‘Kulasheshtra ne band baja diya kya? Arre, agle saal phir se koshish kar lena,’ he called out from behind my back.
By the beginning of next summer, Kulasheshtra had relinquished his advisory position on the selection committee – a post he had held on to for little over a year. One of his most enduring achievements was laying down the outline for the Repertory Company – the professional performing wing of the National Centre of Drama that aimed to promote professional theatre in India. Since then the Repertory Company, had staged over 120 plays based on the works of about 70 playwrights and featuring around 50 directors in several countries, and various cities across the nation.
RK CHOPRA
I woke with a start, the incessant jangling of my cell-phone ruining last night’s guilt-free intoxication; my mouth stinking of whiskey. I belched loudly, the re-gurge from yesterday’s dinner backing up in my mouth, making me want to throw up. The AC was on full blast, the bedsheets were icy. I felt the satin pillow stuffed between my thighs slowly drop to the floor. The afternoon sun streamed in from behind the dark jacquard blinds casting the hotel suite in a mellow afterglow. Almost the same shade as the whore’s auburn streaks; the one I had picked up last night at the rooftop bar, minutes before she went down on me, reprimanding me for not shaving. Asking me where I lived and what my name was.
‘RK,’ was all I’d said.
The whore had left, just as I had instructed, at the crack of dawn. The last thing I wanted was a fresh controversy. A sex scandal, this time around.
Last night’s lay had wanted to keep the television on while we made out. I’d protested initially, before allowing her to tie my hands with my powder-blue silk tie. Popping a Viagra just before she clumsily mounted my half limp member. I was too distracted to care.
My thoughts constantly raced back to the income-tax raid on my Pali Hill head office last week. I’d been forced into hiding after that, with both my apartments simultaneously being searched and sealed, including my sprawling Karjat farmhouse, as also all the three offices of Chopra & Sons, all shut down, indefinitely. Black money spilling over fifty crores had been collected and confiscated in hard cash from them.
The newspapers carried my name and alleged that some of my films had been financed by illegal monies from dons sitting in faraway Dubai, made through narcotics and gold smuggling. In turn, they alleged, the film industry, i.e. me and my friends in Bollywood, contributed glamour and grandeur to scores of underworld parties in Dubai along with gracing functions in Mumbai arranged by the dons and their henchmen. My calls were being traced. A leading political magazine even went to the extent of contending that most of my heroines – women who had debuted under my banner – were handpicked by the ‘Bhais’ who, also at times, dictated the storyline.
I was advised by my lawyers to stay put, holed up in this hotel, here.
Rakesh Chopra, top Bollywood producer. Wanted for tax fraud. Money laundering. Dealing with the mafia.
RK the pimp.
RK the player.
RK the porn-addict.
My good-for-nothing son, Monty, whose own film career had never quite taken off, was to blame for most of my recent misfortunes. He had pumped a large chunk of my savings into a good-for-nothing film that he had chosen to direct himself. Launching a good-for-nothing woman, he had screwed a couple of times. A small-time starlet, who he’d insisted was slotted to be the next big thing.
I should have known when the film sank without a trace, that Monty was up to no good, and that direction, like acting, wasn’t his cup of tea. And yet, I chose to give him a second chance.
I nursed a weakness for Monty. I had cheated on his mother, my first wife, Meenu, with a woman young enough to be our daughter, before she drank herself to death.
Monty had her eyes.
Hits and flops are an integral part of our dhanda, I convinced myself. And appeased Bhai. But what I had failed to foresee was how the money flowing in from real estate investments had begun drying up thanks to a slump in the market. Of their traditional sources of income – narcotics, gold smuggling, illicit liquor trade and prostitution – now, only the first remained profitable. And so, especially over the past years, the underworld had turned to us, the film fraternity, and, much like the builder lobby they once patronized and later extorted money from – now bigshot movie moghuls and famous actors happened to be the latest soft targets of dreaded ganglords who demanded their pound of flesh.
