by Shobhaa De
Aasha Rani ignored the remark. She was feeling happy and relaxed without Amma around, and Akshay had, for a change, retreated to the dim recesses of her memory.
When they went upstairs to Aasha Rani’s suite Lucy was already in bed wearing a frilly Dubai-bought nightie. “Chal phoot, get out of here,” Linda said to her harshly, and pulled out a small bottle of brandy from her handbag. “Madam?” Lucy looked questioningly at Aasha Rani. “Kya madam-vadam. Just leave the room. We want to be alone.” Lucy looked for a change of clothes. “Don’t bother; take a pillow and go to the next room—there’s a sofa there,” Linda instructed her. Aasha Rani looked embarrassed but didn’t interfere.
Once Lucy had left, Linda took off her leather jacket, pulled off her boots and threw herself on the bed. “Come here,” she said to Aasha Rani. “Take a sip, come on, yaar, let’s enjoy ourselves.” She switched on some music and took a swig. Aasha Rani reached for the bottle and took one as well. “Good, nice feeling, no? I always remember my father when I drink brandy. He used to give it to me when I was sick. I used to die to get a cold so that I could drink brandy. Funny, certain childhood memories never fade. I remember his smell—Charminars, feni and some cheap scent. I used to love the combination—just as much as my mother detested it! They couldn’t get along at all. My mother was kaafi sexy, yaar. Just like yours. I mean, I find Amma most attractive. But not as much as you.” With that she pulled Aasha Rani down on the bed and kissed her on the lips.
It was a pleasant feeling, Aasha Rani thought. No rough bristles scraping her face, just smooth cheeks and soft lips over her own. A memory flashed in her head of the Thai masseuses. Linda’s hands were in Aasha Rani’s hair, expertly undoing the clasp that held it together at the nape. Her fingers began massaging Aasha Rani’s neck as once again she bent over her to kiss her, saying, “Open your mouth; let me taste your tongue. I’ve been wanting to do this from the time I saw you nervously licking your lips the day we met. Your tongue looked so sexy and pink—relax, baby, relax. You will love it. Just leave it all to me. Trust me.”
Her hands moved from Aasha Rani’s neck to her breasts. She kept kissing her gently, probing her mouth with an eager tongue. Reaching under Aasha Rani’s shirt she unhooked her bra. Aasha Rani tensed and tried to cover her breasts as they came free of their harness. “Don’t stop me; it will be beautiful. Like nothing you have known before,” Linda whispered. Her kissing was more passionate now, and her fingers rested on Aasha Rani’s taut nipples. “Look, you want me. Your body can’t lie.” Her head moved down till her mouth found Aasha Rani’s breasts.
There was no resistance left anymore. Aasha Rani’s entire body was floating—her mind was adrift. She let her arms drop to her sides as Linda’s warm thigh wedged itself between hers and her hand moved between Aasha Rani’s legs. “Close your eyes; let me do to you what no man could have done. Let me make you come like you’ve never come before. Stay loose, stay with me; you will forget men; you will forget everything you’ve known before. My hands, my mouth, my tongue, my thighs will set your body on fire. Enjoy it…enjoy it…oh…I’ve been dying for you all these months. And now you are mine at last.”
Aasha Rani groaned with pleasure. Linda refused to stop. She’d become more aggressive now, and her hands pummeled Aasha Rani’s body, exploring every inch of it. Unexpectedly she grabbed the bottle of brandy and poured some between Aasha Rani’s open legs. “The only way to drink it,” Linda said, and placed her mouth over the dampness, licking each drop as it trickled. The sensation was unbelievably arousing. Aasha Rani wanted to growl and scream with excitement, but she remembered Lucy lying next door, and suppressed the urge. “Come…come…come…not once but a hundred times!” Linda urged, her mouth still between Aasha Rani’s legs. “But let me ride you first. Let me show you that I can take you like a man too.” And she climbed roughly over Aasha Rani, whose head had fallen back, over the side of the bed.
“Do you like it this way?” Linda demanded gruffly, moving over her, rubbing herself against her, till both of them came together, shuddering and shaking, not wanting it to end. Aasha Rani collapsed with Linda over her. For a while they didn’t say anything to each other. Then Linda began caressing Aasha Rani gently and kissing her fingertips. “This is love, understand? This is lovemaking, not what those bastards do to our bodies.” Aasha Rani was lulled to sleep by Linda’s fingers stroking her. Yes, she thought, this is what it should be, tender, beautiful and erotic. In a way it could never be with a man.
