Cut

by Sreemoyee Piu Kundu

  Rakesh looked away. ‘Last night, my lawyer, Mahesh Singh called. Apparently, Monty has come to know about me reaching out to Chhota Shamim…that I am double-crossing Bhai…and, and the law. He’s been in touch with the top cops. Maybe, he can’t trust me, either. It’s an open and shut case, frankly. The swaad of being betrayed by one’s blood…to finally pay up, Banno. The police are probably waiting for me, back in Mumbai, as we speak. Kissi ka koi bharosa nahin…it’s why I had to come, to Pune. Why I vowed to get the manuscript out of Rawat’s hands. Why I did what I have. What I intend to confess before the Courts…’

  Rakesh caressed the lines around my eyes.

  ‘Mein shayad kabhi hero nahin bann paya, Banno. Tumhara hero...’ he whispered, adding slowly, as his fingers ran over my damp eyelashes, ‘mein Amitabh Kulasheshtra nahin bann paya. Shayad hum dono mein farq bhi itna hi tha. Hamara dil. Hamara imaan. Aur tum, Banno. Farq bhi. Aur fasla bhi…’

  I walked Rakesh to the front door, unlocking it, taking my time: ‘Har mohabbat ka, ek mausam hota hai…’ Rakesh turned around, then, as our glances intersected, one last time, he smiled wistfully and quoted a dialogue from one of his first films, ‘aur…wohi usski taqdeer…’

  He tipped his beret. Copying Dev Anand’s inimitable style.

  Then he was gone.

  AVIK DASGUPTA

  It had been a year since I had begun working on Cut. In this time I had been working tirelessly, researching Amitabh’s life, meeting people, assembling an ensemble cast, working with RK to find financiers, to get the right venue, prefereably in spaces sacrosanct to Kulasheshtra, to block dates and hire the finest technicians. I vowed to do theatre on the scale I had visualized all those years ago, when I had shared my dreams for the first time at the final selection stage at the National Center of Drama; dreams that had been trampled upon, dreams that I sacrificed, sans a fight, dreams that made me the man I was today.

  In retrospect, I knew Sarlaji was right. I wouldn’t have had the power and influence to have done things my way if I hadn’t returned to theatre from film. Kulasheshtra’s harsh rejection of me, I now knew, had a deeper purpose. The darkness of the stage, that in many ways, seemed like a slow, surreal surrender, after the shallow, screeching spotlights of Bollywood. Like coming back to the arms of an old lover.

  Both of us – the world of theatre and I – we had changed. Nothing was the same.

  And that, I knew, was the point.

  I was a nobody again. Ready to push myself to the brink, one more time. To pay not just a rich tribute to a man who had been my mentor, who had changed the idiom of theatre in India, but, to the true artist who recognized my mettle. Who saw me as no one had before. Whose walking away defied and defined my destiny. With Cut... that wasn’t mine to begin with at least... I felt more attached than to any of my films or the television company I now ran. I wasn’t just a director or a producer.

  I was a simple storyteller. A vast medium.

  There were going to be no retakes, here.

  It’s why having Maya on board also felt so right, why the project was more meaningful. There was still something about seeing her every day, to have her in my life again, to know she had my back. That like when I had debuted with Anubhuti, Maya was always around. My fiercest critic, as much as my deepest friend. It was while gathering material on Amitabh’s life that she mentioned Razia Siddiqui; she told me about Razia having being commissioned to work on a book on Kulasheshtra based on interviews with members of his troupe; others like him, whose lives had been lost to the shadows of time.

  I contacted Razia, who was now based in Delhi, telling her all about Cut and the way the manuscript had reached me, making her promise she wouldn’t breathe a word in the media, until rehearsals began, especially about Sarla Kulasheshtra’s involvement in the project. In turn, she told me about all the people she had spoken to, and even shared the unedited interviews with Marie Bourdaine. I explained how Sarlaji was passionately involved with this play, but was an extremely private person. Razia gave me her word.

  I needed her help in getting in touch with Sultan Ahmed, one of India’s foremost lighting technicians who had practically rewritten the rules of stage design with his innovative lighting methods, such as the dalda-ka-dabba effect, where, in one of Kulasheshtra’s plays on farmer suicides, in a sequence where a man tries to kill himself by jumping off a train, a car headlight was directly beamed on to the audience and a dalda can with cut out windows, housing a bulb was rotated at great speed to create an illusion of a fast paced train.

