Bollywood Confidential

by Sonia Singh

  Raveena would complain, and then Daddy would confront Randy. Randy would be on the defensive and probably take it out on her. He might even find some way to kick Raveena off his film.

  She kept her mouth shut. After all, she’d be spending most of her time at the studio anyway.

  Daddy took a seat in the lawn chair next to her as two cars pulled up and parked beside Randy’s dark green BMW. A short, very fat man tumbled out of the first car, and a tall, rugged Sikh wearing cowboy boots and a turban exited the second.

  Randy finally got off the phone. “Raveena,” he said, “Let me perform introductions.” He gestured to the round man. “This is the choreographer, Lollipop. He’ll handle all six song sequences.”

  Lollipop? Raveena struggled not to burst into giggles. As if sensing her amusement, Lollipop shot her a challenging look. She immediately sobered up.

  Randy indicated the other man who lounged against the hood of his car. “This is Dharamveer Sandhu, the cinematographer.”

  Dharamveer lit up a cigarette. “Everyone calls me Veer.”

  “Veer is the best cinematographer in India,” Randy boasted.

  Instead of acknowledging the compliment, Veer blew out a perfect ring of smoke and ignored Randy completely.

  “Where’s Siddharth?” Lollipop asked in a high-pitched voice.

  Raveena giggled. Everyone looked at her.

  Struggling to contain herself, she cleared her throat. “Who’s Siddharth?”

  Lollipop turned towards Raveena in disbelief. “You don’t know who Siddharth is?”

  Veer looked at Daddy in surprise. “We have Siddharth? How did you manage that?”

  “Oh, Siddharth and I are great friends,” Randy said, butting in. “He’s doing this as a personal favor to me.”

  Raveena was definitely intrigued. Siddharth hadn’t starred in any of the Bollywood films she’d seen. Although, admittedly, the ones she’d borrowed had been a few years old.

  “Will Siddharth be playing the Emperor then?” she asked.

  Lollipop was practically jumping up and down. “I can’t wait to work with Siddharth! The man moves like a dream!”

  Veer flicked the ash from his cigarette and continued to muse. “We have Siddharth…”

  Daddy answered Raveena’s question. “Yes beti, Siddharth is the biggest star in India. We are very blessed to have him in our film.”

  “There he is!” Randy crowed, pointing to a black Mercedes pulling into the drive.

  The windows were tinted, so Raveena couldn’t get a look inside.

  The car stopped, the driver side door opened, and it was as though time stood still.

  Raveena was so not kidding.

  Conversation ceased. Various men and women going about their own studio business moved closer and stared.

  And no wonder.

  Siddharth was the Adonis of the East.

  He was around six feet tall, lean and muscled. His skin was a golden bronze and his hair a rich dark brown. He had that perfect Roman nose, and his eyes were hazel.

  And if that weren’t enough, as he reached out and shook Daddy’s hand with a smile, Raveena saw the dimples.

  Michelangelo couldn’t have sculpted a better male.

  At that moment the only thought running through her mind was:

  How many love scenes were in the movie?

  And…

  Could they possibly add more?

  Chapter 18

  Siddharth nearly tripped as he got out of his car.

  He managed to regain his balance in time and looked to see if anyone had noticed.

  They hadn’t.

  Embarrassed, he arranged his features into a cool arrogant look—the one he’d perfected in many of his films—and started towards the group.

  There was the annoying Randy Kapoor, Lollipop, with whom he’d worked in the past, and Veer. Veer was the best in the biz and a good man to boot. When he saw Daddy, his smile was natural and not forced like usual.

  Although he only glanced quickly at the young woman, he took in everything about her from head to toe.

  Siddharth was curious about what had brought his co-star all the way to Bombay. Many of his fellow actors and actresses in India dreamt of a Hollywood offer. Aishwariya, the highest paid actress in Bollywood, had two Hollywood offers on her plate. There was even talk she might be in the running to play one of the Bond girls in 007’s next movie.

