Opening Night

by Diksha Basu

  ‘Naiya,’ Jess said, ‘this is Vishal. He’s a musician. I met him last night. Vishal, this is Naiya.’

  ‘Naiya, the actress. So nice to meet you. How was Alibaug?’ Vishal asked, as if he’d known me for months. I liked him at once. He sat down on a cushion next to Jess and she snuggled effortlessly into his chest. She looked calm and happy and I couldn’t help but smile.

  It felt so good to be back home. In our little flat where the water was scalding hot for ten seconds then freezing cold so showers were miserable, where the tiny living room had cushions on the floor instead of sofas, and where beer bottles lay everywhere because the maid had given up on us. I loved being back in my own reality.

  Before bed, I realized that on top of everything else, I had forgotten to get Sameer’s phone number from Jay’s phone. That meant I had to continue whatever it was that I was doing with Jay. What was I doing with Jay? There was no sign of a Happily Ever After or a Red Carpet. Maybe I needed to come to terms with what I was doing – sleeping with someone. Nothing more, nothing less. A spade’s a spade. Even if you’re sleeping with it.

  To: NaiyaKnows@gmail.com

  From: NalSharma84@gmail.com

  Naiya,

  I haven’t heard from you in over a week now and the only excuses I will accept are sex or Shah Rukh Khan. Or, sex and Shah Rukh Khan.

  Nothing much here. Been going to a few auditions here and there. Neil Labute’s Shape of Things is being staged at the Public. James and I were supposed to go last week, but he forgot what time it started and came late, so they refused to let him in. I enjoyed it, though. We met after the show and he took me out to a fancy dinner, at least.

  My agents got me an audition for the role of Ophelia. It isn’t really a big deal … I mean, it’s just a small theatre in Brooklyn, but you know how obsessed I am with Ophelia. Let’s see. I will definitely keep you updated.

  Love,

  Nal

  To: NalSharma84@gmail.com

  From: NaiyaKnows@gmail.com

  Nal,

  So good to hear from you. Let me know as soon as you hear about Hamlet. It would be amazing if you got the role. Looks like things are going really well.

  I wish my excuse for having been MIA was Shah Rukh Khan. I still haven’t seen him but I do have a pretty glamorous excuse, nonetheless. Jay took me to his friend’s place in Alibaug for the weekend. All his friends are totally chic and gorgeous. I had a long chat with one of the models and I think I might do some modelling. It seems like such an amazing world.

  I’m back in Bombay now and have more auditions and meetings to go to. It is endless. Things are going really well with Jay. Give my love to James and tell him to get to places on time!

  Love,

  Naiya

  To: NaiyaKnows@gmail.com

  From: NalSharma84@gmail.com

  Naiya,

  Hold on. Are you just dating Jay now? What happened to the movie? You didn’t mention it at all.

  Alibaug sounds great. You should model. I’ve always told you that. You’re probably too short for runway, but you’d be great for print.

  Love,

  Nal

  Naiya Kapur wishes certain people had been scooped away instead of born. on Wednesday x

  The week after Alibaug, Mini called. I hoped it was a proper audition this time – not some shady Raghu Singh repeat.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hi, babes. I’m going to be in Bandra this afternoon. Coffee?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said, hoping this would not mean more chatter about her hatred for men and sleazy music producers.

  As I put the phone down, Jess came into the room wearing super skinny jeans and a gorgeous pink bandini halter top, and asked me casually, ‘Could you go down to the chemist and buy me an iPill? I just bought one last month and I’m too embarrassed to go again.’

  Jess was one of my many girlfriends who regularly relied on the iPill. I was all for sexual liberation and all that jazz, but those ‘IT CAN HAPPEN TO YOU’ campaigns in high school really scared me. I had seen Jess take these pills before and then complain about nausea for a week. I wished she would think through her decisions a bit more before being so cavalier about taking the morning-after pill.

  But, then again, could I blame her when so many women we knew were having abortions? Abortions seemed common. One day Ritesh, still insisting he slept only with women, while discussing his part-time lover’s delayed period, casually said, ‘Well, at this stage, it’s just a simple scoop thing.’ I was tempted to tell him that men generally don’t run the risk of getting pregnant but I was too taken aback by the scoop comment to be sarcastic.

