Opening Night

by Diksha Basu

  I allowed myself to sip a cup of coffee and wallow in self-pity. I saw Dino’s cigarettes lying on the dining table and took one out and lit up. I didn’t really like the feeling of smoking, but loved the smell; and weren’t tormented actors supposed to have cigarettes dangling from their mouths? Besides, whatever your grouse with smoking may be, you cannot deny that it looks sexy. And was I not the epitome of cool right then? I was Edie Sedgwick in all her glory. Or, Siena Miller as Edie Sedgwick in all her glory. My phone vibrating against the counter snapped me out of the movie in my head. Jay. I hadn’t even finished my coffee and cigarette. How could I deal with him already? But I couldn’t let it go either since my cheap phone didn’t support voicemail and I was curious to know why he was calling. I answered.

  ‘Naiya. How could you do that to me?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘How can you treat me like that? I told you I’m falling in love with you.’

  Had he just not stopped drinking from last night?

  He continued, ‘And then you just left. Toying with my emotions like that. I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘Are you out of your mind? Did you take even a single second to think about how I might be feeling? You’re so self-obsessed. What about me?’ What about me? Had I really just said that? I tried to retract: ‘I don’t mean that. Not about me as in my feelings. But, are you insane? You hardly know me. You do not have feelings for me. And the way you behaved made me very uncomfortable.’

  There was silence at the other end. I felt sick. Then Jay replied, ‘You’re right, Naiya. God, I’m such an idiot. I always do things like this. With your beauty around, I just lost all sense of who I was. Let me make it up to you. Please? Lunch, tomorrow, my place? I’ll send a car to pick you up. I owe you an apology.’

  ‘What? How does lunch fix things? No. I don’t think you need to see me.’

  ‘Please, Naiya. Come on. It will mean so much to me.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Day after?

  ‘Fine.’

  And a mere forty-eight hours later, I was once again heading down Linking Road towards Jay’s house. I had snuck out before Jess could cross-question me. The butterflies in my stomach took flight again as I approached Andheri. I knew that I was going to see him with only the Happily Ever After in mind, not the Red Carpet, and I was annoyed with myself for that. I kept telling myself that, come what may, I would discuss work with him that day.

  This time when I rang Jay’s doorbell, he answered after just one ring. He even appeared to have showered and the apartment didn’t smell like a chimney. Now, more than ever, the Happily Ever After came whizzing into my mind. On the way to the study, I tried to get a glimpse of the bedroom, and from what I could tell, there were no feet. And the study … well, it was like a whole different room from last time. There was no mattress, the ashtrays had been cleared, the cobwebs had been removed, the books were on the shelves, and the DVDs were in their cases and placed in neat little stacks. The curtains were open, and a gentle breeze was blowing through the tiny window in the corner. And Jay himself was the Jay from the book launch, the Jay from my teenage dreams. He looked rested and relatively happy. His eyes were bright and hair relatively neat. I was thoroughly charmed.

  The lunch began effortlessly. Neither of us mentioned the previous meetings, but since I’ll take denial over confrontation any day, that was just fine. Instead, we talked about everything under the sun. At times I wasn’t sure if some of the things he said were meant to be jokes or not. If they were jokes, he had a pretty hilarious streak. If not, one could safely assume that he had strangled an ex-girlfriend or two in the past.

  We opened a bottle of wine and I was beginning to really enjoy the life: sitting on a terrace with a troubled, chiselled ex-model-turned-producer, chatting about things that made me feel intellectual and grown-up. I had even read some Baudelaire the previous day. Online, translated; the bookstores in Bombay are garbage. Not a bad writer, this Baudelaire fellow.

  Tentatively, nervously, I laid the groundwork for discussing the film by doing some good, old-fashioned flirting.

  ‘… I’m so happy I met you. You know I used to have posters of you on my bedroom walls when I was a teenager?’

  ‘You did? That is too cute, Naiya. Well, had I known you as a teenager, I would have put up pictures of you on my bedroom wall.’

