by Vikas Swarup
I have to admit that in real life Priya looks just as glamorous as she does in films, only a bit shorter. Her light-brown hair is styled into ringlets that frame her oval face and cascade down her shoulders in soft, somewhat rebellious waves. Years of squinting, grimacing, simpering and smirking on screen has turned the corners of her doe-shaped eyes into a predator’s steely stare, unsettling and intense. Dressed in a white ruffled shirt and a brown jacket, complemented by skin-hugging jeans, leather boots and a Birkin handbag, she carries herself with the cocksure confidence of an imperious diva who knows exactly her own worth. Raja Gulati almost goes down on his knees in his attempt to offer her a bouquet of roses.
‘Thank you,’ she mouths, wearing the blank smile of a woman at a party she can’t wait to leave.
Within minutes of her arrival, the entry to the back office gets jammed with employees craning their necks to catch a glimpse of the actress. They stand in awe, heady with the thrill of seeing a movie star in the flesh. Normally, I would be the last person to get flustered by the idea of being in the presence of a celebrity, but, seeing the way the others are behaving, I find it difficult not to get caught up in the drama of it all.
The bodyguards eventually shoo away everyone from the holding area, leaving Priya Capoorr with just her PR manager, makeup man, hairdresser and me. They sit around a work table. I stand deferentially in the background, ready to offer tea, soft drinks and sandwiches, which are all at hand.
‘The tournament is less than four months away and you have still not identified the team,’ I overhear Priya tell Rosie Mascarenhas. My ears prick up. The Cricket World Cup is less than two months away, so she is probably referring to the Indian Premier League, which begins in April.
‘I’m working on it,’ the PR lady says.
‘I don’t care which team, but I simply have to be seen at the IPL.’
The actress takes no notice of me as the makeup man applies a powder puff to her forehead. For her, I am just part of the scenery. Witnessing her lording it over me (and everyone else, for that matter), I am filled with the same burning indignation that I felt in Chandangarh village. There was a caste system back there, but there is a caste system at work in Bollywood, too. A system that confers undue advantage on a privileged few – the sons and daughters of film stars and producers, who piggyback their way to fame and fortune without often having either looks or talent. People like Priya Capoorr are born with golden spoons in their mouths, destined for success even before they have learnt to walk. She never had to slave like an extra, dancing in geometric formations on a beach with a group of scantily clad girls, as the hero and heroine cavorted in the sea. She knew she would commence her career as a heroine and then inevitably become a star. But for every Priya Capoorr there are thousands of aspiring actors who land on the shores of Mumbai every day and never get a lucky break. No one has ever broken out of the ranks of faceless extras to become a famous star, with the possible exception of Salim Ilyasi. And even he had the financial muscle of industrialist Ram Mohammad Thomas behind him.
In fact, at one time Priya had a torrid romance with Salim Ilyasi, which had sparked rumours that they might soon marry. But then she found greener pastures in the form of Rocky M, son of billionaire coal baron Laxman Mudaliar. The two of them have been going steady for the past couple of years, and there are reports that Rocky has already proposed to her. If this is true, Priya has not only secured her present, she has also shrewdly insured her future.
Once her makeup is done, she opens her Birkin handbag and extracts a diamond ring, which she slips on the ring finger of her left hand. I can see that it is loose: it does not grip the finger very well. Priya adjusts it a couple of times, keeping it centre. It is clear she wants to flaunt it. And why not? I’ve never seen a diamond this big. It must be at least four carats, probably more. Under the harsh strip light, it sparkles like a brilliant star in a sea of gold, its dazzling radiance casting a rainbow of colours in my eyes.
Rosie Mascarenhas raises a finger. ‘Are you sure you want to wear this here?’
‘Yes,’ says Priya. ‘It’s high time.’
‘People will talk. The media will go into a frenzy. They’ll come after you like a pack of hungry dogs thrown an unexpected bone.’
‘I know how to handle dogs.’
‘I’m not very comfortable in this setting. I’d rather we did an exclusive with Filmfare on the engagement.’