Back in Bombay, as she lay in Linda’s arms one evening, face divested of paint, her soft frizzy hair falling untortured and natural, her dusky skin aglow, Aasha Rani felt Linda’s eyes boring into her face. “You’re making me nervous, yaar.” She giggled uncertainly. Linda continued to study her. “You know, without all that pancake on your face you’re quite breathtaking,” she said finally. “Kind of sensuous and ethnic—the type art-film wallahs would pawn their Golden Peacock awards for—I mean, has no one ever told you how gorgeous you look without that overbright, ganwar, Punjabi makeup?”
Akshay had. Often. But Aasha Rani said nothing. No memories of Akshay if she wanted to maintain her equilibrium. She watched as Linda suddenly rolled over the bed to reach for the phone.
“Who are you calling?”
“Guy called Suhas. One of those arty-intellectual types. He’s making a movie. And I think it’s time you landed yourself into parallel cinema. Who knows, you might even win an award or two.”
They were shooting in Jaipur, and it was stiflingly hot on the sets of Bechari Begum. Aasha Rani was a little apprehensive about shooting her first art film. “Does one have to suffer to prove one’s talent?” She giggled to the makeup man as he mopped her brow with an ice cube. “Remember, this is serious cinema you are doing now, not those rubbishy masala movies,” he reminded her.
Aasha Rani was secretly thrilled when she had bagged the role of Emma in the desi version of Madame Bovary. Amma wrote a furious letter from Madras. “Pagli! Why did you sign without asking me? That crook is paying you next to nothing. You want to win some stupid award or what? Arrey, understand one thing, Baby: You are in the industry to make money, not win some two-bit award. Later in life when you become an old maid these awards won’t be of any use. Not even the raddiwalla will pay you two paise for them. That is when you will remember your amma’s words. Now go and die in the studios. He will take every ounce out of you. Make you slog. You won’t have dates for other producers.”
Aasha Rani had told the Shethji the news. “Good for you,” he’d said. “But watch out for that arty bastard, Suhas. All the industry girls jump into his Pathan suit for an intellectual fuck. They really believe it is different from the other ones.” Aasha Rani had laughed. “Does he do it with his hooked nose…or does he have something inside the salwar?” “Wait till you find out for yourself,” Shethji had retorted.
Now that the first few shooting schedules of Bechari Begum were over she was puzzled and a little disappointed by Suhas’s lack of interest in her. He was a demon for work and drove his unit mercilessly, but toward her he maintained a cool professionalism that was beginning to drive her batty.
Suhas was attractive in a disheveled, unkempt sort of way. Tall and fashionably starved, with the mandatory stubble on his chin. Aasha Rani loved his hooded eyes and lazy charm. She also liked his hands, with their long, artistic fingers and generous square nails.
It was also a novel experience for someone from her background to be working with a team in which everyone seemed to know what real filmmaking was all about. She had a complete script in hand, and her dialogues for the next schedule were given to her well in advance. Suhas spent hours explaining the complexities of the role to her. He even presented her with a copy of Madame Bovary—noncommittally inscribed.
One evening the unit had gotten together to look at photograph stills. She was stunned by her appearance—without her usual batlike eyelashes, pancake and blush, without wigs and elaborate costumes she looked
beautiful. Natural and altogether different. She squeezed Suhas’s arm and whispered, “What have you done? Nobody will recognize me in your film.” He whispered back, “That’s the whole idea. I don’t want people to recognize you. I want you to be reborn with this film.” Aasha Rani was mesmerized by the lyrical appeal of Suhas’s technique. The camera seemed almost fluid as it created visual poetry of the locales—and of her face.
Suhas had resisted the obvious by not exploiting her curves. He had shot her in tight, soft-focus close-ups, concentrating on her eyes and mouth. The effect was devastating. Aasha Rani was thrilled. The effort had been worth it.