The tide had turned, beginning in 1997, when the creator of a 500-crore music company, Gulshan Kumar, was shot dead at point-blank range outside a temple he had built in suburban Versova. Abu Salem, Dawood’s lieutenant in Dubai, had supposedly demanded ten khokhas (crores). Gulshan, who had started his career running a wayside food-stall in Daryaganj, in old Delhi, had viewed the threat as hollow. I still remember the nonchalant look in his eyes when he had disclosed to me at a music album launch, how he was on the underworld hit-list.
I had volunteered to play middleman and renegotiate on his behalf.
‘Mein kissi se nahin darta, RK,’ he had nonchalantly shrugged his shoulders.
I thought of him now. How his body had been found slumped sideways in a pool of blood. Now I too was being threatened to cough up the enormous losses incurred on Monty’s last film. And it was the reason why I had listened to my lawyers and sought police protection, playing along with a cock-and-bull story that claimed I was being falsely framed, thanks to an extortion racket by the D company. That the money recovered from my office premises had been planted by their men, to land me into trouble.
I was on the run from the law. I was buying time from Bhai and my second wife – who had also suddenly hiked up her alimony demands. I even suspected Monty – who was livid that I wasn’t going to invest any further in his next film venture – and believed he actually had something to do with the raids.
I trusted no one.
‘Advocate Singh,’ my cell-phone screen flashed, vibrating loudly. I turned up the television to drown it out. I was still lost in my thoughts when the name on TV, registered in my ears.
Followed by a familiar voice…
‘My husband Amitabh Kulasheshtra passed away earlier this afternoon from a massive cardiac failure. Amitabh had been ailing for a while. Following his last wishes, he will be buried tomorrow, at 4 pm, and not cremated. Amitabh was a fiercely private man, and, so, his funeral tomorrow, too, shall remain private. I request his students, colleagues, friends, and the media to kindly respect our privacy. I would like to thank the staff of Kamla Nehru Hospital for their support. Namaste…’ Sarla pursed her lips, folding her hands demurely.
I stared at the monitor, tongue-tied. I couldn’t recognize her, at first. Her cheeks were gaunt; her dark tresses, gathered in a neat bun resting at the nape of her neck, were streaked with silver. She wore a conservatively styled, full-sleeved blouse and a dull brown cotton sari. Immediately, I thought of the ample breasts beneath that demurely draped nine yards.
I narrowed my eyes and sank onto the side of the bed, grabbing the edges of the crumpled sheets.
The journalists were thronging her with questions.
‘Mrs Amitabh Kulasheshtra,’ I read the caption that ran on the bottom of the TV screen. Repeating her name to myself.
She had always been nervous around her father. That day, when she had walked in for rehearsals, she barely made eye contact with the other actors. I’d been smitten instantly. Though she never smiled freely or tried flirting openly with me, I was certain my fair-skinned good looks and sculpted physique were not lost on her.
I immediately named her ‘Banno’ in my head. It was my mother’s nickname.
Her father was my mentor. Sarat Chandra Joglekar.
A theatre legend in his time; an icon.
I was about twenty-one when I got my first opportunity to audition in Joglekar’s theatre troupe in Maharashtra. I was desperate to land a break in acting. I was clear that I would use theatre as a stepping-stone to cross over into the
more lucrative film industry. One of my uncles, a distant relative of my mother’s, had settled down in Kohlapur after the Partition and started a dhaba that had flourished into a decent, mid-sized restaurant that boasted of the finest firni and the most succulent tandoori chicken. I was sent to him to help in the business, to find my way in new India after we had to abandon our ancestral home in Lahore. I was barely thirteen at the time.
I was a good-looking Punjabi boy, gora-chitta, as my aunts and cousin sisters often teased me, with wavy brown hair, soft, greenish eyes and sturdy arms: the stuff heroes were made of. I was also quite unscrupulous. I could do anything to make my aspirations come true.
Be anyone.
I had set my heart on being an actor, so one night, I stole my uncle’s savings and left his home forever.
A week later, I had joined Joglekar’s company, and a week after that I caught a glimpse of Banno in a backless choli.