  In all my notes and facts collated on Kulasheshtra, Sultan Ahmed’s name was a constant, though the two had allegedly fallen out when Kulasheshtra had suddenly moved to Mumbai in pursuit of Maya. Razia called me a fortnight later, saying that his divorced daughter Zeenat who looked after him had agreed to meet us, ‘Not as a journalist…as a friend, perhaps,’ she added.

  ‘Zeenat has been standoffish; I think she wants money…’ Razia warned, while we waited in a dilapidated courtyard. I surveyed the surroundings from the corner of my eyes. It was apparent that Ahmed had fallen on hard times and for all he did towards developing a contemporary understanding of stage lighting in India, I wondered if he too, like his comrade Kulasheshtra, was now a forgotten entity. The line, ‘respect the darkness’ posessed a new, double edged meaning. My mind clouded over with a lingering sadness.

  A middle-aged woman in an ill-fitted salwar-kameez stood facing us now, her hennaed hair hung loose, covering her shrunken chest. ‘Abba usually likes to read his final namaaz outside, before he sleeps…’ but before she could finish, a voice from inside called out: ‘Zeenat…beti…tell them to come inside,’ taking us all by surprise, adding, as we turned, ‘This way, barkhurdar…come closer to me…here... hold my hand…’

  I walked over, my heart pounding.

  ‘It was Sheshtra who taught me treat the light, like a blind man learns to recognize it…how to smell the darkness, from afar, sensing its direction. He always said light is the most vital part of a dramatic experience, making me close my eyes for hours, endlessly. Learning to listen, training my mind to be soaked in a meditative silence, to contemplate emotions, like laughter and pain, the behaviour and misbehaviour of rays, with reference to its surroundings, make pictures, the way a child paints on a blank sheet of paper. Guided not so much by what is right, but what feels right, at that point in time…’

  I couldn’t believe I was actually listening to the Sultan Ahmed. Clad in a faded vest and a striped, cotton lungi, he gripped my wrist, firmly.

  I helped him sit down on a low charpoy.

  ‘I know why you are here, Zeenat has told me about the play,’ he resumed, adjusting his glasses, ‘I will join this production…if you let me do things my way on stage. I hate interference. The way I hate lighting up bodies. Sheshtra said to us that the body is an aspect of light, self-lit, and therefore it was more important to light the space. Can you trust my vision the way I tell you to? Despite my blindness? All the technological advancements that must have happened by now. I am ready to learn about them, improvise, collaborate with a team of new age technicians you will naturally hire…’

  ‘Sir, it will be an absolute privilege,’ I was overcome with emotion.

  ‘You know, when Sheshtra returned from Mumbai and tried to regather his old team, I pushed him away, seething with pent-up rage. ‘‘Do you know how hard this is…how everything just came tumbling down after you left?” He replied: “I couldn’t breathe, Sultan. Without her, it was dark. Every corner of my life, pointless…it was like she had awakened the man in me…the man who wanted to love back, for the first time. A man who wasn’t running anymore…a man who was desperate to be saved, for a change,” he confessed, breathing hard.

  ‘“So, what the hell are you doing back in Pune, again? What the hell do you now want? Haven’t we all paid the price for your…your…” I checked myself.

  ‘Sheshtra bowed his head. Then looking up after a few seconds, he answered in a
low voice, “I had to come back, Sultan. I had to let her go…I was ruining her with my obsession…she, she is so talented, so young, so, so beautiful…and yet, she couldn’t see any of it…she was so scared of failing me…it’s why I had to walk out, this time…tell myself that she will soar on her own, one day…that she will be found…Maya..”

  ‘I wasn’t convinced. “And what about you, huh? Haven’t you lost enough, already? Your marriage, your reputation, your damn credibility…?”

  ‘Sheshtra, I remember, stood outside. “Illusion. Maya is my illusion, Sultan. But, Mrinalini Shirale was a woman of flesh and blood…and, I don’t want her to stay trapped inside, forever…suffer the way she was, living with me in Mumbai, taking on the onus of keeping us afloat…I saw that angst in her eyes, Sultan…I was turning her into a monster…a wreck…I couldn’t kill her aspirations with my own hands…”

  ‘“And what happens to your career? Your body of work? Everything you stood for? That we represented as a theatre company…our ideals…the things we believed in…?”

