“Amma!” says Ashok. “Ashok!” says Amma. A heartfelt exchange of domestic pleasantries follows. Mother asks son to wash his mouth and hands quickly because she has made him carrot halwa. Son, obeying dutifully, inquires about mother’s welfare. Mother responds with her quotidian expression of maternal anxiety about the risks taken by her beta. Tearfully she invokes the fate of the father (whose garlanded framed photograph on the peacock-green wall, focused upon in a lingering close-up, reveals him to have been a police officer as well, complete with pencil-line mustache). Ashok, stirred more by the photo than by his mother’s entreaties, puts down his gajar ka halwa long enough to pledge to fulfill his father’s incomplete mission in life: to bring evildoers to justice and to marry off his daughter.
Enter on cue Maya, the daughter in question. She is sixteen and pigtailed and winsomely carries a stack of schoolbooks. Ashok beams with fraternal pride and asks after her studies. More pleasantries are exchanged. To complete the picture of familial unity and bliss, the trio bursts into song:
(Refrain):
We’re one small happy family,
We live and love together.
We’re one small happy family,
In sunshine and bad weather.
THE MOTHER:
We’re one small happy family,
Together we stand and fall.
We’re one small happy family,
All for each and each for all.
(Refrain, sung by trio)
ASHOK:
We’re one small happy family,
United, good and strong.
We’re one small happy family,
So nothing can go wrong.
(Refrain, sung by trio)
MAYA:
We’re one small happy family,
Looked after by our mother.
We’re one small happy family,
Protected by my brother.
(Refrain, sung by trio)
(Adoring glances are cast at each person as each is mentioned. As they sing the refrain, they link hands and dance around a red plastic sofa. They are, it is clear, one small happy family.)
“Agent Abha. Agent Pranay.” The gravelly voice, the cheetah, the pool (its surface again clean): we are back in the headquarters of the evil Godambo.
“Yes, boss.” The two step forward.
Abha is petite, pretty; she is in a designer version of the black commando outfit, with black suede boots and a gold lame chemise over her polo-neck top. But even the talents of the costumier cannot detract from her principal feature: she is built like an hourglass, but an Arab hourglass, perhaps, made by a timekeeper with sand to spare. Pranay is bigger, more strongly built, altogether more proportionate. But even the villagers in the twenty-five-paisa seats can see that he is dissolute; his narrow eyes are flecked with red, as is his narrow mouth, which is busily engaged in chewing paan. He sports a thick drooping black mustache, and for no apparent reason carries a whip in his right hand, with which he periodically and arhythmically smacks his left palm.
“I want you to get this Inspector Ashok for me. Agent Abha, you will seek him out. I want you first to find out how much Ashok knows about our operation. Then bring him to me, alive. I want to talk to him.” Godambo laughs gutturally, as if the gravel in his throat had been scattered by a passing vehicle. The cheetah, startled, raises its head. Godambo strokes its back. “Pranay, I want you to help Abha. You know what to do.”
Pranay chews some more and strikes his palm with the whip, wincing involuntarily. “Yes, boss.”
“Good,” says Godambo and laughs again. “I want to meet this Ashok. I want to see who is this inspector who dares to thwart the plans of mighty Godambo.”
“We will take care of it, Godambo,” says Abha.
“Good. And what is the penalty for those who dare to thwart Godambo’s plans?”
The commandos answer in chorus: “Death.”
Godambo laughs. “Death,” he echoes approvingly. The cheetah blinks.
