Jazmeen laughed too. The squeaks reminded them both of the bed in their old Matunga flat. The sound had been the constant background music to the carnal endeavours that its inhabitants had indulged in night after night for a long time. It was difficult not to admit that much of it had been immensely pleasurable.
Hearing his ex’s tinkling laughter again, Toby knew he had finally managed to break the icy wall that had formed between them. He pulled Jazmeen to bed and on top of him. Then, he kissed her deeply and passionately, like a man possessed. His hands re-introduced themselves to the parts of her body he had missed for many months. His manhood sprang to life—after all, it had been unemployed for far too long. Toby only stopped kissing when he sensed he was about to explode in his pants.
‘I missed you, meri Mukherji!’ he whispered in her ears, as two pairs of hands worked on removing her shirt and bra.
‘You were very, very bad to me, Toby,’ Jazmeen whispered huskily. ‘How could you pimp me out like that? I thought you loved me, you fool! I don’t think I can ever forgive you.’
‘Don’t say that, darling,’ he said as he cupped her breasts. ‘You have to forgive me. I made a bad mistake. You see, Rubina has always had me by my balls. I didn’t think there was any way I could have taken her out of my life.’ He sounded genuinely remorseful. And horny. Jazmeen addressed the latter emotion by undoing his belt and zipper and pushing his pants and underwear to his ankles.
‘But what do I do now? I’m with Arty…’ she said. ‘Being with Arty is important. He can do so much for me.’
Toby nodded. He understood that this was not going to be a simple problem to fix. He felt a rising anger within himself. This was a problem he had created. He had broken, by himself, the great thing he had going in his life.
‘How much have you told Arty about us?’ he asked, as her pants came off.
‘Only what he needs to know. But this, Toby, this “You and I” thing, this can’t go on. Because if it does, Arty will find out. And when he does…’ she let her voice trail, underlining the repercussions of antagonising a very powerful man. Toby’s forehead formed lines of frustration. Jazmeen ran her hand over it, as if trying to flatten the soil on a furrowed field. Then she kissed him hard, instantly snapping Toby out of his funk.
‘Fuck Arty!’ he thought. ‘He may own all of Mumbai, but look who I have in my bed right now. His woman!’ he gloated, as the remaining clothes were quickly dispensed with. But just seconds before he was about to enter Jazmeen, she stopped him.
‘Stop! Wear this first,’ she said, and took no more than three seconds to roll open a condom atop his ready member. ‘I’m with another man now!’ she explained needlessly to the man who was almost too far gone to pay attention to any words.
The lovemaking went on for two hours. Toby came quickly the first time, but later, after an intermission of an hour and a half, Round Two was longer, registering more respectable timing.
Once the party was over, Jazmeen looked at the clock on her phone and shrieked. She sprang out of bed, picked up all her belongings, and leaped into the small adjoining bathroom. Toby grinned.
‘Mukerjee, do you realise we always keep hiding our fucks from someone or the other?’ he said. How ironic it was that they were still living a secret even though there was no Rubina around, he thought.
‘Arty will be home in an hour,’ Jazmeen shouted from the bathroom. ‘I have to be there before he does!’
Two minutes later she was ready and in front of Toby again.
‘When do I see you next?’ the man asked, still sprawled naked on the bed.
‘I will call you when the coast is clear, OK?’
Toby smiled and nodded. Jazmeen winked, grabbed her purse and was gone.
Once in the empty corridor, she walked six steps from the door of Room No. 103 and stopped in front of an almost identical door. The sign on this one said Room No. 104. She felt the outside of her purse, noting the reassuring bulge of the rubber dildo that lay inside. Then, subconsciously, she pressed the leather skin of the purse, delicately, making sure not to rupture the other item nestled next to the dildo. A knotted used-condom. Toby had been too distracted in his orgasmic throes to even realise when it had been yanked off his cock and filed away for later use.
Jazmeen rapped on the new door quietly. Ankit Mohile opened it almost immediately. He looked livid. He had reason to be—he had been waiting for her for over fifteen minutes.