  Sheshtra wiped his face. “There will be always something to fight for, Sultan, something else.”

  ‘By the close of next year, the Babri Masjid was demolished. Sheshtra wrote a new play again. Blaming the Rashtriya Dal for the raging communal violence. He was right to sense that the country he so loved was about to be changed. That the revolution would be falsely carried out, in the name of religion. That men would murder men. That children would be rendered homeless. That fathers would abandon their families. Women would be brutally gangraped. That abject poverty, gross social injustice and widespread illiteracy had manufactured widespread communalism that would be used by opportunistic political parties.

  ‘“You could get killed, this time, the situation is extremely volatile…and there is a ban on this play…you will be blamed for further inciting communal feelings”…I warned him.

  ‘“You’re scared, aren’t you? You find it hard to trust me, Sultan?” Sheshtra cut me short.

  ‘“Yes. I have a daughter, I have a family who look to me for their sustenance…besides, I’ve found work with a prestigious Government project, they want me to create the outdoor lighting practices for Kauri…the pay is favourable, too, and it’s a first of sorts, they insist, a Muslim light designer in an ancient Indian temple, it could just as well be the beginning of a new life, more respectable,” I coughed, my throat dry.

  ‘“Respectable…” Sheshtra repeated the word, like it was a lie.’

  From the outskirts of Pune, Razia and I drove further into the heart of Maharashtra. To Satara – home to another theatre stalwart, Govind Dewal, a stellar dialogue writer associated with not just Amitabh Kulasheshtra, but Dada Saheb. A man who had been witness to the blossoming of Kulasheshtra, from protégé to genius. Now, in his 90s, wheelchair-bound, Dewal had been interviewed on almost all TV channels, in the aftermath of Kulasheshtra’s death. I had couriered him the manuscript of Cut, with detailed direction notes, set design sketches and some minor changes I had made to the lines.

  After exchanging routine pleasantries, Dewal brought out a copy of Cut himself. The pages, photo-copied.

  ‘Dasgupta…this is good. I like the way you have visualized the scenes…’ he spoke with difficulty.

  I had taken permission to record the interaction.

  ‘What do you think he would have said, Govindji?’ I pulled up a stool.

  ‘That’s hard to say; Amitabh was an unpredictable sort of fellow,’ Dewal shrugged his shoulders, adding, after a while. ‘Also, the last time I actually saw him was when he left Joglekar…it’s the way I remember him always…young, arrogant…so very sure of where he was going. Sometimes, I ask myself, what if he hadn’t met Sarla? If Joglekar had a son of his own or if he had trusted any of us as intimately as he had Amitabh…if we could have saved him…’

  ‘Saved, as in?’ I interrupted.

  ‘Dada Saheb used to be anxious about Amitabh ultimately craving his own theatre company…knowing his political activism, his innate interest in national politics…in poverty, in prostitution, in anything that involved the minorities…it was amply clear that he wasn’t just happy to hang around in the troupe anymore; Dada Saheb knew that, all along…how Amitabh was beginning to want to outshine him…’

  ‘Were they competing with each other at some point, then?’ Razia interrupted, this time.

  ‘Amitabh worshipped Joglekar, so leaving must have broken his heart too. But, I think he was also weighed down by Sarla…He felt he didn’t deserve her, in some way. I mean, they were friends, but everyone knew that her heart belonged only to that Punjabi rogue…Rakesh. Amitabh never said anything to Joglekar, despite knowing about Sarla’s secret affair. But, it was obvious he was consumed with guilt for marrying a woman against her desires. For betraying Sarla at a very deep level. I think his ultimate breaking away wasn’t just about a thirst for individual fame or power…it was simple, his logic. He wanted to prove his mettle to Joglekar, and, eventually, win Sarla’s heart. Knowing both were equally stubborn and hard to please.’

  ‘Is that the way Dada Saheb saw the betrayal?’ I probed, frowning hard.

