Shashi Tharoor - Show Business

And doesn’t she notice? “Perhaps. I don’t know. Of course she has her own frustrations. But it’s different for women.” (You can imagine how much self-restraint it took for Cheetah to let that pass, darlings.) “Anyway, you’re always conscious of your own escapes, your own betrayals, so when you’re with her you try to be considerate. You give in to whatever she wants. You avoid quarrels, resentments, anything that’ll bring your own duplicity up and into the open. You do and say what’s necessary, no more. Out of guilt, yes, and because there’s no point in fighting. It’s the least you can do for her. It’s all you can do for her. What you want for yourself you get elsewhere.”

And, I can hear you asking, little cubs, what about the Other Woman? “Well, you have no illusions about why you’re with her, what you want out of her. She’s your escape, your pleasure, no more, no less. Problem is, you think you’ve made that all clear to her, but it’s never clear enough. She expects things, things you can’t give her, never intended to give her. Attention. Engagement. Commitment. She wants to feel special, too, and however special you make her feel by being with her, there’s one thing your wife has that she doesn’t: your ring. Your name. A connection to you in the eyes of society and the eyes of God. You keep dismissing it, but in the end the pressure keeps mounting. You’ve either got to give in or give up — give her up.

“So of course you try to find some sort of compromise. You can’t give her any of the public acknowledgment she wants, of course — you can’t make her yours in the eyes of the world. So in a moment of weakness, after a sleepless night in her arms and bombed out of your mind anyway, you give her the next best thing — you tell her you’ll make her your wife in the eyes of God. Before you quite know what you’re doing you get her to pull on her sari and you trot bleary-eyed at dawn to a temple on the rocks with a garland you’ve bought on the beach, and drop it over her head in front of the idol. No witnesses, not even a priest. Of course you tell her God has blessed your nuptials and that’s far better than the blessings of society. But no sooner have you done it than you’ve got to stagger home and look at yourself in the mirror and confront the enormity of what you’ve done. And then you find you can’t face her again. You can’t deal with her on this new footing you’ve placed yourself on. You did it to preserve the relationship, but in fact you’ve made the relationship impossible.”

So he stops seeing her! Just like that — can you imagine? And what about the fact that the starry-eyed paramour is going around smearing red on her forehead and coyly referring to an anonymous “husband”?

“That’s her problem, not mine. I’d tell her to stop it but I can’t even bring myself to speak to her.”

Sad, stirring stuff, isn’t it, darlings? Cheetah was so moved she promptly gave him another drink — by emptying the glass on top of his head! GRRROWL …!

DARLINGS, Cheetah was at a Bollywood party with a difference the other day. Seems our villain with a social conscience, Pranay, has political commitments too! The man best known for flogging celluloid peasants and ripping bodices off vamps played host to a Delhi VIP last week while producers and distributors tried to look knowledgeable about national issues. The party was to introduce the well-heeled and high-heeled of filmland to Dr. Sourav Gangoolie, national treasurer of the ruling party and behind-the-scenes confidante of the Prime Minister, no less! Despite some notable absentees (including Bollywood’s only ministerial offspring, Ashok “completely-uninterested-in-politics” Banjara), Pranay’s bash has to be counted as a success for the paan -stained veteran. The dapper Dr. Gangoolie, who is not much seen in the public eye but has a reputation for shrewdness and getting things done, was able to meet an assortment of Bollywood luminaries. He spoke affably to all and sundry, but there was a determined glint in his bespectacled eyes as he squeezed the pudgier hands. After all, there’s an election around the corner and Dr. G. is supposed to be the party’s principal fund-raiser. And funds are one commodity Bollywood isn’t exactly short of, especially of the undeclared variety (but of course Cheetah’s just being naughty, little cubs, and the libel lawyers can relax)!! Who’d have thought our Pranay had a top politico up his sleeve, darlings? Mark my words — the best villains always have more to them than meets the eye. Which in Pranay’s case is just as well, eh? Grrowl…

STOP THE PRESS! Remember the soulful confessions of the straying superstar in these pages a couple of weeks ago? Well, the Wronged Woman (or is she simply the Wrong Woman?) has been pouring her heart out to your Cheetah, darlings, and it’s all sizzling stuff! Unfortunately, these lawyers are such a bore, my cubs, they just won’t let me print it all. Anyway, the burden of her song is that marriage was all his idea in the first place — (sorry, His idea, she insists I write it with a capital H) — and that it’s merely set the seal of divine sanction on their holy union. Can you believe such a thing, darlings? But what amazed Cheetah even more was how she went on about Him and what a great influence He is on her life and how she wouldn’t let anyone speak a word against Him because He is her Force, her be-all and end-all. Now Cheetah knows this is usually how actresses sound when their ends no longer justify their jeans and the time comes to discover religion, but the lady in question is in her prime and her hero’s no one’s idea of an idol. Wonders will never cease! Stay tuned, darlings — the lady’s nothing if not “revealing,” and there may be more revelations to come! Grrowl…

TUT, TUT, DARLINGS, all is not well between Bollywood’s hottest screen twosome, at least not after the spectacular fiasco of their Dil Ek Qila, which is finding it difficult to survive its initial week in most theaters! When Ashok Banjara walked into producer Jagannath Choubey’s glittering Diwali bash the other evening (and what a bash it was, my little cubs, more sparkle than a mineful of diamonds, and fireworks to put Venice to shame) guess who should make a beeline for him, slinky in a silvery salwar-kameez, but his recent costar Mehnaz Elahi! And guess who walked past without a greeting, as if he could see right through her!! The poor little itch girl stood helplessly in the middle of the room, her seductive smile turning into a strained simper. Of course this was for all of six seconds, before she was surrounded by her usual sea of admirers and swept away to another shore, but six seconds is long enough for your Cheetah to notice, my cubs! It was not long before the room was abuzz with speculation, much of it asking what Bollywood was coming to if one flop, even such a maha flop, could do this to relations between two friends and colleagues. Some people were already renaming the film Dil Ek Killer! Cheetah, as always, knew more than she was prepared to say — but as The Banjara knows so well, some things are better done than said, eh? Think about that, my little cubs! Grrrrowl…

END OF INTERVAL BACK

TO MAIN FEATURE

Exterior: Night

DIL EK QILA

(The Heart Is a Fortress)

THE SECOND TREATMENT: THE REVISED VERSION

A hillside in Kashmir. The camera pans across azure sky, verdant slopes, technicolor flowers. Maya runs laughing across the screen to the strains of a dozen violins as Ashok Banjara pursues her, singing:

You are my sunlight

You brighten my life

You are my sunlight