‘Where the bloody hell have you been?’ he barked. ‘I have been waiting for you for ages! Why the hell have you called me to this shithole? Couldn’t we have met at the Academy?’
Jazmeen put a finger on her lips gesturing the man to calm down. Then, she gently pushed the man inside the room and closed the door behind her.
Inspector Manjrekar arrested the killer of Ankit Mohile almost a month after the man’s death. The evidence against the perpetrator was irrefutable. Based on the anonymous tip that the police had received, samples of the sperm found in the dead man’s body had been sent to the Central Forensics Lab in Mumbai. The Lab did not maintain a formal DNA database, but they did hold samples and reports of cases that had been referred to them by the judiciary and the CBI over the years. At last count, they had provided their expertise on over 1,300 such cases.
One of them had been the Tobias James vs Dr Mohammad Yunus Abadi Paternity Suit.
When the lab checked the sample sent by Manjrekar against the samples held by them, they found only one match—Tobias James. After receiving the confirmation, Manjrekar and team did two things: they zeroed-in on Toby’s address from the Regional Transport Office database, and visited The Great Traveller guest house again to seek a visual confirmation of the perpetrator from the owner.
‘Again, can’t say 110% sure, Sir, but, yes, he does look familiar. I remember thinking that day how much he looked like Amol Palekar in Golmaal. He didn’t stop at the Reception, though, just went straight to the first floor. He looked very eager, like all tharki people do.’
Toby James had the widest assortment of emotions when the police arrested him for a crime he had not committed.
‘What the hell do you mean—murder? I have never killed anyone in my life!’
‘Inspector Saahab, there has clearly been a mistake!’
‘Sir, I only do small-time con-jobs. But murder? No, no! I don’t have the balls to do anything that big!’
‘Yes, Sir, I was in the same hotel, but I have never seen this man in my life!’
‘I am not gay! I am not gay! Believe me, I am not gay! I have never touched a man “that” way!’
‘Judge Saahab, please have mercy! Why is no one believing a word I am saying?’
Tobias James was sent to judicial remand awaiting trial.
‘Thank God for Jazmeen, otherwise I would have died by now!’ Toby thought. She was the only visitor he had during his incarceration. She visited him once every week, Thursdays at 4 PM, wearing a burqa, her face hidden.
‘Clearly, they have mistaken me for someone else who was visiting that gay the same evening,’ he would sob to her each time.
‘Yes, it has to be, Toby. It’s a mistake. Their case can’t succeed in court.’
‘But…but…they say I had sex with him. With a man!’ he cried. ‘You know I only like women!’
‘Wish I could tell the cops that, Toby. But you know I can’t. For both our sakes, Arty can never find out that we were…you know…together…that day.’
Toby looked at her helplessly.
‘But don’t worry, Toby. Their case will fail in court.’
The first judicial hearing was scheduled for a date ten months later. Toby was inconsolable, unsure how he would survive in a prison worse than hell for so long. Jail was a harsh place, especially when one had only murderers and rapists for company. Under normal circumstances, Toby might even have fit in due to his rough street background. But Toby was not a ‘normal’ man. He carried a label. He was in prison for a gay murder. That made him ‘a gay’.
Someone who could be ‘had’ by anyone. At any time. In any way.
Toby need not have worried about how he was going to live through the dreadful wait until his trial because it never did come to that. One quiet night, with his briefs stuffed in his mouth to snuff out all sound that emanated from it, Toby was raped by a bunch of inmates. By the time the grievously bleeding man was discovered by the jail staff, it was already too late to do much.
Tobias James’ battered body gave up in the hospital the next day. He never gained consciousness to make a statement.
The judicial files of the Ankit Mohile murder case were closed two days later.
Jazmeen was returning to Bandra from the Arthur Road jail. It was 4:15 PM on a Thursday.
She had just been told by the jail staffer that the prisoner she had come to meet had passed away four days ago because of ‘an accident’. The guard had looked at her impassively, unable to see her reaction through her burqa. ‘Was he a relative of yours?’ he had asked impersonally. She had merely shaken her head and walked away.
