Beach House Birthday and Other Stories

by Shobhaa De

  Yaaar… come on… I am a man, okay? Not just any man. I am a hero in Bollywood - nine fucking hits. No jokes. I am big! Like… people know who the fuck I am wherever I go. Not just in India… Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, London, Toronto. And this fucking girl stared blankly at me - like I was a nobody. Or some chhota mota side-hero. Khair… I got her a G and T, just like that, to lagao an impression. I didn’t act cheap. I can be very classy, okay? She smiled and all that, and let me touch her hair without fussing… that’s my test with chicks I dig - will they freak out if I touch their hair at our first meeting or not? If they freak - out they go. When she didn’t slap my hand away, I knew I was majorly into her.

  I could tell she was also interested, but she came across as a seasoned player, even though she was pretty young… and looked it. Not fixed up or anything. No work done on her nose or chin or jawline. I assumed she was one more back-up dancer - there are hundreds of them on the sets during our big productions. But she told me she had a double degree in finance. No shit! And that she had landed a good job with a big production house after working in London with a media setup.

  Hmmmm. Finance. Sexy. And a great butt. Okayyyyy. Ema knew her numbers and played poker professionally. I told Shams about her the same night! And Shams had given me that knowing wifewala look. Shams had more or less stopped coming to these filmi parties with me, so she paid no attention when I went on and on about this Ema and how cool she was… how totally brainy. I am sure I mentioned her butt… maybe not. Anyway, Ema and I started a relationship soon after that party. I got busy with a new movie and it was her production house that stepped in to produce it when the original promoters went bust.

  The first shooting schedule was finalised in Monte Negro - a twenty day shoot, I was told. Ema was to accompany the unit and oversee budgets. This is when things got serious. We drove to Arto, her village in Slovenia, over a weekend, and I met her parents, neighbours, aunts, uncles, priest, funeral director, baker, cobbler, hairdresser everyone. We made no secret of our closeness. Not even on social media. Ema posted a picture of us walking through her village, on the banks of the Sava river, holding hands and with her niece in tow. She captioned it, ‘Mr. India with Ms. Slovenia.’ I responded with a heart emoji.

  Must say I was surprised when Shams flipped out. Rather those chamchi girlfriends instigated her and she created a big hungama like a fool. Had she ignored it nothing would have happened. Come on, yaar. We are actors… this is a part of our lives. Star wives get it - well, most of them do. They understand, yaar. Shams had always got it in the past. Yaaaar… we were married! Shams had my name… full security. I came home to her bed only every night. What more did she want? I denied her nothing! Great Juhu penthouse, club memberships, best gym instructor - personal gym.

  And now our amazzzzzing beach bungalow in Alibaug, designed by her bestie. It had been featured in top interiors’ magazines and all that. Everybody in the industry was jaloing over it! Burnnnnnning! I tell you.

  Those besties of hers were like leeches - they were constantly there! Some had become permanent house guests! We always had two or three floating around our home, which used to bug me. Whenever I came back from a shoot, I would find her girls hanging around, sipping cocktails, having a mani-pedi, basically chilling and living it up at my expense. After a point, I stopped minding or caring or noticing. Where was the time to mind? I worked like a maniac and worked out like a beast. I travelled and travelled and travelled… from one shoot to the next. Shams hasn’t wanted to come with me these last few years. She preferred to travel with her bunch of girls - I called them her harem. New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Mykonos. So what yaar? Let them have fun, I used to say. She was a good wife - she stayed out of my life.

  Till we found ourselves trapped together on the 24th night without realising that the lockdown would go on and on and on and on. I grew my hair. I grew a beard. I posted pictures working out on the beach. While Salman went riding on his farm and sang songs. Bhai is Bhai. But frankly speaking, I started to panic after two weeks. Then two more weeks. No shooting. No new deals. No calls. I blasted my manager - asked him what the fuck was going on. The people I spoke to said forget it. We are all fucked. The industry is fucked. Where will we show our films? Which theatre? To whom? Who will come to watch? After the fourth week, I lost it. Nobody was reacting to my beard or long hair. And I refused to bake cakes and all that shit. We were all screwed. Ghanta!