  ‘What? When you were a teenager, I would have been an infant.’

  Jay laughed. So did I. Not because anything was funny, but because he was handsome.

  I continued, still topping everything with a dollop of flirting.

  ‘You know, I think I want to live in Bombay. Forever. I mean, I wasn’t sure at first, but I feel like I’m making some really great connections here. Some people …’ I trailed off and looked at him meaningfully. He smiled at me and I continued, ‘Yeah. I think it makes sense for me to build a life here. I wanted to get some advice from you, actually.’

  ‘I think you should. I think this is where you belong.’ Jay smiled at me equally meaningfully.

  ‘I agree. So I was hoping you could maybe point me in the right direction. The whole audition scene is a bit mad and I was hoping to get some guidance.’

  ‘Of course, of course. I know it’s crazy, but you hang out with me and we’ll find you your life in Bombay. Promise. In fact, I believe Sameer Bhatia is casting. I’ll speak to him.’

  ‘Sameer Bhatia? Yes, please! That would be amazing. And anyone else you can think of,’ I said, my mind beginning to buzz with possibilities and wine.

  I had not had enough wine to mention the movie he was supposed to be working on, but I had done enough for the day. By my standards, I’d just put in a hard day’s work.

  I noticed, though, all of a sudden, that Jay was going through the wine at at least double the rate that I was. Given my ability to drink like a fish, it was a bit disconcerting but, I reasoned with myself, he was a man and much bigger than me, and drank often enough for his tolerance to be sky-high. And I thought that the drunker he got, the more inclined he would be to call Sameer Bhatia right then and there. No such luck. Three bottles of white wine and two fat joints later, the lunch suddenly started taking a turn towards Friday night’s debacle at Rimola, and I realized that I had to fend for myself.

  This was not a man I should be getting close to at all. Common sense told me to stay away, stay away, stay far, far away. He might have fit the physical description of the Man of My Dreams but that Man wasn’t supposed to have a drinking problem and wasn’t supposed to be bipolar. I really should have been heading back to Bandra, but I wasn’t. I was transfixed.

  Jay began the story of his unloved life. From the mother who never hugged him to the bullies who punched him to girls who rejected him to the ex-girlfriends who took advantage of him, he seemed genuinely convinced that nothing positive had ever happened in his life. And, as he related his rags-to-riches story that day, he managed to convince me that I was the one positive thing in his otherwise hopeless life. I, whom he had met all of twice in his entire life, was making up for his miserable childhood. I believed him. He said he grew up in a shitty part of Bombay with hardly any money, and that he struggled to keep his family together. With an alcoholic father and apparently slutty mother, he was the one who had to care for his two younger sisters who never showed him any appreciation. He’d always been the victim. Jay won some modelling competition when he was eighteen and his life changed forever but, because of his background, he would never take anything for granted. Slurring, he said, ‘Nature versus nurture? They could write a whole thesis on me.’

  I wasn’t sure who the ‘they’ writing this thesis were, but I knew that I had to leave. Instead, I allowed him to cry on my shoulder. I refilled his wine glass, and mine. I listened to the sob story. I love a good tale as much as the next person, so, of course, I got completely taken in and involved. Except at one point when he said, in between tears, ‘I never came first for my mother. She took better care of her diamonds than
she did of me.’

  ‘Diamonds? She had diamonds in your little hovel?’

  In the haze of the alcohol, he gently lead me away from the talk about the diamonds and I let him. Maybe I could make up for all the hugs his mother hadn’t given him. Especially since whenever I hugged him, I could feel his manly muscles under his shirt. Mmmm.

  At around eight, I suddenly remembered that I was supposed to meet Dino and some Italian friends of his for a play at Prithvi Theatre. Dino had decided to see if there were hot girls to be found at Prithvi. He wanted someone artistic, but with a waxed upper lip and shaved underarms. I told Jay that I had to leave but would see him soon, but he dropped on to the sofa, eyes welling with tears, and began singing Frank Sinatra songs to me. And then, before I could react, he grabbed my leg and wouldn’t let go. I tried to gently extricate myself while patting him on his head, but by now there were actual tears flowing out of his eyes. Given how drunk I was by this point, getting out of his grip was not easy.