Aasha Rani was made to eat with the rest of the unit—no special khaana for the star—and she went off to sleep in an ordinary room. No attempts were made to pamper her or treat her any differently from the others. Unaccustomed to what she’d thought was ghatiya treatment, Aasha Rani stormed into Suhas’s room to demand an explanation. She found him relaxing on his bed in a lungi, listening to Vilayat Khan. A bottle of rum stood on the bedside table and a packet of Charms on the bed. He had funny-looking reading glasses on his nose and a heap of old, dusty books lying all over. Aasha Rani was wearing a black, flowing “after work” caftan, her hair streaming down her back.
“What is this nonsense, Suhasji!” she shouted. “I am a star. I can’t eat with all these kachra people, all your kachra food. Please instruct the unit manager to provide me with separate meals. And I need a suite for myself, plus phone calls. What did that chap mean by telling me not to phone Bombay and Madras every day? My clothes, they have not been washed since we started shooting. I want fresh clothes tomorrow, and a thermos of Madras coffee on the set. My sister wants to join me here for a few days. And my journalist friend Linda—she will give you publicity. Please arrange for air tickets and their stay.”
When she stopped for breath, Suhas put down his book and said, “Finished?” Then he spoke quietly: “If you are not satisfied with the arrangements, please feel free to walk out of the film right now. I’m not used to working with artistes who make demands and ask for preferential treatment. My unit works as a family. No discrimination. If it doesn’t suit you, that’s OK. I can look for another heroine. But if you are keen on proving your merit as an actress, then I suggest you concentrate on your role and forget all your old nakhras. They won’t work with me. That’s all I wish to say to you. Good night.”
Naturally everybody got to hear of the tantrum the next day, since it was a small, twenty-room hotel with wooden flooring. But nobody said a word. Aasha Rani sulked for an hour and refused breakfast. But soon she was too hungry to concentrate on her lines. She asked her hairdresser to organize some coffee—and saw Suhas smile.
By the time the last scenes were being shot she had become used to all of them, though she still felt pretty much an outsider. They spoke a different language, they cracked jokes she didn’t understand, they’d seen foreign films she’d never heard of, they’d read books she didn’t know existed, they listened to music that was totally unfamiliar to her and they ate food which was inedible. They also smoked a lot of grass and bathed infrequently. Except for Suhas, who stuck to fresh salwar-kurtas with enormous pashmina shawls.
He was irresistible in a brooding, intellectual sort of way, conceded Aasha Rani, but he gave her a massive complex. Stripped of her “stardom,” she felt stupid and ignorant in his presence. They had no common ground to speak of. What really puzzled her, though, was his choice of her as his heroine. Was he being polite just to get her to cooperate? Or was he interested in her? Why had he signed her in the first place when he could have stuck to his favorite harem—the gaudy ghagra girls in their ethnic sweeper-woman attire and masses of silver jewelry. The strictly no-makeup, dusky-is-devasting look.
He could have gotten Suhaila, his ex-wife, for the role. They’d recently had a “civilized divorce,” which meant that they still slept together when the nights got lonesome. But someone from the unit said she couldn’t have accepted it in the first place, as she was off to France to do a bit role in one of those “exotique” films on India.
Aasha Rani was fascinated by Suhaila and her relationship with Suhas. She’d visited the set on one occasion and sat around giggling with the unit, bumming cigarettes from the light boys and flirting lightly with the assistant director. She’d pretended she hadn’t noticed Aasha Rani at all till someone had called out to her and asked her over. “Hello, Aasha Rani—or should I call you Aasha Raniji?—Suhas has told me so much about you. I’ve seen the rushes, of course. You look fabulous.” Usual noises over, she’d lit a joint, taken off her embroidered jootis, uncoiled her hair with a graceful flick of her head and had gone back to discussing Woody Allen with the men.
Suhaila dressed in one-of-a-kind handspuns, which looked most dramatic when combined with kilos and kilos of chunky, tribal jewelry. And she had her bindis—dots, dashes, paisleys and intricate designer combinations that never failed to evoke a minor discourse on critical art appreciation. Sometimes the black dots traveled from her forehead down to her chin or onto her cheekbones. Aasha Rani felt threatened by her. So she wrote a letter and bitched to Linda. “I bet Suhaila chews Suhas’s balls off in bed. She has such spitfire eyes. And she is so full of herself.” Linda wrote back at length: “I’ve interviewed her once. They were just married then and he was behaving like a lovelorn puppy. She was the one who kept talking about their plans and making fun of everybody else in the industry. ‘What are they? Pimps and prostitutes. What do they know about filmmaking? They’re only good at making money…’ and all that pseudo crap. As if she could live without money. Two months later, I found out she was having a maha affair with a minister. Some crude fellow she’d known earlier. He was pretty powerful and totally crazy about her. He gave them their car, flat and all that. Also, he pushed Suhas’s film into the festival when it had been rejected. He sent Suhaila to Paris, Nantes, Locarno and God knows where all, as an official delegate. She was a big hit abroad with all those weird bindis-shindis. People found her irresistible to look at—and not at all resisting when it came to getting into her bed! She was screwing around so much, they began calling her the great Indian thoroughfare! But she made a lot of contacts and signed on a couple of chhota-mota films.”
