not been home.’ A shiver ran through him at the thought of his home. ‘I prefer this place. My father has completely given up talking to me. He becomes so rigid when he hears my voice at home that I fear he will have a seizure some day. Of course, he keeps hectoring my poor mother, and that is the worst of it. But for those young fellows and my mother,’ he said reflectively, ‘I should have blasted my so-called home ages ago.’
You aren’t free to come out for a moment, I suppose?’
‘Where to?’ asked Ravi.
‘Come to my house. I will give you good coffee and something to eat. You can rest there and return to the studio whenever you want.’ Ravi revolved the offer in his mind and rejected it. ‘I have to finish three different styles of this god notice before tonight.’ And he settled down resolutely.
At home Srinivas’s wife said: ‘Do you know, Sampath’s wife was here this afternoon?’
‘How did she come all this way? You have not seen her before?’
‘No, she managed to come in a car. What a lot of daughters she has.’
‘Why, do you envy her?’ Srinivas asked, and she replied: ‘What is there to joke about in all this! She came on a very serious business. She wants me to speak to you about her husband.’
‘What about him?’
‘It seems that their household has become impossible. There is that woman who is playing Parvathi. He is always with her.’
‘He is her cousin.’
‘It seems they are not cousins. They are of different castes.’
‘What if they are?’ Srinivas asked, thinking what an evil system caste was. She flared up. ‘Let her be any caste she pleases, but what business has she to come and ruin that family? They were so happy before. Now he doesn’t care for the house at all. He is always with her. And it seems now that he is threatening to marry her and set up another household. The poor girl has been crying for days now. You have got to do something about her.’ She was so much worked up and became so vehement that Srinivas felt that he ought to speak to Sampath.
Srinivas waited for an opportunity to meet Sampath alone at the studio. He was always with Shanti, except when she went in to dress or into the women’s makeup room, when he hung about Sohan Lai, who had still to pay him a lakh and a half. The mastery of the studio was now gradually passing into the hands of Sohan Lal, and Sohan Lal was completely absorbed in arranging the dance act. Sampath was told: ‘Give me the dance act completed, and I will pay the first half of the agreed amount.’ And if he received that lakh and a half, Sampath was going to buy up the interests of Somu also and become virtually the owner of the picture; then he would put on hand another picture almost at once. So it was in his interest to complete the dance act as quickly as possible, and night and day he was being dragged hither and thither to complete it. Sohan Lal was dogging his steps, and he dogged the steps of Sohan Lal, and Somu went round and round these two, hoping for the completion of the dance act, when he, too, hoped to get various payments made to him. It was, on the whole, a very intricate mechanism of human relationships. In this maze Srinivas walked about unscathed, because he had trained himself to view it all as a mere spectator. This capacity saved him all the later shocks. He saw, without much flutter, the mangling that was going on with his story. The very process by which they mangled his theme attracted him, and he moved from room to room, studio to studio, through floor-space and setting, laboratory and sound processing and moviola, into the projection room, watching, and he very soon accommodated himself to the notion that they were doing a picture of their own entirely unconnected with the theme he had written.
It was difficult to get at Sampath alone. All the same, when they were passing from their discussion chamber to the second studio to see a test arrangement for the dance act, he managed to ask him: ‘Please spare me fifteen minutes.’
Sampath looked at him in pained surprise. He was wearing a silk shirt with gold studs, and on his wrist gleamed a platinum watch, bound with a gold strap. He wore a pair of spectacles nowadays. ‘Every sign of prosperity is there,’ Srinivas remark
ed to himself. ‘All except your old personality, which is fast vanishing.’ He went everywhere now by car, and that habit had given him a new rotundity. Srinivas felt like saying: ‘I do hope you will not acquire the appearance of Mr Somu in due course. Pull yourself together in time.’
‘Anything urgent?’
‘Absolutely,’ Srinivas said.
‘I will free myself after seeing the dance test. It won’t take ten minutes. Come along, have a look at it.’ Srinivas excused himself and stayed behind in the garden. Presently Sampath came down. ‘This dance idea is very good, you know. It is going to make the picture top-class, the most artistic production in India. We may even send it abroad. Of course, you are not annoyed about these changes, are you?’
