by A. X. Ahmad
Stuffing the dress into his gym bag, he takes the M train into Midtown Manhattan. He finds a clean Starbucks bathroom and changes into the uniform for his next job: a black shirt with epaulettes, black cargo pants, and knee-high lace-up boots.
Looking at himself in the mirror, he sees that his shoulders are slumped over from the day’s driving, and he is developing a belly—too much rice at Karachi Kabob. He stands straighter, feeling the pain shooting through his stiff back. He has to look professional; who knows, this job could even turn into a full-time gig. With Shanti coming to stay with him, he can’t be driving a cab all day and night.
He emerges from the bathroom and orders a cup of Earl Grey tea. The young woman behind the counter smiles at him warmly, and he can’t understand why, but then he catches a glimpse of himself in the window. In his crisp black uniform, he looks like a soldier, not a worn-out cabdriver. For a second he feels like his former self, then sees that the three gold stars on his shoulders are missing.
Don’t think about all that now. He heads down the street, sipping his tea, but it tastes like dishwater, and he throws it into a trash can and hurries down the street. There is a huge shipment coming in tonight, and he can’t be late.
Chapter Two
BOMBAY, 1989
Shabana began to pluck out her hair the day after her father died.
She had been in the cancer ward all morning with Noor Mohammad, but when he fell asleep, she rushed home to watch Sasuraal, her favorite soap opera, about a young bride going to live in her in-laws’ house. At twenty-two, lacking the money to be married to a suitable boy, she worked as a salesgirl in a sari shop, and the television was her one means of escape.
Their old black-and-white had been replaced a few years ago by a Japanese color set, one of Noor Mohammad’s extravagant purchases. After years of socialist austerity, middle-class people were beginning to buy things; there was even talk that the government would open up India to the outside world. The new soap operas were a harbinger of this future, colored in garish pinks and violets, full of drama and possibility.
It was Ruksana who returned from the hospital, a few hours later, with the news of their father’s death. Shabana, so caught up in her fantasy world, could not comprehend what her sister was saying. Reality only sank in when she saw her father lying on a gurney in the hospital, his handsome face sunken in, his mouth reduced to a thin slash.
Shabana did not cry then, nor at the burial, the next day at dawn. As the news spread of Noor’s death, the house filled with anxious creditors, and Shabana retreated to the living room and switched on the television, but even it could not drown out the harsh voices of the men. Closing her eyes, she pulled out a strand of hair, and the shock of the pain distracted her. She began to do it in secret, finally finding a way to mourn her father.
It was a few weeks before Nusrat Begum discovered the strands of hair, neatly balled up and hidden at the bottom of the garbage pail in the courtyard. She knew immediately what was going on—she herself came from a family of hair pullers, women whose sharp, hidden anxiety was expressed by their thinning hair and eyes without brows.
With the hair in her hand, she confronted Shabana. “You must stop this at once. A woman cannot catch a man if she is as bald as an egg.”
“Yes, Ammi,” Shabana said quietly, but she continued her secret practice, knowing that her mother’s talk of marriage was just pure bluster. With Noor gone and large amounts of money owed, she and her sister would never find husbands.
They moved from their house into a small, cramped apartment out in Andheri. While Shabana scurried home after her day’s work at the neighborhood sari shop, Ruksana worked late. She had found a position as an accountant’s apprentice, halfway across the city, and spent hours commuting on the belching city buses. She returned late one night, her face red with excitement, and beckoned Shabana into the bedroom they shared. There she wordlessly pressed a business card into her sister’s palm.
It was of thick ivory cardboard, and the lettering was engraved:
S. K. Nagpal
Executive Producer, SKN Films
Film City, Goregaon (East), Bombay
“I met him while waiting for a bus,” Ruksana gushed, losing her usual composure. “He said that they’re looking for fresh faces. He’s going to give me a screen test on Friday.”
“You?” Shabana stared at her sister. “What do you know about acting? I was the one who got all the leads in the school plays. You can’t act to save your life.”
“So what? If you can do it, how hard can it be? You’ll show me how, won’t you?”