  I had no reason to say no and, anyway, I didn’t have much else to do, so I agreed to go down to the chemist, who smirked as he handed over the pill. He knew Jess, Dino and I lived together and thought that all we bought in our apartment was condoms and the morning-after pill.

  I came back expecting to share a conspiratorial laugh with Jess about who she slept with the previous night but she wasn’t in the mood to entertain my line of questioning. I was beginning to think Jess was clinically bipolar. Some days she was the queen of good cheer and others I was scared to make eye contact with her. I had to admit that this added a certain sexy mystery to her, but it worried me a little. She seemed in a terrible mood that morning, so I offered her a cup of tea and tried to stay out of her way. The doorbell rang as I was heating the water. I opened the door to find two men with a flat-screen TV. Jess pushed past me, signed for the TV and led the men into her bedroom. When she came out for the tea, I laughed and asked, ‘Did you just sign for someone else’s TV?’

  ‘No. It’s mine.’

  ‘Yours? You got a flat screen? Seriously, Jess, you have to get me some freelancing gigs. I can hardly pay for my drinks. How the hell did you afford this?’

  ‘… It’s a gift from a friend. It’s used … not a big deal.’

  ‘Used or not, it’s a flat screen. I need to get new friends.’

  ‘Yeah. Thanks for buying me the pill, I’ll see you later.’

  I headed out to meet Mini soon after that. This was why I loved Bandra. You could simply walk to a number of cute little outdoor cafés. Granted, you had to scream your conversation because cars honked and whizzed past continuously, but it was still pretty Parisian. With hijras clapping at you.

  Mini was in a black kind of mood. She was wearing a black knee-length skirt and far-too-tight black T-shirt that said ‘Too Busy to FCUK’, enough black eyeliner to line the eyes of a whole village, and black gladiator sandals that were cutting into her rather curvy calves. We settled in for coffees that I was determined not to pay for.

  ‘How hot you’re looking today, baby,’ Mini said.

  ‘Thanks. I tried going shopping like you suggested, but it isn’t easy.’

  ‘I know, I know. That’s what I’m here for, no. We’ll find you a good stylist.’

  ‘We have to! I went to Sayali Chandran’s party two weeks ago. Oh, Mini, it was amazing!’

  ‘What? How did you go to that party? Who invited you?’ Mini asked aggressively.

  ‘Um. A friend. And I met so many people there! I’ve been dying to tell you about it. I made some really good progress. I might audition for Sameer Bhatia. And maybe even Jay Gupta. Do you know them?’

  ‘Of course I know them. Naiya, you can’t just sign up for auditions like this without me.’

  ‘I didn’t sign up, Mini, but this is exactly the kind of stuff I want to do. That Raghu Singh music video thing wasn’t really for me.’

  ‘Okay, fine, Naiya, but you still have to consult.’

  ‘What? I have to consult with you before chatting with people at parties?’ I asked, laughing.

  ‘Yes, you do. In fact, you should have made sure I came to the party with you.’

  ‘Oh don’t be silly, Mini! I don’t need a babysitter! But, listen, I do need Sameer’s phone number. I didn’t manage to get it before saying bye.’

  Mini was scowling,
so I decided it wasn’t the best time to tell her about my weekend in Alibaug. She ignored my request for Sameer’s number and just stared into her coffee. She looked up after a few painful minutes of silence and said, ‘This is not how it can work. We will work exclusively. Achcha, look. I usually charge my clients a lakh, okay? But I see potential in you. Kuch hai. So I can work with you for fifty thousand. What do you say?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Oh ho. To represent you, baby. I like you, so fifty thousand. I prefer cash, okay, baby?’

  ‘Represent me, meaning?’

  ‘For me to intro you to people, tell people about you and all that. Getting you a speech coach … your Amrikan accent has to go. Helping you with the shopping, like you only just said. Plus, I can get you discounts for a photo shoot, a stylist, vagera, vagera.’

  ‘Like an agent?’

  ‘Yeah. Agent. Sure.’

  ‘But I’ve had agents before. I paid them ten per cent of whatever I made and I guess I’m okay to enter an arrangement like that. Not exclusive, though. I want to still explore the city more on my own, and nobody really has agents, right?