It was love at first sight for me. She had the most perfectly shaped breasts. I had wanted there and then to place my mouth hungrily over her nipples, gulp her down, swallow her soreness and drown endlessly in her tears. I had wanted to say so much to her, but I was too terrified to even look into her brown eyes; eyes that when they met mine for the first time, glinted with a sanguine, almost sacred strength.
Mitti, the play her father had newly written was inspired by Dalit icon and architect of the Indian Constitution, B.R. Ambedkar’s clarion call to fellow Dalits to rise against the ruling class. It wove the explosive story of a married Dalit woman belonging to a migrant community, picked up by a rich exploitative zamindar who eventually falls in love with her, straying outside the designated boundary lines of an arranged, high-caste marriage.
Dada Saheb had been scouting for a fair and tall man who looked ‘Brahmin’ enough for the part of the wealthy landlord, whose dialogue delivery reflected an aristocratic arrogance and whose body language bore a certain swagger…a distinct disdain for the marginalized. It was how I had managed to make it to the final auditions.
But now I was muffing my lines, as I eyed Sarla distractedly: ‘What if I can actually love you…? If I am now begging to live…to be a better man…if I am at your mercy? What if there is more to this life?’
I was supposed to be holding a loaded pistol to my head, to balance on one knee, professing my undying admiration to her, breaking down, for the first time. Instead, I was mesmerized by a faint line of moisture trickling down her cleavage.
‘You ask me what is love, Sahib. I ask you, now, what is death? Who will mourn my demise when I walk out of your sprawling countryside mansion where you hold me ransom? When I will have no choice, but to hang myself from a tree? A fallen, Dalit woman, in tattered clothes with matted locks, whose eyes have not known sleep, such as me? Who will even want to touch my funeral pyre? Tell my story…an unfinished saga of forbidden female desires…’ her pale lips had shuddered.
Her father had frowned, shuffling through the hand-written script.
A dull heat pierced my loins. I took a deep breath and continued: ‘My heart, you speak, as if it’s all my fault…as if you don’t comprehend the weight of my attraction…the fact, that you make me sterile…rendering my whole life impotent with so much as a slanted, sideways glance. You have no right to make me this helpless, you low-caste whore! You vile serpent – how many times, will you destroy me this way, with your reluctance to accept my body, my soul…slow poisoning my senses? How many times, must I prostrate before you? Grovel? What is left of my machismo?’ Who is the achooth (untouchable), now?’
My voice cracked as Sarla instinctively grabbed my left hand, pressing it to her chest, giving me the confidence I lacked, telling me with one fleeting touch how she understood my unspoken feelings…that she reciprocated what I feared telling her…in person.
That same night, Sarla and I had met alone for the first time, in a darkened, makeshift green-room; all the raw emotions we had play-acted earlier the same day, suddenly reigniting, as we groped each other clumsily, hungrily.
It was clear from the start that her father would be opposed to our match. We kissed passionately, as she rubbed her soft cheeks against my mine, confessing how it wasn’t going to be easy to stand up against her father’s will alone.
‘You will have to tell Dada Saheb the truth about us, you know that, right? Eventually? He’s not easy to please, as you may have understood by now…’ she had grabbed my shoulders, searching my face…my eyes…
I looked away. Oblong shadows formed on the spacious walls. A lone lantern flickered.
‘What will become of this attraction…our love…if he marries me off to a man of his choice? What we share now…this moment,’ she had whispered hoarsely, as I’d tightened my arms around her.
‘I will tell Dada Saheb everything, soon, real soon,’ I’d lied, nuzzling her throat, ‘before I whisk you away to our sapnon ka sheher…in Mumbai. That’s where we belong…There, we will become famous as a couple…you will go on to become a legendary leading actress, mark my words…our future lies in the big city…not here, not the way he believes an artist should subsist, merely on his craft, the way his plays are nothing but long-drawn-out social commentaries…the future lies in celluloid, not another village manch.’
Banno stared at me, fascinated.
‘This is a naya daur…’ I propped up her chin, excitedly explaining how the angst of 1950s Bollywood that had mirrored a newly Independent India was officially behind us.
The Sixties were all about colour, optimism and flamboyance.