‘Not at all; why should I worry about it?’
‘We are only taking liberties with the details, you know, but we are keeping to your original in the main treatment.’
‘Oh, yes, yes,’ Srinivas said, feeling that this was the familiar eyewash every film-maker applied to every writer. ‘It’s not about that that I wish to trouble you now. It’s about another matter.’ He mentioned it gently, apologetically. At first Sampath pooh-poohed the entire story. But later said, with his old mischievous look coming back to his eyes: ‘Some people say that every sane man needs two wives – a perfect one for the house and a perfect one outside for social life … I have the one. Why not the other? I have confidence that I will keep both of them happy and if necessary in separate houses. Is a man’s heart so narrow that it cannot accommodate more than one? I have married according to Vedic rites: let me have one according to the civil marriage law….’
‘Is it no use discussing it?’
‘I’m afraid not, Mr Editor…. You will forgive me. I love her, though you may not believe it.’
‘How can you ever forget that you are a father of five?’
‘As I have told you, man’s heart is not a narrow corner.’
‘Think of your wife.’
‘Oh, these women will make a scene. She will be all right. She must get used to it.’ He remained for a moment brooding, but soon set himself right, saying airily: ‘It’s her nature to fuss about things sometimes. But she always changes for the better. I’ve been meaning to tell you about it, Mr Editor, but somehow –’
‘I can’t say that I’m very happy to hear this news, Sampath. I do hope you will think it over deeply,’ said Srinivas, feeling a little uncomfortable at having to sound so pontifical. He got up. ‘You have to take into consideration the future of all your five children.’
‘Oh.’ Sampath remained brooding. ‘Well, I’m going to have different establishments. I’m doing nothing illegal, to feel apologetic. After all, our religion permits us to marry many wives.’
‘Yes, no law forbids you to have more than one head, so why not try and grow as many as you can?’ asked Srinivas. ‘Let me be frank: I’m convinced that you are merely succumbing to a little piece of georgette, powder and curves. You have no right to cause any unhappiness to your wife and children.’
‘Well, sir,’ Sampath said with mock humility. ‘Here goes my solemn declaration that my wife and children shall lack nothing in life, either in affection or comfort. Will this satisfy you? If I buy Shanti a car my wife shall have another; if I give her a house I will give the other also a house; it will really be a little expensive duplicating everything this way, but I won’t mind it. Later on, when they see how much it is costing me, I’m sure they will bury the hatchet and become friends again …’
CHAPTER NINE
It was the great day of shooting the dance act. They were determined to complete the act in about twelve hours of continuous shooting, starting at six in the evening. The studio was stirring into tremendous activity.
On the floor of Stage A a gorgeous Kailas was standing – the background of ice peaks was painted by the art department. All the previous night and throughout the day Ravi had sat up there and painted it; foliage, cut and propped up, stood around. Shiva, with his matted hair and a cobra around his neck, sat there in the shade of a tree in meditation. De Mello, script in hand, was roving about giving instructions. The sound-van outside was all ready to record. Assistants stood around, fingering switches and pushing up screens and running to and fro. The makeup assistant constantly ran forward and patted the cheeks of the artists. De Mello stepped on the trolley, put his eye to the camera and cried: ‘Light – four – seven – baby – seventeen.’ As Shiva sat there in the full glare of several lights, Parvathi came up to him from a side wing. Sampath grew excited at the sight of her. Sohan Lal, Somu and Sampath sat up in their canvas chairs and viewed her critically. Sampath cried: ‘Shanti, move on a little more gradually,’ and she adjusted her steps. He ordered a makeup assistant: ‘Push away that lock of hair on her forehead, so that it doesn’t dangle right in the centre.’ He tilted his head to one side and surveyed her as the assistant went up to carry out the instruction. Somu murmured: ‘Yes, you are right. If the hair is too artificially made up it spoils the effect.’ Sampath went to the camera and applied his eye to the view-finder. He stood there, looking for a long time at Shanti, and murmured: ‘I think you had better remove the foliage behind her.’ He took his eye from the finder so as to enable De Mello to view her. He stood there for a long time and said: ‘It’s O.K. now’, making some adjustment with the camera. He went up the stage to readjust the branch of a tree. ‘Yes, we shall have a final rehearsal now,’ said Sampath, ‘Ready!’ he cried. Lights were wheeled about. He looked at them with bored indifference. As they were getting into position he went over and spoke a few words to Shanti, while she remained standing at her post. ‘Do you want a chair?’ he asked her, and carried a chair for her. ‘How long am I to keep like this?’ she asked complainingly, and he said: ‘This is the final rehearsal. We will take it; just one more rehearsal.’ She made a wry face and sat down. Beads of perspiration stood on her pink painted face. Sampath beckoned to an assistant and had her face dabbed as she sat motionless like a piece of lumber.