‘I don’t want any further discussion on this. I’ll do it the way I want to do it,’ she says, raising her voice just enough to let the PR manager know who is calling the shots here.
The hairdresser, a northeastern girl with small, doleful eyes, gently touches up Priya’s curls. The actress takes a final look in the mirror held up by the makeup man, and then rises from the chair. ‘Okay, let’s get this over and done with.’
Just as she is about to head into the main hall, Raja Gulati comes running in and asks her to wait. ‘Sorry, madam, we’re having some trouble with our PA system. It will take another ten minutes to repair.’
I can see Priya getting impatient. ‘Why didn’t they keep a backup ready?’ she grumbles. To while away the time, she pulls out her BlackBerry and begins texting. But her heart is not in it. She puts it down after a while, looking visibly bored.
‘Are you on Twitter?’ I ask her, just to break the silence.
She looks up, as if noticing me for the first time. Rosie hurriedly introduces me. ‘This is Sapna, one of the salesgirls in the store.’
Priya eyeballs me from top to bottom, sizing me up. ‘No, I’m not on Twitter, and I don’t want to be on Twitter,’ she answers, fluttering her hands in a theatrical manner. ‘You see, I am a star and a star by definition has to be mysterious and distant. Too much familiarity kills the mystique. A successful brand must be unique and exclusive and I am a brand now, am I not?’
It is a rhetorical question; she doesn’t expect me to answer. I answer nonetheless. ‘Salim Ilyasi says the same thing in the new biography out on him. Have you read it?’
‘I don’t read,’ she says flatly. ‘I hardly have the time, and, quite honestly, books bore me. Why waste a week reading a book, when you can watch its film version in two hours? And these days we are making a lot of films based on books.’
‘What did you think of Slumdog Millionaire?’
‘I thought it was quite good. But, just because a white man made the film, our people got jealous.’
Even as she makes these unguarded revelations, her face does not soften one bit. She is merely indulging me, not inviting me to get closer. ‘Which was the last film of mine you saw?’ she asks me suddenly.
I think about it. The last film I saw with Priya in it was Murder in Mumbai and it was execrable. I couldn’t even sit through it. ‘It was City of Dust,’ I lie.
She raises her perfectly plucked eyebrows. ‘That came out two years ago.’
‘Yes, but I saw it on cable just a couple of days ago.’
‘And what did you think of it?’
‘It was good, quite good. You essayed a rather non-glamorous role, for a change.’
She nods, becoming more animated. ‘Yes. It was a real challenge playing a simple village girl, but I pulled it off. I almost got the National Award for it.’
‘I must say I was a bit confused by the ending.’
Her cold stare tells me I am treading new waters. ‘And what exactly did you not get about the ending?’ she asks frostily.
‘Well, almost the entire film is a sensitive, postmodern critique of materialist culture, but then near the end we suddenly get this over-the-top dance number with you in harem pants. I found it a bit jarring, that’s all.’
She flicks me a sardonic look. ‘You just didn’t get it, did you?’
I gaze at her blankly.
‘You said you watched the film two nights ago, right?’
I nod.
‘I recommend you mull over it for five more days.’
‘Beg your pardon?’
‘You see, this movie was meant for the elites, not the masses. People like you need to analyse it for at least a week to understand it fully. That’s how long it normally takes for the tube light in your brain to switch on.’
A surge of anger flares within me. ‘People like you—’ That phrase rankles like an egregious insult that cannot stand unchallenged. But Rosie Mascarenhas is already giving me a warning glare to shut up. ‘Why don’t you serve us some tea?’ she interjects.
‘Yes, tea would be nice,’ Priya agrees, seconding the idea, putting me in my place even more firmly, telling me that she is the celebrity, and I am merely an attendant. People like me serve tea, and people like her drink it. I pass her the cup, with self-pity oozing from every pore of my being.
She does not deign to speak another word to me after that. In any case, the PA system is soon fixed and she goes into the hall. I follow her, watching from the back rows.