  Siddharth stiffened as Randy patted his shoulder. “Sid, this is Raveena, your costar. Raveena, meet the biggest star in India.”

  Raveena smiled. “I’m looking forward to working with you.”

  Siddharth was a bit taken aback by Raveena’s easy friendliness. Suddenly he was struck by a painful attack of shyness. He’d been affected by the problem since he was a kid. Because of his looks, he was often singled out. Women would come up to him on the street and pinch his cheeks and stroke his hair. Siddharth, a natural introvert, had dreaded these encounters.

  As an adult, he still did.

  Outside the studio gate, a crowd of female fans was openly goggling at him. Half of them looked as though their eyes would bulge out of their faces.

  When he spoke, his words came out stiff and forced. “How are you enjoying Bombay, Raveena?”

  “I’m still absorbing everything. Bombay is…so much.”

  Siddharth nodded at her response, and then quickly turned away. He wasn’t good at polite conversation and preferred not to indulge in it.

  Randy clapped his hands. “Come on everyone! I’ve ordered a lavish South Indian lunch.”

  Siddharth wanted to say something to Raveena, something witty and urbane, but he couldn’t think of anything other than “How was your flight?” or “What’s your favorite movie?” and those questions sounded dumb. So instead, he took a seat at the table inside next to Veer, and the two started up a conversation about location shoots.

  Chapter 19

  Isn’t it nice when a gorgeous guy dismisses you with one casual glance?

  Really does wonders for the self-esteem.

  Of course, Raveena still wanted to jump on Siddharth and bite his neck, even if he didn’t say one thing to her during the meal.

  After a long lunch inside the air-conditioned studio spent gorging on South Indian cuisine—potato curry, coconut chutney, dosas stuffed with tomatoes, green chilies, coriander and onions and spicy lentil sambar—Randy had announced that the cast and crew were to report to the studio the next morning at nine a.m.

  Raveena wasn’t sure what exactly they would be doing the next day. Since there was no script, there wouldn’t be the usual table read, and Randy had dismissed Veer’s question about a storyboard.

  She supposed she’d find out the next day.

  While everyone jumped into their cars, Raveena hailed an auto-rickshaw to take her back to Uncle Heeru’s.

  Uncle Heeru wouldn’t stop yelling.

  The two plumbers he’d hired stood side by side and stared down at the ground.

  “Cheaters! Duffers!” Uncle Heeru yelled.

  Apparently, after the plumbers had shown up for work four hours late, Uncle Heeru had discovered them sprawled on the floor of the downstairs bathroom reading the newspaper instead of fixing the plumbing.

  Eyes blazing, glasses hanging by one ear, Uncle Heeru turned to Raveena. “Does this happen in America? Indians have no work ethic! Bloody, lazy people!” He reached up, grabbed bunches of his hair and yelled. Then he turned and ran out of the room.

  A few moments later he came running back—his arms filled with newspapers. He ran right past them and out the door.

  Raveena moved to the window and watched as Uncle Heeru threw the papers to the ground and began stomping on them.

  By the time her uncle returned inside, she informed him that the plumbers had left.

  Uncle Heeru scowled. “Lazy useless duffers. I will watch them with an eagle eye tomorrow.”

  “You didn’t fire them?” Raveena asked astounded.

 
He stared back at her puzzled. “I have removed the newspapers, now they have no choice but to work.”

  She guessed that was a solution of sorts.

  Raveena spent the rest of the evening in her room reading Hurray for Bollywood—the book Maza had given her.

  She was a quarter through the book when Nandini quietly entered to tell her she had a phone call.

  Dressed in shorts and a tank top, Raveena followed her downstairs and to the hall extension. “Hello?”

  “Raveena!”

  “Mom!” she exclaimed happily. “What time is it there?”

  “Ten in the morning. I thought your father would never leave for work. He’s driving me crazy.”

  This was an all-too-familiar rant.

  “So how are you? How is Heeru?” her mother questioned.