  ‘I am telling you this is such a good deal. Have you seen the new KitKat ad? My casting only. She is one of my clients. We will do the ten per cent also, but that is later.’

  ‘Mini, I don’t want to pay before I get work. What happens if I don’t get any? Why don’t we work together a bit first and then see? Anyway, I think I’ll be getting some work on my own, in which case I might not need that kind of arrangement, you know.’

  ‘Sweetie, it doesn’t work that way. This Sameer Bhatia and all – one call from me and they will sign you. Fifty thousand. It is a good deal for you. I am the best in town.’

  The best what? Cheat?

  ‘I need to think about this. Maybe discuss it with my father.’

  ‘Fine. But try to explain him how important this is. I will call you tomorrow.’

  And with that, she was up and out and I was left without Sameer’s number and with the bill. She had me so perplexed with the money demands that I didn’t even think to vanish into the bathroom when the bill arrived. The next day, I called and told her that my father was only okay with me paying someone a cut of my earnings, not a lump sum. She grunted and said threateningly, ‘This is a huge mistake. Not an intelligent decision in this city.’ It sounded a bit ominous, but really, the worst she could do was sit on me.

  Later in the day, I was on Facebook for my daily dose of stalking. I wonder how much Facebook lowers our overall productivity as humans. I, as usual, hunted through a few key people’s profiles. Jay. Damn it. Seher always left publicly flirtatious messages on his wall. Since I was too self-conscious to do the same, I just read her posts and got annoyed. She had even written, ‘Missed you over the weekend. Xoxo.’ There’s few things that annoy me more than people who write ‘XOXO’. That belongs to Gossip Girl and Gossip Girl alone. I checked my ex-boyfriend from Princeton. I was pretty sure I had figured out who he was sleeping with. I could only see her thumbnail picture, but she looked comfortingly bovine. Then on to Handsome Kevin for no reason but because his profile picture was damn cute. And Mini. Hold on. I couldn’t access her page. She had removed me from her friends list and blocked me. That was pretty serious. I don’t think I had ever been removed from someone’s list before.

  Between the Mini episode and Alibaug, my spirit felt broken – bruised, beaten, and booted back to square one. My femininity, my dignity, my confidence – everything was teetering on the edge of a huge precipice. Fortunately, I had relatively large reserves of all three, so they weren’t completely depleted yet, but I could sense them running out as fast as my bank balance. I’m ashamed to admit that I Googled ‘inspirational quotes’ in an attempt to get myself back in the game. Franklin Roosevelt said, ‘To reach a port, we must sail – sail, not tie at anchor – sail, not drift.’ I realized I had been drifting.

  So that Tuesday I decided to change strategies and start sailing. I had met a man named Anand briefly at the Prithvi Theatre café a few months back and we had stayed in touch through the occasional text. Anand was a struggler in the true sense of the word. He woke up early every morning, went to the gym, put on some low-cost but well-cut clothes and headed out looking for work. I had never known of guerrilla auditioning until I met him. He had done a few ads here and there, bit parts in movies, etc. Nothing too big, but he still dreamt of being the next Shah Rukh Khan. With a receding hairline and age approaching the mid-thirties, his dream seemed to be slipping away from him. Fortunately, he appeared to be blissfully unaware of this and continued his struggle in the most jovial of moods.

  Me, I had never been too keen on doing ads. It just felt tacky. But wasting time with Jay was clearly not working. So I felt the need to spend my days in Lokhandwala, auditioning for ads, making money and gaining exposure. So what if I was identified as the Maha Bazaar girl when I went up to claim my Filmfare Award? At least I would be in the game to receive a Filmfare.

  I was to meet Anand in his flat in Lokhandwala so we could go from there. Before leaving, I called him to ask what the audition was for and how I was required to dress, to which he replied, ‘I don’t know. Let’s see.’