  And these women! They had bloody run out of clothes and were running around half-nanga all over the place. As if they are in Ibiza... idiots! And they are posing here and there in those ganda bikinis, which have started to stink! Worst of all - they are like wild cats now - fighting and scratching and using foul words non-stop! Shams is also behaving as badly as them. As if it’s anybody’s bloody fault that one can’t get Greek yogurt and quinoa in this village! They are lucky they get garam khaana! My staff is fed up of their non-stop demands for snacks. Such budtameez women, I tell you. The pool is dirty... my beautiful beach home now looks like a fucking Goan shack! Once this thing ends, I am going to tell Shams - it’s me or them!

  Then came the fucking cyclone! All the satellite pictures showed the landfall happening in Alibaug. I said, ‘You fucker! Couldn’t you find anywhere else to land but on our heads?’ I was worried about Ema - poor baby, all alone in Mumbai, without anybody to help her in case something went wrong and the cyclone lost its fucking way and landed up in Juhu. I watched the cloud formation and told the harem to behave, not go on the beach, and stay out of the pool.

  I was desperate to reach Ema, but the signal has always been bad in Alibaug, particularly in our village, because of all those bloody trees. Normally, I would talk to her from the other side of the pool area, out of earshot of the chamchis and Shams. During these days of forced living like this, we had figured out workable equations and found our own zones. My emotional comfort came from the calls Ema and I managed somehow. She was working from home and managing everything efficiently. I was doing jack - nothing! And feeling maha frustrated. I felt it was my duty to check on her - after all, she had become my responsibility, now that we were in an exclusive relationship and I had got her this cute apartment at Bandra. Poor thing was a foreigner… she needed help to deal with local stuff. Her dietary requirements were also tough. I would ask her to call my manager if she ran out of her vegan stuff. My P.R. girl kept calling to say, ‘Let’s do a proper shoot... you and Ema. We can call the paps to stand outside that organic place you guys grab yogurt from.’ But I said have some shame. Show respect to my wife. I know how to behave decently, okay?

  Till the lockdown Ema and I had managed well… I had spent weekends with her, and as many days as I could during the week, too. I would land up straight from my shoot and surprise her with chocolates and wine. It was a full-on romance, baba. Sometimes her parents would call when I was there and ask her when we were getting married.

  I told her straight, ‘No chance, babe! In Bollywood, we don’t believe in divorce. Nobody divorces anybody. No matter what. We just carry on.’ A few fights had happened because of this issue. But Ema was not the nagging type, thank God. And she had not given me any ultimatums, as such. Shams and her harem tried to bitch her out to me several times during this Alibaug stay, reading other people’s Insta posts and putting two and two together to make twenty-five. But I was in no mood to listen to their cheap gossip.

  Anyway I watched the cyclone clouds and started missing Ema pagal ke jaisey. Before we were hit by the fucking storm, I rushed to my favourite spot near the far corner of the pool, which was filled with fallen leaves and coconuts from the trees surrounding it - the winds were really strong now, and the electricity had suddenly gone.

  The harem was screeching with excitement and saying, ‘Oh My God… babes… I think we are all going to die.’ Miraculously, I managed to get through to Ema… I wanted to tell her I loved her, just in case the harem was right and we would all die in the cyclone. Her number rang
five times - I counted. And when it was picked up, I heard Ema’s voice telling someone, ‘Don’t! It’s that asshole! He’s in Alibaug… and that’s where the cyclone is headed.’ Ema was wrong. For once, her calculations were totally off. The cyclone had spared me, spared my beach house, spared Alibaug. But it would not spare her. I would fucking show her what my personal cyclone was capable of, once the lockdown was lifted.

  Shobhaa De is a widely read author and columnist. She is known for her outspoken, irreverent views, making her one of India’s most respected opinion shapers. Her writings have consistently chronicled her deeply felt socio-political-cultural concerns.

  First published in India by Simon & Schuster India, 2020

  A Viacom CBS company

  Copyright © Shobhaa Dé, 2020

  Cover Image Credits: Avantikka Kilachand Raju

  The right of Shobhaa Dé to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with Section 57 of the Copyright Act 1957.

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