“No.” Shabana pouted and her lower lip quivered. “No, I will not.”
“Shabbu, please. I need your help. And listen, if I get a part, I’ll ask S.K. to make sure you get one, too, okay?”
“Promise?”
“I promise. Now, please help me—”
“What are you girls going phus-phus about?” Nusrat entered the room and took the card from Shabana’s hand.
Reading it, her face darkened. Despite her years inside the house, she was no fool. She knew that the studio producers—with their flashy silk shirts, their bungalows in Bandra, and their Mercedes—preyed on young girls who wanted to break into the movie business.
“No,” Nusrat said. “No daughter of mine will become a whore.”
Ruksana stepped forward. “But Ammi, it’s just a screen test. This is a chance to earn some real money. You know we’re just getting by, and—”
“No.”
“Our father was in the movies, and you never complained about that—”
“That was different. He was a man, and you are a woman. My decision is final, and you will obey me.”
Nusrat stormed out of the room and the girls heard a clang as she threw the card into the garbage pail.
Ruksana hung her head and was quiet, but as soon as Nusrat was out of sight, she dug through the garbage and retrieved the card. Holding it in her hand, she returned to the bedroom.
“I found the card, under a huge ball of your hair. I thought you stopped doing it?”
“I … I try not to.” Shabana’s face turned red. “But sometimes I just have to.”
“Well, don’t.” Ruksana hid the card under her pillow. “Now, will you please show me what to do for the audition?”
Shabana flicked the hair from her eyes and squared her shoulders. “The first thing is how to walk. Shoulders back, hips loose, okay?”
Ruksana strutted from one end of the room to the other, and her sister burst into laughter.
“Ruki, you want to look sexy, but not cheap, okay? Right now you look like a girl from Grant Road.”
Holding her sister’s hips, Shabana showed her how to walk, and after that, how to mold her face into expressions of surprise, love, and fear. The two of them were giggling and enjoying themselves, but then Ruki grew solemn.
Sitting down in front of the dressing table mirror, she examined her left cheek, the dull red scar hidden under skin-colored foundation makeup.
“How do I look? Can you see it?”
Shabana’s face reddened. “Ruki, it’s not even noticeable. Why do you go on and on about it?”
“Just tell me, honestly, am I hideous?”
“You look fine. You look beautiful. Besides, all movie stars wear makeup when they act. Just don’t use so much foundation.”
Ruksana seemed unconvinced, and continued to stare at herself in the mirror, examining her face from different angles.
* * *
That Friday, Ruksana proposed a trip to pray at the mosque at Hajji Ali, wore a faded salwar kameez, and took Shabana with her. As soon as they were out of their neighborhood, Ruksana unzipped her handbag and showed her sister a pink silk sari hidden within it.
“We’re going to Film City. That stupid old woman doesn’t know anything.”
“But Ruki, you promised Ammi that—”
“Stop being so naive. You work for no commission in a sari shop, and that
bastard accountant makes me work late and tries to feel me up. We can live our whole lives like this and never pay our father’s debts back. Do you want to get married or not?”
Shabana was silent then, and they stopped by a friend’s house so that Ruksana could change her clothes. One train and two buses took them to the high metal gates of Film City, where a guard stared at Ruksana’s luminescent pink sari, studied S. K. Nagpal’s card, then smiled wearily and let them in, telling them to go to the studios by the lake.
Ruksana walked in front, trailing perfume, and Shabana lagged behind, carrying her sister’s bag. She had dressed for the grime and crowds of the shrine at Hajji Ali, and was wearing her faded blue salwar kameez and sandals with a torn strap; her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, her eyes hidden behind the thick black-framed glasses she wore only while at home.
They walked down gravel paths, past empty lots of scraggly brown grass, past groups of men lugging antiquated lights and metal reflectors. They saw a crowd of extras sitting under a tree, clad in the bright turbans of Rajput warriors, and then an entire village made out of mud and thatch. Shabana felt disappointed: she had expected something magical, but it all seemed old, dusty, and patently fake.