  I was confused. He must know what the audition was for. Were they looking for ‘sexy girl in club’ or ‘village girl #1’ or ‘young mother of four-year-old’? These required very different outfits and make-up. I went for my standard jeans, T-shirt and dupatta, and threw in some big earrings and a strip of big red bindis in my bag. Nearly fifty minutes and gallons of sweat later, I was at Anand’s apartment. There were two other men in tight jeans and hardly buttoned T-shirts, and a girl with perfectly straightened hair and a shirt so low, I felt uncomfortable looking in her direction. We were all assembled in Anand’s living room and he emerged from the bedroom with heavily gelled hair and a large bag.

  ‘Naiya! Come, come. I’m glad you decided to join us. Not doing ads was a silly decision. So, what all did you bring?’

  Anand had this strange but somewhat endearing habit of ending everything he said with a little smooching sound.

  ‘Huh? I have a bottle of water with me.’

  ‘No, darling. I mean looks. What looks do you have for the day?’

  ‘Looks? Um … this. And some earrings and bindis. Oh, and I have an eye liner in my bag. But it isn’t really sharpened, so I’m not sure I can actually use it. But I might have some lipstick.’

  The others sniggered. Anand sighed. ‘Well, it’s your first day. You’ll learn.’

  ‘Learn what? What is the audition for?’

  This time Anand sniggered as well, and I felt anger well up inside me. The loneliness that I felt in Bombay often manifested itself in the form of rage, and I was having to fight hard not to allow it to erupt.

  Anand put a loving arm around me and escorted me to his second-hand Swift into which all the men in tight pants, the girl with straight hair and I with my rage piled in. They all had medium-sized bags on their laps. Anand blasted a CD of Shah Rukh hits and they all broke into a strange hybrid of Hindi and English to discuss the latest happenings in the film and ad world. The girl spent the duration of the car ride pouting into a compact while the men described different movie trailers as ‘sexy’. I stared out of the window at the crowded roads of Lokhandwala and couldn’t help but wonder where my life had gone. Suddenly, my cubicle in Manhattan didn’t seem so bad.

  Fortunately, I didn’t get too much time to wallow in self-pity because we had pulled up in front of a dilapidated building in Oshiwara. We got out and walked through a broken-down gate into a building that looked like it was about to be demolished. It was a huge building, with three levels that looked into an open-air courtyard; each level had a seemingly endless number of doors. While we were climbing up to the first level, I began to see several other men in tight jeans and barely buttoned shirts, and more women with perfectly straightened hair and plunging necklines. And they all seemed to have bags with them. I felt like I
was in a surreal movie in which clones with vacant eyes and big bags take over the world. The men and women sized each other up as they passed. None of the women bothered looking in my direction. Why would they? The humidity had made my hair frizzy, my shirt didn’t show off my assets despite a heavily padded wonderbra and my make-up had almost entirely sweated off by now. They saw no competition in me.

  At the first door on the first level there was a hand-scribbled sign that read PEPSI. MEN, 18–26, CLUB WEAR.

  Anand said, ‘Okay, that’s for us. You two go ahead. We’ll regroup after the first round.’

  With that, the three men entered the first door and the pouting girl (who had still not uttered a word and was looking alluringly disinterested) and I walked ahead towards the other door. The third door said KITKAT, LADIES, 18–25, SEXY. We entered a room filled with several identical-looking women. The clones were continuing their attack. One was getting her hair done, one her make-up, and the rest were sitting around – playing with their nails, twirling their hair, and sizing up the competition – looking bored.

  We were greeted by a young man, no older than twenty, holding a clipboard and embodying a great sense of importance. He looked us both up and down, turned around and conferred with … Mini. Of course, Mini had cast the previous KitKat ad too. At least she hadn’t been lying. I smiled and mouthed a hi, but she looked me up and down as if she’d never seen me in her life. She motioned for the girl next to me to enter and then said to me, ‘No. You aren’t right for the screen,’ and looked back down at the paper in her hand. I stood there flabbergasted for a split second before hatred rushed through my veins. I’d had enough.

  ‘Mini, babe, I didn’t come to audition. I dropped in to say hi. Raghu told me you’re expecting. Congratulations! Gosh, you look ready to pop.’

  Mini looked up, confused. Before she could respond, the clones in the room, always eager to brown-nose the casting director, jumped in with a chorus of ‘You’re pregnant? Oh my god, congratulations’ and ‘Wow, Mini! That’s so exciting. You’ll make such a great mother!’