  I awkwardly fell backwards. He took that as a sign of my acquiescence and crawled over to me. I stumbled up, holding on to my jeans and lamenting the fact that I hated belts and loved wine. A few more stumbly, jerky, robotic movements later, I was free, and told him quickly that it had been fun and we should do it again soon. As I raced down and out of the building, I left him in a sad mess, wine bottle in hand. I apologetically messaged and cancelled my presence at the play. There was no way I could sit through two hours of probably mediocre theatre after all that. All I wanted was my own room, a hot shower, and a silly movie to clear my head. A Jennifer Aniston-esque romantic comedy would be ideal, but if I ever recapped the evening to Jay, I would, of course, have watched Truffaut.

  When I got home, I was greeted by a strange sight. Jess was lying on the living room cushions in her jeans and a bra top, with two empty bottles of wine near her and two more in the kitchen. Her phone was ringing loudly right near her. I wanted to find this funny. Like the time I came back to my dorm room in Princeton to find my roommate lying on the ground guzzling vodka straight from the bottle and singing, ‘When the moon hits your eyes like a big pizza pie …’ and then vomiting up the pizza pies that she had consumed earlier that evening. Jess wasn’t singing or laughing. Maybe that’s why it wasn’t funny. In fact, she wasn’t even responding. Maybe she was dead. Or on the brink of it. That would be exciting. I had always wanted someone physically close but emotionally distant to me to have a near-death or death experience. I would get to call the ambulance, take care of the details, play the hero. Come on, Jess, be dying. I placed my finger under her nose to see if she was breathing and she was. Oh well, we’ve all been really drunk before.

  I doubted the need to act upon the worry. Her phone rang. I looked over and saw that it was someone called ‘Rent’ calling. I decided to answer the third time it rang. A man screamed into the phone, ‘Where the fuck are you?’

  Taken aback, I replied, ‘Sorry. This isn’t Jess. This is her flatmate. She’s sleeping. Can I pass a message?’

  ‘Sleeping? Well, wake her up. This is urgent.’

  ‘No, I’d rather not. She’s not been feeling too well.’

  ‘Well, tell her to fucking call me back as soon as she wakes up.’

  He cut the phone abruptly and I left a note next to Jess that read:

  Rent called. He says to call him back as soon as you wake up. He sounds angry.

  I covered Jess with a bed sheet, replaced the wine bottles with a glass of water and two painkillers, and sat down to watch The Break-Up in my room.

  Naiya Kapur could use a little spark in her life. on Tuesday x

  When I woke up the next day, Jess was nowhere to be seen. She was obviously fine if she was up and about this early in the morning after having been that drunk.

  The conversation with her about freelancing had made me look closely at my dwindling bank balance. I knew I had to start looking for work so I decided that I could not allow the fate of my career to rest on Jay’s shoulders. Sure, he had promised to put me in touch with Sameer Bhatia, but he was clearly too erratic to be relied on for anything. Besides, Sameer’s role sounded too good to be true. There was no way I would get it. Life just didn’t work that way.

  Ritesh had given me the number for a casting agent named Mini a few weeks back. I didn’t know too much about Mini, but Ritesh said that she was a pleasant woman with a lot of contacts and would be a good person to know. So I called her and she was warm and welcoming enough, and asked me to email my pictures to her. I did that immediately and she called back within a few minutes, asking me if I could meet her that evening. I was impressed by how productive my morning had already been. I arranged to meet her at a coffee shop in Juhu at four and decided I would spend the rest of the day being productive. Although being ‘productive’ was increasingly beginning to mean simply being ‘somewhat sober’.

