Shashi Tharoor - Show Business

“B-but,” I stutter. I’ve already forgotten how I sparked this outburst, or why. “But it was you who walked out, not me,” I conclude lamely.

“I walked off, I didn’t walk out,” comes her riposte. “I’d had enough of that maggot Mohanlal — for today. I’m too tired, Ashok. It all takes too much out of me. I’ve even swallowed my tranquilizer pill.” It couldn’t have begun to take effect, I think; Abha has been anything but tranquil. “I’d have been back tomorrow, and it would have done him some good to worry about me for a change. I’ve been too kind; he was beginning to take me for granted. Let them not forget I’m not some starlet they’ve elevated from the casting couch. But you have no business to throw in the towel. Come here.”

I’m not used to women taking that tone with me, but there’s something about Abha that eliminates all resistance. I obey.

“Sit down.” A firm hand on my shoulder pushes me onto the bed. Just as well. When I’m standing close to Abha I’m inconveniently conscious of how much smaller she is than I am. Having to look up at her magnificent superstructure redresses the balance.

“So you want to quit because you’ve just discovered they gave you the part for the wrong reasons, and because you don’t think you’re up to what they’re asking you to do. Forget the first thing: most reasons are wrong reasons in this business. Someone gets a part by sleeping with the producer. In the end what matters is that she has the part, the film is made, perhaps it’s a hit, and then she’s getting offers for lots of other parts she doesn’t have to earn on her back. If this film succeeds for you, no one will ask who your father is. One day, Ashok Banjara, he’ll be known only as your father. Right?”

I nod humbly. And dumbly.

“Next, you don’t think you can do what they want you to do. So you think you’ll never make it as an actor. Wrong. Tomorrow you go to the producer, who wants to impress your father so much, and you tell him the film is going down the tubes unless he listens to you. Tell him you can’t do Gopi Master’s moves. You’re too tall, your legs are too long, your back is too straight, whatever. Our two duets can easily be rechoreographed with me doing the dancing around you, while you stand and tilt your head and move your arms — yes, you do that rather well, Ashok Banjara. Then tell him your strengths are being underutilized by that unimaginative twit Mohanlal. Don’t look at me like that — don’t you know what your own strengths are? For God’s sake, child, it’s obvious. What are the things you can do? You’ve got long legs, you can leap and jump. Fight scenes, chase scenes, stunt scenes. Tell him to put in lots of these.”

I am awestruck. “But will he do all this for me? I mean, change everything? Overrule Mohanlal?”

“Mohanlal’s not Jean-Luc Godard,” she retorts. “He’s an employee, he’ll do as he’s told. And Jagannath Choubey wants to see his film finished, using the talent he’s already got to the best of their ability. He has a lot of money tied up in this film, after all. Not to mention a lot of hopes involving his star’s father.”

“I’ll see him in the morning,” I vow. “Abhaji, I don’t know how to thank you. I came in here to plead with you to come back to the set, and instead you’ve shown me the light. I’ll never forget this, Abhaji. Tell me what I can do for you. Anything at all.”

She laughs. It is a relaxed laugh, as if somebody has just called “cut” and she has switched off her overdrive. “If you really want to do something for me …”

“Yes? Just name it.”

“You’ve got nice long fingers. Massage my back for me, it’s hurting a bit after that last dance routine.”

“You bet.” Massage her back? I’d have paid for the privilege. “Er — should I say something to Mohanlal?”

“What for?”

“Well, he must be waiting for us.”

“Let him wait. It’ll be good for his soul.”

“And what if someone walks in? While I’m massaging you?”

“Let’s see who dares to walk into Abha Patel’s dressing room without permission,” she says fiercely, adding colloquially, “Mohanlal’s dad won’t do it.”

“OK,” I concede, borrowing Mohanlal’s copyright on the word. “Shall we start?”

“Use this cream,” she says, handing me a bottle. Her fingers move to the silver buttons of her kameez. My heart picks up tempo, like the music director’s favorite bongo. “Turn around,” she commands. My heart reenters adagio. I hear the gentle rustle of silk being slipped off and imagine a lover’s notepaper emerging from a fragrant envelope.

“I’m ready now,” she says in a low voice. I turn.

She is lying on the dressing room bed, on her front. The kameez is the only garment she has taken off: she has folded it onto the solitary chair. Her face is turned toward me, one cheek on the pillow, but her eyes are closed.

Bottle of cream in hand, I sit gingerly on the edge of the bed. I smear some of the cream on her back. The broad strap of her brassiere impedes my hand.

“Are you sure you want to keep this on?” I ask, my voice thickening.

“Yes,” she replies shortly. “Let it be.”

So much for the romance of the moment. I rub the cream into her skin, which is soft, smooth, devoid of lines: a young woman’s.

“Does Celestine do this for you usually?” I ask.

“Yes,” she says languorously. “But Celestine has short, stubby fingers. Not like yours.” And as I stroke her shoulder blades, she moans in pleasure. The moans are soft, low: the tranquilizer must be working at last.

“Where was it hurting, Abhaji?” I ask a little later. “I’ll rub a little more there.”

Her voice is sleepy, the words almost a drawl. “Everywhere,” she whispers. “Just go on. I’m very tired …”

I go on. So she really did want a massage: this was no camouflaged seduction. And I could imagine how tired she must have been, after all that cavorting in the wet, all those takes. And she isn’t all that young anymore. My fingers press and smooth and knead, tracing waves and semicircles and military steps on her flesh. She breathes evenly, her small soft back rising and falling as my fingers coax the fatigue out of them. I realize she is asleep.

Damn! Here I am, sent to bring Abha out to film, and all I have succeeded in doing is putting her to sleep. I am annoyed with myself and even slightly with her. Perversely, to release my annoyance, I unhook her bra. It has left a pale discolored swath across her back. She must hardly ever take it off.

I continue stroking her back, the whole of it this time, and find myself unable to resist the obvious temptation. Here I am, a normal, red-blooded sexually deprived twenty-five-year-old Indian male, in intimate proximity to the most famous bosom in India, with only an unhooked bra between me and a vision of paradise. And she is asleep, knocked out; she need never even know.

Gently, I take her by the shoulder and turn her slightly. She does not awake. Emboldened, I turn her onto her back. She breathes sweetly, her nostrils widening slightly at each intake of air. I look at her for a moment: her face is still exquisite, but her skin is beginning to sag, folds are lining her neck, crow’s-feet are tiptoeing around her eyes. Abha Patel has built her career on looking cute, but to be cute you have to be young. Her looks are incompatible with middle age, and middle age is creeping up on her like the villain’s accomplice waylaying the filmi hero. Except that in the movies the hero could always escape the trap.

She looks so peaceful in sleep. No animal magnetism here, just a woman in repose. Tired, chemically promoted repose, at that. But what a woman.