‘Gaya Guru Dutt ka zamana gaya…unnka gam…dhukh bhari dastaan…have you, watched K. Asif’s Mughal-E-Azam…heard Shammi Kapoor as he slides down the snow-capped hills of Shimla, roaring “Yaahoo”?’ I breathed fast.
She smiled, shyly. Shaking her head from side to side.
‘I am told I resemble him…’ I chuckled, cupping her cheeks, ‘I will see to it that all our dreams come true…I want to be together with you…I knew the second I laid eyes on you…I have no interest in inheriting this looming legacy that he promises…I am not Amitabh…’
Banno had covered my mouth with hers in a fervent kiss. Afterwards, she had said:
‘I know you are not Amitabh…I don’t want you to be, and neither do I wish that you live in Dada Saheb’s shadows forever. I have no desire to spend my entire life, here, simply being Sarat Chandra Joglekar’s only daughter, Rakesh. I felt it too…my beloved…the minute I touched your hand…And, as for Amitabh, whom you will get to know closely, as more time passes – he’s a friend, like a brother, almost. I intend to confide in him, about us. He’ll never betray my trust. Amitabh cares about nothing, except being the next Sarat Chandra Joglekar…it’s why he joined our troupe…forsaking everything. He believes in the same world order…they are strangely similar, my father and he…both of them married to theatre. Amitabh is incapable of loving another person. His selfishness is his armour, it’s probably taken him years to cultivate this sort of meticulous detachment…Ami…’ the rest of her words trailed, as I dragged her back into my arms.
Amitabh Kulasheshtra.
To think I had once called him ‘Bhai Jaan’.
SARLA KULASHESHTRA
I looked up, tired from filling up the lengthy forms. My eyes smarted from lack of sleep. It was just after 7 a.m., the hexagonal clock on a dull grey wall in the waiting area of Kamla Nehru Hospital announced.
I was finishing off the formalities required to get Amitabh out of the morgue. A few of the patients’ attendants and family members, who lay asleep on the hard, cold ground on hastily thrown together bedclothes, were stirring sluggishly. Some sat still, numbed by the illness of their loved ones, some others, like me, immersed in the paperwork of death, or in hushed conversation amongst themselves; their heads hung low, their faces lined with worry.
I rubbed my cheeks, fighting a dull cramp in my stomach, scrutinizing the expressions of those around me, one by one. In a far corner, a young mother breastfed her new-born, he
r light, brown nipples glinting in the fractured light. Our glances intersected briefly.
Someone had increased the volume on the television, near the reception area. I walked slowly in its direction. My Kohlapuri chappals made a flip-flop sound. I located an empty seat, rubbing my eyes. A man in his early 30’s in a blue, striped shirt was being interviewed on the news channel.
I narrowed my eyes.
Someone by the name of Tyeb Ansari, the caption on the TV read.
‘I can still remember the first play I ever saw of his, on a street, outside Parliament, the year I was on a school holiday to New Delhi. The cops watching in a curious semi-circle, their lathis poised.
‘Kulasheshtra’s actors were bare-bodied. Their eyes lined with kohl. Their loincloths barely covering their privates; they were enacting a village scene, clutching piles of straw and dummies of malnourished babies.
‘I jostled through the swelling crowds. Desperate to get an inch closer to Kulasheshtra, intimidated and inspired at the same time.
‘“What use is the Green Revolution that primarily catered to the rich, large landholding farmers of India? Who are you trying to fool, huh? The small and the lower middle peasantry have almost completely lost their stake…eventually their voice too will be wiped out…this is more than an agrarian crisis…”
‘Flies buzzed over our heads.
‘“Free the farmers, our children are dying, born with their limbs deformed, their bodies twisted out of shape, pass the Bill banning the use of toxic pesticides,” one of his actors implored.
‘A few onlookers clapped awkwardly.
‘A pot-bellied man in a grey safari suit suddenly stepped aside, perspiring profusely: “Can’t you people see you are holding up traffic, that too when Parliament is in session? Tamasha khada kar diya hai tum logon ne; if you have the balls, why don’t you contest elections in your own state, concentrate on forming a legitimate political party of your own and then travel cross country, to the capital, to face us, as equals?”’
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