She gives an accomplished performance, launching into a practised spiel about the superior features of Sinotron TVs, modelling in front of their top-of-the-line flagship units and posing for the shutterbugs.
When the Q&A session commences, the reporters show scant gratitude for Sinotron’s hospitality. They have no interest in plasma TVs and LED panels. Their eyes are fixated on Priya’s ring finger, and there is only one question on their lips: ‘Is this your engagement ring?’
‘Yes, it is,’ Priya answers, proudly showing off the ornament to a chorus of groans and sighs from the male members of the audience and mesmerised stares from the females.
‘How many carats?’
She holds up five fingers, drawing oohs and ahs all round.
‘When are you getting married to Rocky M?’
‘We’re in no hurry. Certainly not for the next two years.’
‘How expensive is the ring?’
‘Priceless.’
With a final flourish she brings the session to an end, having floored reporters and audience alike. I marvel at her business acumen, how she has managed to extract acres of coverage for Brand Priya Capoorr, even from a boring product launch.
When she re-enters the holding room, she has the satisfied smirk of a woman who has got what she wanted.
‘So what are you doing for New Year’s Eve?’ she asks me, perhaps her way of making up for the sharp words she had said to me earlier.
‘Nothing,’ I reply. ‘For me, December the thirty-first is like any other day.’
‘Well, it’s not,’ she argues. ‘It is the end of one year and the beginning of another. A new year buries the old and ushers in new dreams, new hopes and new aspirations.’ She says this with such glib, cheery sincerity, it sounds like a dialogue from one of her films.
I feel like telling her that a new year does not bury the detritus of the past. There will be the same slow iteration of our lingering sorrows and old regrets in the new year as well. Instead, I ask her, ‘So what will you be doing tonight?’
‘Oh, Rocky is throwing a big bash at the Regency and I’ll be partying all night long. In fact, you are welcome to join us. Come around eleven thirty or so. You’ll get to see how the other half parties.’
It looks like one of those spur-of-the-moment offers she might already be regretting. Rosie Mascarenhas is sufficiently alarmed by it to go into a spasm of coughing. In any event, I have no intention of suffering through another round of the other half’s patronising condescension.
‘Thanks for the invite.’ I smile at Priya. ‘But I just remembered I’d promised an American friend of mine to come to her New Year party in Mehrauli.’
By now Rosie and her team have finished gathering the odds and ends they had left behind. The PR manager looks around the holding room for a final time before announcing, ‘I think we are ready to go.’
Priya continues to gaze at me, as if I were a new plaything she is reluctant to part with. ‘Don’t you want an autograph before I leave?’
The question is so unexpected, that I am taken aback. ‘Of course,’ I mumble.
‘Where’s your autograph book?’
I don’t have an autograph book. I don’t even have anything I can use as an autograph book. My eyes dart around the holding room in panic, my mind a flustered flurry. I can see only thick ledger books lining the shelves, arranged year-wise. And then I notice a slim volume lying on a top shelf. I pull it out and dust off its leather cover. It is a blank photo album, its thick pages coil-bound with frosted plastic covers. It is perfect!
I remove the plastic cover from a middle page and place it before Priya, who is already poised with a pen. ‘To Sapna with love, Priya Capoorr,’ she scribbles on the page in an expansive scrawl. Just then, there is a commotion at the door. I turn around to find a fan trying to barge into the holding room. There is a bit of a scuffle with the bodyguards, but nothing serious.
Priya shuts the album and offers it to me. ‘Here, better keep this someplace safe.’
I see Raja Gulati entering the room and hastily deposit it back on the top shelf. ‘Thank you, Priya-ji, you were amazing,’ he says, preening like a greasy showman. This time Priya does not smile at him. She barely acknowledges our presence as she gets into her limousine. With a polite but dismissive wave, she pulls up her tinted windows and the car drives off.
‘I thought tinted windows were banned in Delhi.’ I turn to Raja Gulati.
‘For you and me,’ he replies, still gazing at the corner the vehicle disappeared around. ‘Not for superstars like the one we just saw.’