Scene: a nightclub, of the kind found only in Hindi films. A large stage, bedecked with gilt and a dazzling mosaic of multicolored mirrors, faces a valley of white-clothed tables. Seated at these, their expressions bedecked with guilt, is an indeterminate collection of diners, also white-clothed, none of whom look as if they can afford a place like this. (Indeed, they can’t; they are all extras, or “Junior Artistes” as the trade prefers they be called, roped in at seventy rupees a day.) They seem remarkably uninterested in the food before them; that is because they are under strict instructions from the executive producer not to consume it. (Their own, somewhat more frugal, repast awaits them in the studio canteen after the shift.) Along one bottle-lined wall is a bar, also surprisingly untenanted: not even a bartender is visible. The reason will soon be apparent — the bar is meant only to serve as a backdrop for our hero, who will lean against it but not drink (one can never be too sure about how well alcohol will go down with our rural moralists). The lights dim; a single spotlight appears on the stage, illuminating a man with a narrow, red-stained mouth and a drooping mustache. Yes, it is none other than Pranay, except that his whip has been replaced by a pair of drumsticks. He is the percussionist of the evening, and apparently the master of ceremonies as well.
“Laddies and genurrmen,” he slurs into the mike before him, “the one and only — Abha!”
A roll of drums. The spotlight moves away from him, casting rainbow patterns on the mirror mosaic. As the music builds, red and gold rectangles of stage glass part to admit the star. Hips swiveling in a sheathlike gown slit at the calves, fake diamonds sparkling at her throat and wrists, wireless mike in exquisite hand, Abha twists onto the stage. She smiles at the audience just as Ashok walks in. He is in a tuxedo, complete with black bow tie; not the standard off-duty garb of your average police officer, but the cinema-loving villagers don’t know that. (Nor, for that matter, will they ask what on earth an honest middle-class cop is doing in a place like this. The Indian film industry is built on their ignorance and on their willing suspension of disbelief.)
Our hero looks at the girl on the stage, the girl on the stage looks at him, the camera looks at her looking at him, the camera looks at him, too. He leans against the bar, his face framed by a fuzzy background of bottles. The girl swings into song:
Baby don’t leave me —
You’ve got to believe me,
I love you!
Baby don’t leave me —
Tell me you believe me,
That I love you …
Her hips twist improbably; her mikeless hand, five fingers spread, traces a vivid diagonal across her torso from thigh upward, stopping only at the natural obstruction above. She tosses shoulder-length hair and croons:
I’m the kind of woman who takes a lot of loving,
And to get it I may do some shoving,
I know I’ve been bad
But it makes me sad
To think you don’t want me anymore.
Pranay joins her in the chorus:
Baby don’t leave me —
You’ve got to believe me,
I love you!
Baby don’t leave me —
Tell me you believe me,
That I love you …
Ashok smiles impassively. The girl is looking at him as she continues:
You’re the kind of man I want to cling to,
You’re the only man I want to sing to,
I’ll put all my charms
Into your arms
Don’t tell me you don’t want me anymore.
Pranay looks at her, looks at Ashok, then smashes the cymbals attached to his drum set as he joins in:
Baby don’t leave me —
You’ve got to believe me,
I love you!
Baby don’t leave me —
Tell me you believe me, That
I love you …
Ashok is nodding to the music now, his smile as anodyne as the indeterminable contents of the blurred bottles behind him. Abha,
knees bent and leaning backward, vigorously shakes her twin assets, like a camel removing extra drops of water after a dip in an oasis. She sings on:
For you I’ll do just anything,
I want to hold you and wear your ring,
I need to kiss you
Can’t bear to miss you
Don’t say you don’t want me anymore.
Pranay, looking at her, smashes his drumstick into the palm of his hand out of sheer force of habit. His pain is drowned in the chorus:
Baby don’t leave me —
You’ve got to believe me,
I love you!
Baby don’t leave me —
Tell me you believe me, That
I love you …
The Junior Artistes, plates comprehensively neglected, break into thunderous and synchronized applause.
Exterior: later that night. Ashok steps out of the nightclub. He stands on the stoop, pulls out a cigarette, places it in his mouth. (Smoking does not trouble the rural moralists.) A match flares: his manly profile is lit up as he bends to light the weed.
Suddenly he hears sounds. A woman’s voice, raised: “Let me go!” His head cocked, he listens. Then he shakes out the match and steps determinedly into the shadows.