  Raveena was tempted to say “hot” to the first question and “crazy” to the second. “We’re both fine,” she said instead.

  Raveena then went on to inform her mother of the news of the day. “You’ll never guess who my costar is on the film. I’m sure you’ve heard of him. Siddharth.”

  Her mother dropped the phone.

  Raveena shouted her name a few times before her mother came back on the phone and asked in a breathless voice. “Siddharth? He’s the number one actor in India.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “They worship him there. He’s like a demigod. Such a beautiful man.”

  Thirteen thousand miles away, but Raveena swore she could feel her mother’s sigh brushing against her cheek through the receiver.

  “Well, I find him arrogant, Mom.”

  “You’d be too if you had crazy females chasing you down wherever you went,” Leela snapped. “The poor boy can’t even eat lunch in a restaurant. Women of all ages go mad for him. I read in Filmfare that while eating at China Garden with his family, the manager had to pull an eighty-year-old widow off of him. Poor boy can’t eat in peace.”

  “That’s no excuse for being arrogant,” Raveena argued.

  Her mother sniffed. “Hmmph!”

  Raveena decided to get off the subject of Siddharth, since it was obviously a sensitive area. “Mom, can you call Jai and Maza and tell them I’m okay? Uncle Heeru doesn’t have a computer, and I haven’t been able to make it to an Internet Café.”

  Her mother agreed to do so, and they spoke of other things like family, friends and Bombay in general. Just as they were saying their good-byes, her mother brought up one last thing. “Do you know how much money Siddharth commands per picture?”

  “No, Mom, but I’m dying to know.”

  This time Raveena was being sarcastic.

  “Twenty crore rupees!”

  “Crore? How much is that? I’m still figuring out the rupee-dollar conversion.”

  “Five million dollars!”

  Okay, so it wasn’t in the Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise range, but it was damn good for a Bollywood star. Siddharth probably lived like a maharajah.

  Correction: a demi-god.

  Meanwhile, the amount of money Raveena was getting paid rivaled that of the cast of The Blair Witch Project.

  Her mother said good-bye, and Raveena walked over to the open window and leaned against the sill. She could smell jasmine and the sweet scent from the mango trees.

  Once again, she needed to give herself a pep talk.

  “Come on, Raveena,” she said aloud. “We’re talking Bollywood. If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.”

  As far as pep talks go…

  Raveena thought that was pretty damn good.

  Chapter 20

  The pain was so intense Raveena sat up in bed clutching her stomach.

  Pushing her hair out of her face she glanced at the small digital watch on the nightstand.

  Three a.m.

  The intense heat of the afternoon had barely abated, but she was racked with chills.

  Another sharp spasm of pain twisted her insides. She felt as though she’d swallowed a miraculously sharp set of Ginsu knives.

  Shivering, Raveena got out of bed and turned on the light. Stumbling across the room, she opened the wardrobe and searched through her belongings until she found the bottle of Tums.

  She shoved a few in her mouth, but her throat was so dry she could barely chew.

  Without bothering with a robe, Raveena slipped out of her room, went down the stairs and headed towards the kitchen for a glass of water.

  She was making her way through the darkened dining room when she tripped over something and fell to the floor.

  She gasped when she saw what it was.

  Ahuman hand!

  Raveena gasped twice more and the hand twitched.

  Finally, her eyes adjusted to the dark and she could see what was in front of her.

  Uncle Heeru was curled up under the dining table fast asleep.

  Before Raveena could take in the scene completely, another wave of cramps gripped her stomach and bile filled her mouth.

  She scrambled to her knees and ran to the nearest bathroom.

  There wasn’t time to wonder whether the plumbers had fixed the toilet or not.

  Leaning over the seat she vomited for the next thirty minutes.

  Since no one came to investigate, she assumed Uncle Heeru still snoozed underneath the table.

  At that moment she couldn’t care less.

  Stomach finally empty, feeling about as frail as a skeleton with osteoporosis, Raveena curled up on the cool tile of the bathroom floor.