The burqa now lay neatly folded in her muted but very expensive Louis Vuitton bag. This was not a fake like the one she had carried a million years ago when she had first landed in Mumbai on that terribly rainy day. Life was different now.
Jazmeen felt happy. Happy enough to hum along to the familiar tune playing at a low volume on the radio of Arty’s BMW. She asked the driver to turn the volume up.
Yes, the words of the song were clearer now. ‘Mere saiyyan tora ang taape yun, lag ja tu mere angwa, jara bukhaar naap lun.’
The colour from Jazmeen face vanished at the recognition. The item song from Gaon ki Lady-Doctor!
‘What the…! How is this song playing on the radio?’
Jazmeen was to find out the answer very soon. In the next few days, she was to discover to her amazement, what a phenomenon the catchy number from her shelved film had suddenly become. How its foot-tapping melody was circulating by the millions over the radio, via mobile phones and on YouTube and social media. How its sensual video, of a tantalising temptress with an astonishing combination of beauty, sexuality and rhythm, was making everyone who saw it see it again, and again, and then one more time!
Yes, Jazmeen was soon to find out that life was indeed never going to be the same as it had been the day she had first landed in Mumbai on that terribly rainy day.
BOOK THREE
Setting The Backstage
Present Day
In many ways, regional cinema in India is leaps ahead of Bollywood, though this is never acknowledged. The films made in the South, for example, command bigger budgets, see better box-office collections, have more innovative and unusual stories to tell, and possess larger-than-life stars than the fare that comes out of Mumbai. Yet, in much of the country—and especially in places like Delhi—a popular starlet from Hindi films, in town to attend an event, is more likely to be treated like royalty than the biggest marquee name from the non-Hindi world. And if that person happens to be Jazmeen, someone who gives a better cardio workout to the virile Indian male than the best treadmill, it is obvious that the hundred or so media personnel reporting the event are going to go berserk covering every little move she makes.
Such was the state of affairs at the National Film Awards function at Siri Fort auditorium in the heart of the capital, where Jazmeen was perhaps, proving to be an even bigger draw than the Chief Guest, the Prime Minister of India, himself.
Most news channels had been loop-reporting a short and shaky mobile phone video from inside the auditorium that showed Jazmeen rehearsing on stage with famed dance choreographer Chandrima Bhan. Jazmeen was not even up for an award—it was Chandrima Bhan actually—but that didn’t stop the channels to make the news revolve around their favourite glamour vixen. The blazing headlines under the never-ending video clip ranged from the double-entendred—‘Jazmeen Prepares To Reveal Her Bounties To The PM’, to the ones hopeful of a scandal—‘Single Jazmeen Gets Ready To Mingle With the PM: Will Sparks Fly?’
The other stars, pre-announced winners who were assembling inside the auditorium to collect their own trophies, had been banished by the breathless anchors and excitable live-reporters to just a dismissive single-line or two, no more. Almost like, oh, yes, by the way, there are others here too. Like that whats-her-name Bengali actress who has won the National Award for a film on Naxalites, and that Kannada actor who has won it for his realistic portrayal of a deaf, dumb and blind musician.
Frankly, no one cared. They just wanted to know what Jazmeen was up to!
‘Prime Minister Satyendra Saran is expected to arrive at Siri Fort any minute now. It has been confirmed that his convoy left 7, Race Course Road ten minutes ago,’ the popular reporter from IndiAction! news channel relayed to the nation through the camera. ‘This is Ruby Verghese reporting live from the National Awards with cameraman Gajanand Saxena. And now, back to the studio.’ Then, yelling at her assistant standing next to Gajanand, ‘Did you manage to speak with that fellow inside again? Or should I try this time?’