The movie studios by the lake turned out to be giant, blank sheds faced with panels of dirty concrete, and Shabana’s disappointment intensified. Inside, the shed was very hot and stuffy, and a line of extras—young women dressed as scantily clad nautch dancers—watched enviously as S. K. Nagpal rose from his director’s chair to greet them. He wore his trademark red shirt with a wide, droopy collar, tight black pants, and boots with built-up heels; without them, he would have been very short. He had small, even features and meticulously styled long hair that fell over his collar.
The screen test took place in a sweltering soundproof room at the back, and S.K. offered them ice-cold bottles of Campa Cola while the camera was set up. Shabana held both bottles while her sister turned and surreptitiously applied more foundation makeup to her scarred cheek.
“Now…” S.K.’s voice was low and encouraging as he put his hands on Ruksana’s shoulders. “This is a small part only. You are waiting for your lover under an overpass in Bombay, okay? It is raining, it’s getting later and later, and you are getting scared. Okay?”
Ruksana nodded, and walked to the center of the stage. The cameraman signaled his readiness, and Shabana watched as her sister overacted, wringing her hands and pacing back and forth, pausing to glance dramatically into the distance. S.K. did not seem to mind: he was staring intently at the patterns of light and dark on his small screen.
Watching him watching her sister, Shabana felt a strange electricity course through her body. The camera, she realized, did not simply capture the dull reality in front of it, but transformed it in some mysterious way.
The screen test was over very quickly, and the arc lights were turned off. While the film stock was being developed into what S.K. called “rushes,” Shabana couldn’t resist talking to him.
“When you look through the camera, what are you searching for?”
S.K. regarded her from under artfully shaped eyebrows. He was also wearing clear nail polish, Shabana realized.
“You see…” He gestured at the studio. “… we live in a three-dimensional world, but the camera, it flattens everything. It sees only light and shadow; it brings out patterns that you and I cannot see with our naked eyes. It loves some people, and not others. It doesn’t care what they look like, or how they act. It magnifies their essence. Do you understand?”
“I do.” Wanting to prolong the conversation, she changed the topic. “Isn’t this the studio where Meena Kumari filmed Pakeezah?”
“Yes, correct. You are well informed, young lady.”
“Is it true that she was very sick and did all her scenes lying down? They used a body double for all the dance scenes?”
“Yes, yes, that is true. I was just a young assistant in those days, but I was there. It was heartbreaking to see her dying as she acted her heart out.”
Ruksana cast an irritated look at her sister, and Shabana shrunk back, but S.K. continued the conversation. They discussed how Meena Kumari turned into an alcoholic and had affairs with much younger men, and S. K. Nagpal smiled and said, “You are young, but you know a lot about film.”
Just then the cameraman came back and said that they were all set. The trio trooped into the darkened screening room, and both sisters gasped when Ruksana’s face suddenly loomed on the screen.
At first glance she looked beautiful: the camera caught the tension in her slim physique and magnified her dark eyes, but there was something wrong about the way the light caught her cheeks: they seemed flat and shiny, like plastic.
S.K. turned to Ruksana. “You are gorgeous, my dear, but perhaps a little bit too much foundation, hanh? Remember, in this role, you must look young, innocent. Shall we try it without makeup?”
Ruksana sat bolt upright and her voice quivered. “I … I don’t think I fit this part. Thank you for considering me.” She got up and swung her bag onto her shoulder. “Come on, Shabana.”
“Aare. What is wrong?” S.K. looked shocked.
“Sorry, she gets like this.” Shabana began following her sister out of the room. “So sorry.”
“Wait.” S.K. stood up. “You. Shabana. Why don’t you try out for this role?”
“Me?” Shabana ran her palms over the front of her faded blue salwar kameez. “Wearing this?”
“Yes. Why not? Just take off your glasses.”
Shabana gestured to her sister’s departing back. “What about her?”
S.K. shrugged. “She is a big girl, she chose to leave. Surely you can make your own decisions? Or are the two of you bound at the hip?” He looked down at his watch. “I don’t have much time. I have to start shooting in twenty minutes.”
