Shashi Tharoor - Show Business

She was beginning to get angry, and this was a bad sign: I had had hopes of a farewell kiss, if not more. But I was in too deep now to pull back. “Yes,” I said firmly. “We’re an irrelevant minority performing for an irrelevant minority in a language and a medium that guarantee both irrelevance and minorityhood. I mean, how many people watch the English-language theater in this country? And how many of those watch us?”

“Numbers? Is that all that matters to you?” Malini was scathing. “We’re reaching a far more important audience here, a far more aware audience. We’re in the front line of what’s happening in world theater. We’re doing plays that have taken Broadway and the West End by storm.”

“Yeah, ten years ago,” I retorted. “Look, Malini, English-language theater in India has no place to go but in circles, and you know it. The same old plays rehashed for the same ignorant crowd. Who cares? Films are for real.”

“Hindi films? Real? Give me a break.” She got up then; she was always fond of matching movements to words, to the despair of our directors. “Look, Ashok, if you want to go off and make a fool of yourself in Bombay, do what you like. But don’t give me this kind of crap about it, OK?”

That was my cue, and for the sake of fond farewells I should have taken it and recanted, if only to mutter “nevertheless it does move” under my breath. But no, I had to stand up for my choice, didn’t I? “It’s not crap,” I asserted. “Hindi films are real, much more real in India than anything we’re doing. They even constitute a profession, an industry, which is more than anyone can say for us, for Chrissake. And if all goes reasonably well,” I added hastily, because Malini seemed either about to explode or exit, “the film business will bring in some real money.” One hit, I thought, one hit, and I’d be raking in more than I could hope to earn in several years in the Hindustanized multinational I had predictably joined after college. Without tax deductions at source either. Wage payers in movieland were notoriously less finicky about the tax laws than the paisa-pinching accountants who remunerated me for marketing detergents.

“And if all doesn’t go reasonably well?” Malini was angrier than she needed to be. It suddenly struck me that the woman cared. And I’d never noticed it before. “You’re chucking up a good job, decent prospects, a pleasant enough life here and serious theater to knock on the doors of the manufacturers of mass escapism. What happens if they don’t answer?”

“They will,” I said defiantly.

“Drop me a postcard when they do.” And she walked out, slamming the door behind her. Theatrical, that’s what she was, in a word. Theatrical. I didn’t try to go after her. There would be no going back to theater.

So here I am, in Bombay, filmi capital of India, shooting my first starring role at S. T. Studios, which has seen many a hero cavort his way to cinematic immortality. And in Choubey Productions’ Musafir, alongside the legendary Abha Patel, who has had a fair stab at cinematic immortality herself. Me, Ashok Banjara, sharing celluloid with the star whose bust, vividly painted by a proletarian social-realist on a cinema billboard, once caused a celebrated traffic jam. The magic words “Lights! Camera! Action!” are ringing in my ears, the bulbs are beaming in my face and likewise Abha, if only in her screen persona. So why am I so desperately unhappy?

Of course I shouldn’t be. After all, I’ve scored one in the eye of the dreaded Radha Sabnis, alias Cheetah of “Cheetah’s Chatter” in Showbiz magazine and author of the one and only reference to me in the filmi print media to date. That wasn’t too long ago, and every line is burned into my memory.

Darlings, Cheetah has been asking herself for weeks who is that tall, not-too-dark and none-too-handsome type who has been hanging around all the filmi parties of late? From his hungry expression and anxiety to please, I thought he might be a new caterer. Not an actor, surely? But yes, my dears, surprises will never cease in Bollywood. Actor he is, or rather wants to be. One glance at him, and Dharmendra and Rajesh Khanna can continue to sleep soundly: this soulful type with the looks of a garage mechanic isn’t going very far. Hardly surprising, then, that producers aren’t exactly falling over themselves to sign him. But then why, Cheetah asks herself, does he keep getting invited to the fun soirees of filmland? Simple reason, darlings: he’s a minister’s son. Our mystery man turns out to be none other than Anil, elder son of the Minister of State for Minor Textiles, Kulbhushan Banjara. Our canny filmwallahs seem to have adopted the maxim, if you don’t need him, at least feed him — no point offending a minister, after all. Who says our filmi crowd are out of touch with modern Indian realities, eh? Grrrowl!

Anil, indeed. The witch couldn’t even get my name right.

But here I am, anyway, Cheetah’s grrowls notwithstanding.

And in the teeth, I might add, of familial opposition, indeed disbelief. My father’s jaw actually dropped when I told him; even at home I couldn’t escape the theatrical. My younger brother, Ashwin, who had grown up attached to my shirttails like a surplus shadow, should have been pleased that he would now have a filmi hero to worship instead of a mere Brother Who Could Do No Wrong. None of it: he just looked at me, large eyes limpid in disappointment, as if I’d been fooling around with his girlfriend (which, in point of fact, I had, though he didn’t know it). “Films, Ashok-bhai?” he asked incredulously. “Bombay? You?” And he shook his head slowly, as if wanting to believe I knew what I was doing, but failing in the attempt to convince himself. Only my mother, as usual, was nonjudgmental. But all she could bring herself to say to me were the standard words of blessing, “jeete raho” (“may you go on living”), which hardly qualified as active encouragement. Pity Tool Dwivedi wasn’t around to buck me up and cheer me on, but then he was contemplating his navel and his dirty toenails somewhere on the banks of the Ganges, beyond the reach of the Franciscan old boy network. In my great adventure I was, it seemed, completely alone.

But alone or not, I’m in the middle of a film set now and there’s no time for existential self-indulgence. The playback song starts again, I lip-synch my melodic vow of eternal pursuit, the rain falls through holed buckets, my feet move as they have been taught, but I am terrified they will trip over each other. I am acutely aware of the ridiculousness of what I am doing, even more aware of the incompetence with which I am doing it. Double embarrassment here, to be doing the ridiculous incompetently. I am so petrified with fear of failure that I do not sense the tickle in my nose until I reach for Abha in midcavort, my back impossibly bent in choreographical adulation, one hand behind my rump like a bureaucrat seeking a discreet bribe, the other stretching up to her chin, lips moving to the playback lyric. I am hardly aware of it as I look into her eyes, my nostrils flaring in desire, and sneeze.

“Cut!”

“Oh, Christ,” I mutter under my breath, reaching for my handkerchief. I am not Christian, but fourteen years of a Catholic education have taught me a fine line in blasphemy.

All hell breaks loose. As I sneeze again, I see Gopi Master, beside himself, launching into a paroxysmal frenzy that could easily be set to music in his next film. I see Abha throwing up her hands and stalking off toward her dressing room. There is the crash of a door: I seem to have this effect on women. I see angry faces, laughing faces, exasperated faces, black and brown and red faces, all animated and contorted in their urgent need for self-expression. I sneeze again, hearing voices raised, announcing how many takes have been taken, recording how many hours have been lost, recalling how overdue the next meal break is. Mohanlal nears me, reproach written in every furrowed line on his brow. His anxiety is eight on the Scale, and climbing.