  ‘Joglekar was a man who had a great understanding of human psychology. He let Amitabh go, knowing it was time. He did it as much for his best student to bloom, as much as for Sarla to begin to love Amitabh…that struggle together would bring them closer, inevitably…was his strongest belief.’

  ‘The story of Amitabh Kulasheshtra as told by Sarla Kulasheshtra…a woman who never left his side, and yet, someone whom he deserted,’ Razia walked up to us, staring at the script lying on Dewal’s lap.

  ‘Or, maybe, that was the strength of their relationship. That they let each find their way in the world, fall, make mistakes, pursue their individual dreams, fight their own demons, carve their own creative places, struggle with the resultant aloneness…and, then come back to source. It’s what made them equals,’ Dewal wheezed.

  ‘Is Cut about infidelity then, Govindji? Was Kulasheshtra guilty, in his last years…repentant? Is that why he makes his wife the sutradhaar? To reinstate her respect, maybe?’ I spoke fast.

  ‘You say it like love is a sin, Dasgupta?’

  ‘No, what I meant is, isn’t a man supposed to just be in love with one woman? And was Kulasheshtra torn, because he wasn’t…because he couldn’t…’ I searched Dewal’s wrinkled face.

  ‘Are you referring to Maya Shirale here? Are you worried that the casting might be seen as too deliberate, too contrived…are you saying Kulasheshtra wrote the script for Sarla, but wanted to reach out to Maya, actually?’

  There was a minute or two of suspended silence.

  ‘Why did Amitabh Kulasheshtra love Maya Shirale the way he did, frantically, at first? Why did someone of his stature leave everything behind, literally chasing after her, to Mumbai? I mean, with Marie Bourdaine, with whom Kulasheshtra was also rumoured to have had a fleeting affair, he didn’t move lock, stock and barrel to Paris? Why then, did he suddenly turn his back on his work and family, Sarlaji, especially? How could he live that way? How did they make love? How did Kulasheshtra and Maya manage to stay content, even as strong rumours raged about his philandering, with the media on his trail to know why he was in Mumbai, living in a dingy chawl with a woman half his age?’

  ‘I have pondered all these questions while reading Cut, Dasgupta, especially, what made Sarla hate Amitabh so deeply, for as long as she did? And yet, care so dutifully at the same time? Representing him in Court; never missing a single trial? Working tirelessly, teaching dance every day of her life, to ensure that there was enough money for his medicines…tests…I mean…even the way she approached you, with his last, unfinished script? Insisted on Maya Shirale playing her, as you wrote to me in your letter that arrived along with the manuscript of Cut? If there was some connection, with the world wanting to forget Kulasheshtra, as quickly as it did, and so heartlessly? Was it a case of divine retribution, a heartless punishment for a man who sto
rmed out of his marriage, so carelessly…a commonplace cheater? Was that why Amitabh died the way he did…. with so little…just an empty wallet…a cloth bag…a pair of spectacles. Beaten by an angry mob. Was it a cruel twist of fate? Or was Cut Amitabh Kulasheshtra’s answer…the last time he wanted to remember…anything…everything…?’

  Dewal stared at his hands.

  MAYA SHIRALE

  Rehearsals were on in full swing. AD was meticulous about practising the lines. A demanding perfectionist, he planned each scene of Cut meticulously, and while improvisation was natural on stage, he knew exactly what he wanted. It was hard memorizing the lines, words penned by Amitabh…that brought time back, in more ways than one…just like being back on stage proved more daunting that I had ever imagined.

  There would be no second chances, I told myself, in front of the green-room mirror. A part of me still wondered if I was at all eligible to play a character, so different from myself. If this was what Amitabh would have wanted? Was I ready to surrender to a medium that had taken away so much from me…from us?

  As actors, we’re supposed to remember things, almost in arithmetic precision, to step out of our physical selves by training our mind to remain suspended in third person, I kept reminding myself. My pulse raced as I slowly walked up on stage, in full make-up, an hour later, a wig of white hair weighing down on me.

  Avi stood on the side, with a hard-bound script in his right hand. The set behind us was a plywood replica of Amitabh’s Pune home. My stomach churned as my thoughts travelled to the last time I had been here. The quaint garden. The discoloured front gate, the winding staircase. The outhouse, where the scene was set. I took a deep breath, trying to visualize Amitabh sick, lying in bed. I swallowed hard.