“No, we’re not bound at the hip.” Shabana hesitated. “Okay, I’ll do it.”
S.K. smiled. “That’s more like it.”
She quickly took off her glasses, slipped the rubber band off her ponytail, and shook out her hair. “What do you want me to do?”
“Hmmm.” S.K. paused. “You know that scene in Pakeezah where Meena has finished dancing in front of the men, and she is alone? Do that one.”
“Okay, I can try.”
Ruksana was nowhere in sight when Shabana walked in front of the cameras. The arc lights snapped on with a dazzling glare.
Shabana panicked when she saw the camera’s hungry eye staring at her, and stood frozen to the spot, breathing jerkily.
“Pretend you’re Meena Kumari.” S.K.’s voice came from beyond the lights. “You’re exhausted. You just finished dancing in front of men who want to debase you. They threw money at you while you danced. How do you feel?”
Shabana closed her eyes. She heard music in her head, felt the thump of her heels as she danced, the silence when she stopped. She felt the hot breath of the men as they leered at her, felt their eyes boring into her.
She opened her eyes, and the camera faded away. She was Meena Kumari, in all her pain, both the actress and the character she played, but that didn’t seem to have enough power, so Shabana dug deep into a well of dark emotions: she saw again the pan fly up, heard Ruksana scream as the scalding milk burned her face.
As the tears of shame gathered in Shabana’s eyes, she began to move, to walk and talk and gesture.
S.K. had heard of girls like this, soft, dreamy girls who stepped in front of the camera and projected emotions so large and so pure that it was breathtaking. Like a prism, the camera took the plain white light of Shabana’s essence and projected it into a rainbow.
She could not see S. K. Nagpal, standing in the darkness beside the cameraman, but his eyes never left her.
Chapter Three
It is almost six by the time Ranjit walks down West Twenty-ninth Street, and the sun is lower, throwing this block into deep shadow. Midtown is being remade with tall condos and boutique hotels, but somehow
this stretch of small businesses has managed to survive: wholesalers of knockoff handbags, costume jewelry, and artificial flowers, all shuttered now, the street taking on a silent, pensive air.
He heads to the three-story yellow-brick walk-up in the middle of the block, a large tin sign hanging over the metal security door. It says NATARAJ IMPORTS in blue letters, and below it in gold is painted the classic pose of the Nataraj: the Lord Shiva dancing within a circle of flames, his left leg raised, his right foot pressed down on a fanged demon. Shiva is dancing to destroy the corrupt world, so that it can be re-created from the ruins of the old.
As a Sikh, Ranjit does not believe in the Hindu gods, but today Shiva seems to speak directly to him, and he feels a stifled excitement when he thinks of returning Shabana’s dress. He presses a buzzer set beside the door and instantly the blank eye of a security camera swivels to scrutinize him.
When the door clicks open, he steps into a small tiled vestibule and waits in front of a second locked door, the cloying smell of human hair filling his nostrils. Hair is the sole business of Nataraj Imports, originally bought from China and Thailand, but now sourced exclusively from India.
Used in extensions and weaves in salons, human hair has become a multimillion-dollar business, almost as valuable as gold, and attracts the same kind of predators. At first the thieves broke into hair salons, leaving behind cash and taking only premium-quality hair; now they have begun to burgle the wholesalers, deactivating alarms and cutting through security doors. It is only a matter of time before they try to hijack a delivery, and that is where Ranjit comes in. Twice a week he stands guard as a van arrives from the airport loaded with cartons of hair. All he has is his intimidating uniform and a polycarbonate nightstick, and if the thieves have guns, there isn’t much he will be able to do. Still, the job pays a lot more than driving a cab, and Ranjit is hoping that Jay Patel, the owner of Nataraj Imports, will soon hire him full time.
The second door opens, and Kikiben glances up at him, stifling a yawn with her tiny hand. She is the sole full-time employee at Nataraj, packaging and pricing the skeins of hair. Barely five feet tall, she’s barefoot, and dressed as usual in a shapeless salwar kameez, her own graying hair wound into a long braid hanging down her back.