  That afternoon, clad in jeans and a white T-shirt, I headed out to Juhu. I like Juhu. Especially the bits by the beach. When I say ‘beach’, though, it will conjure up images for you that it shouldn’t. The water is brown and dirty, the sand is filled with garbage, women follow you around trying to put mehndi on you, and men try to sell you little plastic helicopters that spiral into the sky. Three times I’ve fallen into the trap of buying those. They look really exciting when the sellers demonstrate them, but when you actually try to use one, it just whirrs sadly and drops to the ground. But the beach has its charms. With brightly dressed families who come from far away and look thrilled to be there and delicious roasted corn available everywhere, it’s actually one of my preferred parts of the city. Oh, and on that same stretch, if you go during the night, you’ll spot all kinds of crazy transgendered prostitutes. Families with corn during the day, women with penises during the night. How can you not love this city?

  My mood began lifting as the rickshaw rattled past the beach and towards a little café near the imposing hotels that line the main street in Juhu. Mini wasn’t quite what I had expected. For starters, she was anything but ‘mini’. Dressed in all black, this giant of a woman jumped up to greet me as I walked in. With wrists covered in all kinds of hideous bangles and purple lipstick that was as much on her teeth as it was on her lips, there was something strangely mesmerizing about her. She warmly welcomed me and, with the cheeriness of the overweight, ordered me a cup of coffee and settled in next to me. I liked her at once. There was something just slightly unsettling about her eyes, and I always liked people who had a little spark, unsettling or not.

  Mini really did seem to know everyone. She rattled off a list of writers, producers and directors that she thought I would do well with, and listed movies for me to familiarize myself with. I told her proudly that I had the dialogues memorized for almost all those movies and could probably even perform the exact moves from the songs. She asked me if I was willing to do item numbers. I said I was, but only for really big productions, and she understood. ‘Yeah, of course. We don’t want you in some cheap asymmetrical synthetic skirt doing a bar dance!’ I really liked her. She told me my pictures would have to be re-shot. Apparently, I needed ones with more make-up and more cleavage. She harped a bit too much on my need to be ‘sexier’, but she seemed to know what she was talking about, so I just sat and listened. And in any case, she phrased it as, ‘You have an amazing body. You have to be willing to be sexy with it’. I came into acting because of my innate insecurities lethally combined with narcissism, so I stopped registering anything after ‘you have an amazing body’.

  After about an hour or so of compliments peppered with advice – play up your cleavage for meetings, don’t shop without a stylist, watch all Bollywood movies, start dance lessons, etc., I decided to head back to Bandra. As much as I liked Mini, I was sick of advice. The first thing I noticed in Bombay was the over-abundance of unsolicited advice. Every single person has a nugget of wisdom for the fresh faces in town. The strange network of casting agents, coordinators, directors’ assistants, their assistants, semi-establishe
d actors, completely unemployed people, everyone has advice to hand out, usually unsolicited. I’ve heard it all. Cleavage advice is a popular one. Then there is: sleep with the right people, drink at the hotspots, take acting classes, never take acting classes, be ready to deliver filmi dialogue at the drop of a hat, talk about your academic background, don’t scare people off by talking about your academic background, etc., etc. The only sound advice would be to not pay attention to any advice.

  In any case, by the time I left Mini I was feeling rejuvenated and happy and glad that I was taking control of my career. I called Jess to see what she was doing; she said she was at home with a few of her friends. I hoped it was the catty gays. I liked them.

  When I got home, there was a haze of cigarette smoke – which suited me in my new tormented smoking actress avatar – as usual, but not quite as many people as I had expected. The only person there was Ritesh. I told him about meeting Mini and he said, ‘Oh ho. Be a bit careful with her, okay?’

  ‘What? Why? You’re the one who gave me her number. Why are you telling me to be careful now?’ I said, lighting up.

  ‘Uff. Just … when did you start smoking?’

  ‘Ages ago.’

  I shifted my attention to Jess. She seemed troubled and wasn’t quite as loquacious as usual. I assumed it was just a raging hangover and made fun of the state in which I had found her the night before. Jess and Ritesh didn’t laugh at my joke, though. Instead, Ritesh glanced in her direction and quickly changed the topic.