A FEW DAYS LATER Aasha Rani overheard one of the unit hands telling the cameraman, “Yaar, Suhas ka birthday hai. We’ll have to do something. Daaru-sharu. Some dhamal-shamal…”
Aasha Rani smiled to herself. Suhas deserved a very special present. Matters had improved between them. Now Suhas had taken to photographing her while the unit relaxed between takes. Naturally the pictures were offbeat and squalidly “realistic” ones: Aasha Rani sans makeup with her hair in curlers; Aasha Rani scowling at her image in a handheld mirror—even one of Aasha Rani picking her nose! The condescension remained, however: sly digs about her anpadh status; mean cracks about her synthetic attire; clever innuendo designed to confuse her—that sort of thing.
The hairdresser approached her for a donation, letting slip the fact that last time the heroine—Radhikaji—had stood the Scotch (asli maal) and had paid ten thousand bucks besides. Aasha Rani smiled magnanimously. “I’ll pay for everything. It’s a small token; I want Suhasji to know how much the film means to me.”
Aasha Rani dressed very carefully for the occasion. No makeup. Just a smudge of kaajal. She chose a simple shot-silk Kanjeevaram and wore flowers in her hair. She toyed with the idea of an elaborate bindi, à la Suhaila, but decided against it.
Her sari blouse was decorously long with a narrowing vee neck that ended in a knot at her waist. No buttons. Just a tantalizing flash of cleavage when her pallav shifted from her shoulders. She finished with some strategic dabs of attar: behind her ears, on her throat, on her navel and between her thighs.
She arrived deliberately late and feigned a certain breathlessness. Suhas glanced up at her, trying hard to suppress his obvious interest. She smiled sweetly and did a coy namaskaram. “You look like a devadasi tonigh
t,” Suhas said. She smiled and beckoned to Lucy, who arrived on cue—carrying a silver thali set for an aarti. Aasha Rani lit the oil lamp and turned to Suhas. “This is a very significant day in your life,” she said. “What natak is this?” he asked, darting sheepish glances at the staring unit. “This is my way of honoring you; this is how we do it in Madras,” Aasha Rani said, moving the lamp-laden thali slowly around his startled face and chanting an invocation to Lord Ganesha. Finally, she lifted a peda from the silver thali and popped it into his (conveniently) open mouth. “May your life always be as sweet as this,” she said, dimpling prettily as the unit clapped and said, “Wah, wah.” Then Aasha Rani smiled beatifically at everyone, spoke a few words to Lucy, wished Suhas well again and walked out. She went straight up to her room, undressed and climbed into bed.
It was almost an hour later that she heard a hesitant knock at the door. “Are you asleep?” Suhas asked drunkenly, a half bottle of rum gripped in his hand. “No, I’ve been waiting for you,” she answered. Suhas let himself in and stood uncertainly by the door. “Come to me, come here; I have a present for you in my bed.”
Suhas lurched unsteadily toward her as Aasha Rani flung the bedcovers off dramatically. “Surprise!” she said as she revealed her naked body. Suhas grabbed her. Extricating herself from Suhas’s clumsy embrace, she said, “No, we’ll do it my way today. I want you to remember this birthday of yours forever.”
Aasha Rani steered Suhas to her bed and pushed him down firmly. Then she began to unbutton his kurta. One tug and the lungi was off. Suhas was small and limp. He tried to cover himself. She pushed his hands away. “Don’t; let me excite you.”
She took him into her mouth and bit him softly. “I need a drink,” she heard him say. “Later,” she promised. Experience told her that Suhas’s seduction was going to pose problems. Expertly, she used her tongue, lips, fingers and teeth to arouse the man who lay passively beside her.