Abha is trying to pull herself away from Pranay, who is tugging at her arm. “Let me go!” she snaps-pleads, outraged virtue combining with panic in her voice. “No,” he snarls, and the audience can almost smell the whiskey on his breath. “You’re coming with me tonight.”
Ashok emerges from the shadows. “Let the lady go,” he says, his voice calm, strong, tough (after three attempts in the dubbing studio).
“Huh?” Pranay turns bloodshot eyes on the intruder. “And who the hell are you to tell me what to do?” He pulls a grimacing Abha closer.
“Never mind who I am,” replies Ashok in the same tone of voice. “I don’t like repeating myself. Let the lady go.”
Pranay scowls. “Try and make me,” he says, spitting to one side. He has Abha in his clutches now, leaving only one hand free. Abha struggles (but not too hard).
“As you like.” Ashok resignedly slips off his tuxedo jacket, hangs it on the broken branch of a convenient tree. Then, while Pranay is still regarding this process in surprise, he moves forward in a quicksilver maneuver, socks the villain in the solar plexus, wrenches one arm around and liberates Abha. Before Pranay can recover, Ashok has gently moved Abha out of harm’s way. The villain’s fist comes flying at him; Ashok steps deftly aside, catches Pranay’s wrist, and brings him crashing to the ground. The villain shakes his head, staggers to his feet, charges our hero. But without his whip Pranay is not half the man we have seen at Godambo’s. Ashok administers a swift lesson in elementary fisticuffs, and Pranay bites the dust. Quite literally: some of the dust gets into his mouth, and he lies there, coughing.
“Get lost,” Ashok amiably tells the sprawled villain, as an anxious Abha cowers and hovers behind him. “Or I might really get angry.” Pranay takes the advice and, with one backward glance, stumbles away into the night, still coughing.
“Oh, thank you,” breathes a grateful Abha. “You saved my life.”
“It was nothing,” Ashok responds modestly. “Let me take you home.”
“Thank you,” she agrees huskily. “It’s only a short walk from here, but I’d feel so much safer with you.”
They walk. He tells her she sang very well. She tells him he fought very well. He asks her how she became a singer. “Majboori” she says, a catch in her voice: compulsion. She had no choice. She had wanted nothing more than to finish her studies and lead a normal life, marry someone chosen by her parents, start a family. But her father fell into the hands of bad men. He drank, he gambled, he ran up debts. Her mother wept and told him there was no money for their daughter’s school fees, but he would not listen. One day the bad men came and asked for the money. Her father had nothing to give. The men ransacked the house, opened drawers, smashed mirrors, overturned tables, beat her father. But they found nothing of value. “What about your daughter?” asked their leader, an evil man with a narrow red-stained mouth and a drooping mustache. “We hear she can sing. Well, she can sing for the money.” Despite her mothers tearful protests, her father agreed. They dragged her away. This was several months ago. She had been singing for them ever since.
“What if you stop? Refuse to go on?” Ashok asks, as the studio stars twinkle overhead, casting slivers of light on the teardrop that trembles on her cheek. “They will kill me.” She shivers. “Or my parents. They said they would burn down my parents’ house if I even thought of—” Her voice chokes.
Ashok puts an arm around her, delicately wipes the tear off her cheek with his long fingers. “Don’t worry,” he says, “I’ll look after you.” She smiles, nestles closer to him. For some reason they are walking by the beach now. Moonbeams play with her hair and shine on her pearly smile, as he introduces himself with the theme song:
I am the long arm of the law,
I’ll always show villains the door
By day or by night
I’ll handle any fight
And put all the bad men on the floor!
As the song continues, the scene keeps changing to depict their evolving courtship. In one verse they are by the beach; in the next, running through a park; in a third, swaying on his motorcycle. Through each change of costume and locale, the song goes on:
I am the long arm of the law,
You needn’t ask for any more,
No one will hurt you, Nothing can
dirt you, You are what I’m fighting for!
I am the long arm of the law,
No villain will touch you with his paw,
They’ll fall helter-skelter
When I give you shelter,
For they know what I’ve got in store!