The backstage area of Siri Fort was out of bounds to the media. It had been sanitised as per the Prime Minister’s standard security protocols. The only people who had access to it were the VIP dignitaries—like Jazmeen who had been provided resting quarters because she was going to be performing tonight, other performers in Chandrima Bhan’s troupe, as well as support staff responsible for auditorium management and catering—and the security personnel themselves. Everyone required a special pass to enter. The media could attend the function front-stage only, inside the main hall, where they had special enclosures to report from.
But, really, where was the fun in such plain-vanilla reporting? IndiAction! believed in going the extra mile when it came to bringing masala to their viewers.
‘Did you explain to the chap how miniscule the spy-camera is? No one will even notice it!’ Ruby Verghese and her assistant were trying to capture some backstage visuals with the help of a waiter who had access to the VIP sections off-limits to reporters.
‘I’ve been on the phone with the chap four times already. He might be nervous to take panga with a Prime Ministerial event, Ruby!’ the assistant complained.
‘OK, just call him again,’ Ruby said, never one to give up so easily. ‘Let me speak to him this time.’ Then, turning to the cameraman, she said, ‘Gaj, in the meantime, loop the footage of Minister Karan Rathore’s arrival back to the studio. I don’t think they need my voice-over with that.’
The assistant placed a call on his mobile and then handed over the phone to his boss. Ruby heard a voice on the other side after the tenth ring. But as soon as she was about to explain what she wanted the waiter to do, all three crew members of IndiAction! were distracted by a commotion.
‘Oh, hello, Keshav? Sorry, but the Prime Minister has just arrived so I have to go live immediately,’ Ruby twittered on the phone. ‘But, please, in the meantime, choose the most appropriate place to put the camera. Don’t worry at all, it is too tiny to be noticed. If you do this for us, we will make you…very happy!’ Ruby hung up and tossed the phone back to her assistant, ready to cover her breaking news.
The Prime Minister had arrived.
Prime Minister Satyendra Saran was enjoying the kind of universal popularity that is rarely experienced by politicians in India. The only parallels that could be drawn from the past were possibly that of Nehru right after Independence, or Indira when she defeated Pakistan at war, or Rajiv when he had exploded onto the political scene in 1984—or even Vajpayee after the nuclear tests. Just like those stalwarts had been at the height of their political golden hour, Satyendra Saran, today, was the man with the Midas touch. By contrast, his past political career spanning thirty years had been steady but mostly unremarkable. Even his appointment as Prime Minister had been accidental, and much of his first five-year term could, at best, be described as moderately successful. It was only around the time of his re-election almost a year ago that the media and public opinion abo
ut him had ignited like wildfire. And, the last few months of the second term had proved to be nothing short of spectacular. It was as if the charismatic Prime Minister had suddenly grabbed the imagination of the population through his fresh ideas, forward-thinking philosophy and go-getter attitude, packaged in a genial, personable demeanour. Satyendra Saran was loved by the young and the old alike. Women found him suave and intelligent. Men respected his fortitude. The poor saw in him the way forward. And to the rich, he was someone who could make things even more bountiful.
To a shrewd political pundit, Saran appeared to be that rare breed of smart politician who had taken the time of his first term as Prime Minister to understand the pulse of the electorate—and was now determined to devote the remainder of his political tenure pressing the right buttons to keep it satisfied.
Only days ago, in fact, Prime Minister Saran had got Parliament to pass into law the crowning glory of his Indian Kranti Party government—The Right to Communication Act. The build-up to the ground-breaking legislation had been enormous, and everyone—the general population, the private sector, and especially the media—could not stop gushing with praise for the progressive PM who had made it happen. The new 21st century law was universally proclaimed to be exactly what the country needed—to use the power of information and technology in a way that would usher the country into a Digital Golden Age.
It was the kind of language that everyone born closer to 2000 rather than 1947 understood so well.
Even Saran’s most grudging political opponents acknowledged that his new law was a political master-stroke in a nation where the average age of its population was barely twenty-five years. After all, the most important reality of Indian politics was the Vote Bank. Saran had just managed to usurp the entire Youth of India as his own! Now that he had them in his kitty, everyone else was bound to follow.
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