  Then she came to two conclusions.

  One, she had some sort of wicked food poisoning.

  And two, she actually cared very much why her uncle preferred to snooze under furniture as opposed to on top of it.

  “Amebic dysentery,” the doctor said with finality.

  Raveena looked up at him from under several layers of blankets.

  “But,” she protested. “I’ve been good. Nothing but filtered water. I haven’t eaten anything off the street.”

  “What did you consume prior to disgorging?” the doctor asked.

  “I had scrambled eggs here and dosas at the studio.”

  “Lavinia drinks too much Indian cola. Terrible stuff,” Uncle Heeru said from where he hovered in the doorway. “She’s killing herself.”

  The doctor ignored him. “No, it wasn’t the cola. What was in the dosa?”

  Raveena told him and added, “We all ate the same thing. I was about to call the director and see if anyone else is sick.”

  The doctor shook his head. “I doubt it is the dosa. Tell me about the condiments.”

  “Coconut chutney. And this jar of chili and vinegar.”

  “Ah,” the doctor nodded. “How many chilies did you have?”

  Just thinking about food made her want to hurl. “Well, I like spicy food. I had quite a bit.”

  The doctor fixed her with a stern look. “The chili juice was most likely made with contaminated water. A common problem.”

  “There was vinegar in it,” Raveena objected. “Doesn’t that kill germs?”

  The doctor frowned. “Who told you that?”

  “Nobody,” she mumbled, feeling chastised.

  The doctor wrote down a prescription for several items and turned towards Uncle Heeru. “Raveena needs to take—”

  Uncle Heeru’s expression suddenly became panicked. He threw up his hands and ran out of the room.

  Annoyed, the doctor stared at Heeru’s departing back, and then turned to Nandini who stood silently in the corner. “Take this to the chemist. Raveena must have two doses a day of each medicine for one week.”

  Nandini took the prescription and smiled. “Yes, doctor.”

  The doctor’s annoyed expression relaxed, and he gently laid a hand on Nandini’s head.

  When he faced Raveena, his expression was once again stern. “Don’t you know you can’t eat everything in India? This is not America. You must be careful.”

  And on that note, he packed up his bag and took his leave.


  Randy was perfectly fine with Raveena’s not making an appearance at the studio.

  “We have a group of journalists here who are interviewing Siddharth. It’s fantastic publicity,” he said.

  “Will they want to speak to me as well? I’m pretty sick right now, but later—”

  “No, no, there’s no need for that,” Randy assured. “They only want to talk to the star.”

  Raveena’s dislike towards Siddharth grew stronger.

  Raveena’s dislike for Randy went without saying.

  Raveena’s dislike for food, at the moment, overwhelmed everything else.

  “I have to vomit,” she said.

  The last thing Raveena heard before she flung away the phone and darted to the bathroom was Randy saying:

  “Vomit? Are you ill?”

  Chapter 21

  The good thing about picking up an ameba or two is that you lose weight.

  In Raveena’s case, eight pounds.

  It was seven days later, and she was ready to work.

  Upon learning of her illness—Uncle Heeru phoned Leela to say Raveena was dying—her mother had called twice a day, and so had Auntie Kiran. Auntie Kiran had insisted Raveena send a stool sample via DHL so an American doctor could examine it. “Those Indian doctors are all quacks,” she’d said firmly.

  Needless to say, Raveena didn’t listen to her aunt. The Indian doctor had spent almost an hour with her. The most she ever got out of her managed care physician back home was ten minutes.

  Anyway, the proof was in the pudding, or in this case, the stool.

  Raveena was ameba-free.

  Nine a.m. sharp, Raveena had arrived at Sahara Studios after haggling with the auto-rickshaw driver over the fare. Raveena was becoming quite adept at getting herself around, and she knew that it cost twelve rupees to go from her uncle’s house to the studio. So when the driver demanded twenty, she argued like a local.

  Granted, it was a matter of sixteen cents, but it was the principle of the thing.