I am the long arm of the law,
My skills are the very ones you saw,
Oh, damsel in distress, Justice is my
mistress, And my heart beats for
you at the core!
There are six different shots of Abha running into Ashok’s arms in six different parts of town and being clasped in six different tight embraces. When the last note fades away, the camera catches them thus and lingers on Abha’s face, the side that is not pressed into the hero’s chest. She is smiling: but is it the smile of a woman in love, or of a villainess in victory?
Interior: Godambo’s cavern. The cheetah is being scratched, the villainous palm is being struck, the fin is swirling in the pool — we are back in familiar territory.
“Are you making progress, Abha?” The gravel seems to have been troweled on today.
“Yes, mighty Godambo.” Abha’s eyes are lowered, so it is difficult to read her expression. She has changed from her range of respectable attire in the song — saris, salwar-kameez — back into her black-and-gold uniform. “He suspects nothing.”
“But what have you found out? How much does he know?”
“I am still trying to win his confidence, mighty Godambo. I haven’t been able to ask him that yet.”
“It is taking a lot of time,” Godambo says. “Pranay here is becoming impatient, aren’t you, Pranay?”
Pranay, chewing, grunts affirmatively, bringing the whipstock gingerly down on his palm. He sports a pair of vivid bruises, designed to win the makeup man a Filmfare award.
“Poor Pranay had to put up with a lot that night at the club,” Godambo chuckles evilly, “just to bring you and Ashok together. He’s itching to get his own back now, aren’t you, Pranay?”
Pranay chews and grunts even more vigorously. This time the whip handle falls into his palm with a satisfying thwack. Abha winces, but says nothing.
“You’re not becoming too fond of this Inspector Ashok yourself, are you, Abha?” Godambo asks conversationally. The cheetah sits up. “Because if any such thought should cross your mind, you know what will happen to your parents, don’t you? And to their sad little house?” The cheetah stand
s up on all fours on Godambo’s lap. “Or indeed to you?”
A look of pain, like a fleeting shadow, crosses Abha’s face. “I know where my duty lies, mighty Godambo,” she says. The gold lame chemise quivers with suppressed emotion.
“Just as well,” responds the domed head on the throne. “But to be safe, I shall ask Pranay here to keep a closer eye on you. Don’t want you making any silly mistakes over this Inspector Ashok.” He looks at her meaningfully; she averts her gaze at first, looking down, then brings her chin up to return his stare, a strong, confident expression on her face. “Not that I don’t trust you, Abha. You’re an intelligent girl. You know what’s good for you. And if you don’t” — he raises his voice to address the pillar-posted commandos — “we all know what the punishment for betrayal is, don’t we?”
The expected answer comes, full-throated, uncompromising. “Death!”
“Death,” echoes Godambo in confirmation. The cheetah closes its eyes.
“Amma, I have brought someone to meet you.”
“Arré, Ashok, home so early? And who have …” Amma bustles out of the kitchen into the main room with its parrot-green wall and stops short beneath the freshly garlanded photograph of her late and much-lamented husband. She takes in the sight of Abha, demurely clad in a cotton sari, and her eyes widen with surprise and pleasure.
“Ma, this is Abha.” Ashok cannot keep the pride out of these simple words, even in the rerecording studio. The heroine-gangster’s moll steps forward, hand outstretched, and bends to touch the old lady’s feet.
A happy scene follows. Kind words are spoken, embarrassed smiles concealed, shy glances exchanged. Pigtailed Maya enters and, in defiance of all the established patterns of sibling behavior, takes an instant liking to her brother’s flame. As Amma produces tea and snacks, the younger women commune in a shared filmi sisterhood. Maya admires the way Abha wears her hair; Abha tells her it is easy to do. Maya giggles a request, and Abha smilingly accompanies her to her room to oblige. In a moment they are back, with Maya’s hair done just like Abha’s. There is much laughter, but soon it is time for the visitor to leave.
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