‘Can I have an iced drink?’
‘Oh, no!’ He threw up his arms in alarm. ‘No ice for you till this is over – not for the entire season.’
She looked agonized on hearing it and made a wry face again and grumbled: ‘You never give me anything I want – never.’ Into their banter came the voice of Lord Shiva, who had been asked to sit rigid in a corner and who had been left neglected by everyone. ‘I want to go out for a moment,’ he said. His face was streaming with perspiration; his matted locks and beard were fierce, no doubt, but his eyes were bloodshot with fatigue. He tried to move in his seat. ‘Don’t move,’ Sampath commanded him. You have another rehearsal; it’s going to be difficult to focus your place again.’
‘My legs are cramped, and I can’t sit any more.’
‘Don’t talk back,’ commanded Sampath. All the others looked at each other in consternation. ‘I’m not only talking back, but I’m going out – out of this.’ Shiva got up. Somu felt that he must smooth out the situation, and so said: ‘Don’t get excited, please; let no one get excited. We must all pull together.’ Shiva’s eyes (real ones, and not the third one on the forehead) blazed with anger as he said: ‘I’ve borne this with patience: five or six days of continuous rehearsals. Do you want to kill us with rehearsals? And yet you are not satisfied.’
‘Be calm, my dear fellow,’ said Somu, patting his back, and De Mello on the other side tried to pacify him.
‘Leave me alone!’ cried Shiva in rage. ‘All this sequence has already been shot, and yet you want to retake it – why?’
‘We’re not prepared to explain,’ said Sampath. ‘You had better read again your contract, particularly with reference to retakes and rehearsals. Our agreement is clear on that point. If you talk any further about it, it will go against you, remember.’
Shiva was not to be cowed so easily. He said, almost grinding his teeth: ‘Yes, but an ordinary retake is different: now you have included two songs and a full-scal
e dance act. It’s not in our agreement.’
Sohan Lal tried to pacify the fighters now in his own way. ‘We must not quarrel over such small matters. Of course, you take a lot of trouble, we all appreciate it. Every film is a co-operative effort.’ Shiva, who tried to follow this conversation in order to find any useful suggestion, was more enraged when he found on analysis that there was nothing in it. He lost his head completely. He came towards the camera and said: ‘If you pay me another five thousand rupees I’m prepared to go through this act, rehearsals and all, otherwise no.’
‘Why should you ask for extra pay, mister? You must not,’ said Sohan Lal.
‘Why not? I’m labouring for it!’ cried Shiva passionately. ‘And I am entitled to it.’
‘It is unthinkable!’ cried Sampath and Somu in one voice.
‘Not unthinkable in her case, I suppose?’ Shiva cried, pointing at Parvathi, sitting on her chair and fanning herself. ‘Aren’t you giving her five thousand extra? Do you think I don’t know all that?’ He came towards the producers menacingly. Somu shrank back a little; Sampath stepped forward, rolling up his sleeve. ‘What are you up to?’ The other checked himself. Sampath asked in a tone of finality: ‘Are you going through this or not?’
‘I have said my say. Are you going to revise my contract?’
‘I don’t want conditions. We may give you more or we may not. Leave all that to our discretion. At the moment I won’t have you talk of any such things on the set. Are you going to your place or not?’
Mr Sampath-The Printer of Malgudi, the Financial Expert, Waiting for the Mahatma Page 21