I return to the shop floor, only to be mobbed like a rock star by the other salesgirls. ‘Tell us, what did you talk to Priya about?’ asks a breathless Prachi.
‘Was there a call from Rocky M?’ Neelam tugs at my arm.
‘Did she give you any makeup tips?’ Jyoti wants to know.
The entire store basks in the reflected glow of the celebrity visit, but the euphoria lasts only for an hour – because, at 3 p.m., the actress is back at Gulati & Sons, angry and distraught.
It turns out she cannot find her five-carat engagement ring. It slipped from her finger and she is convinced it must have dropped somewhere in the store. She instructs us to turn out all the customers and down the shutters. Then, over the next hour, she makes us scour every inch of the store. We look below the floorboards, under desks and chairs, behind TVs and washing machines, in toilet bowls and wastepaper baskets, but do not find the missing ring.
The police are summoned, led by the same Inspector Goswami who had dealt with our former accountant Choubey. ‘It is obvious to me that one of you has the ring,’ he declares ominously, going around the store, scrutinising our faces as if we were in an identification parade in a police station. ‘It’s still not too late to fess up,’ he continues, his voice taking on the patient tone of an admonishing father sharing some critical piece of wisdom. ‘Miss Capoorr will not press charges if you return the ring.’
Finding himself up against a wall of silence, he turns to the actress. ‘Priya-ji, do you suspect anyone in particular?’
Priya also scans the circus of employees, her eyes cold and hard. When she comes to me, she pauses, trying to read my face. My heart is beating so fast, I’m sure everyone can hear it out loud. Then she lifts a manicured finger at me. ‘This is the girl who spent maximum time with me. I am sure she knows where’s my ring. Check her bag!’
I gape at her, slack-jawed in disbelief. A police constable moves to take my Nine West bag from my hands. I am too stunned to protest. Besides, to protest would be a tacit admission of guilt. So I allow the policeman to open my bag and upturn it on the table, spilling its contents. I watch in agonised suspense as he sifts through my personal belongings, like a customs officer inspecting a smuggler’s luggage. Needless to say, the ring is not found among the keys, cards, clips, tissues, used tickets, receipts, lip balm, pepper spray and cell phone that tumble out.
Priya is still not finished with me. ‘Search her,’ she orders, as though she were the inspector. She is exercising
the most obvious prerogative of celebrity: power. Even before I can squeak out a word, I am herded into the ladies’ toilet by a woman constable with tattooed arms, who asks me to strip.
‘What?’
‘You heard me, take off your clothes,’ she growls, pushing me roughly against the wall, her hot breath on my face. She is exercising the most obvious prerogative of power: licence to misbehave.
‘Take your hands off me. There’s no way I’m stripping. You can’t force me to.’
‘I can even force you to eat shit, understood?’ She suddenly grabs me by the hair and pushes my head down into the toilet bowl, inches away from the water. A wave of pure terror washes over me, convincing me of her brute might, cowing me into submission.
The next few moments are the most humiliating of my life as the policewoman rips off my shirt and skirt and prods and pokes inside my bra and knickers. I close my eyes and wish the earth would open up and swallow me whole.
Two minutes later, when I emerge from the toilet, my pride is in tatters, but my probity is still intact. ‘She doesn’t have the ring,’ the constable sighs.
The actress is inconsolable. ‘That ring is worth two crores – twenty million rupees! If it is not found, my fiancé will kill me. Just keep on looking till you find it.’
‘We will, madam, we will.’ Raja Gulati’s comforting assurance is as solemn as it is fake.
The moment Priya Capoorr leaves, the showroom shutters are opened and normal operation resumes, but everything has changed for me. The sideways glances from the store employees, varying between pitying and gloating, are simply unbearable. In the space of a few hours, I have gone from rock star to robbery suspect.
Just before closing time, Prachi and Neelam get into a huddle with me. ‘Whatever happened to you, yaar, wasn’t good,’ says Prachi, trying to soothe my hurt feelings. ‘These spoilt film stars think they can accuse whoever they want.’
