‘Young India, I give you the Sky,’ was what the Prime Minister had said in his Parliamentary speech when the legislation had carried through with a resounding voice vote. His speech had captivated the nation’s imagination. Even opposition leaders had been caught by live cameras in the Lok Sabha thumping at their wooden desks in appreciation.
As they say, when the world is at your feet, your popularity touches the clouds. Satyendra Saran was decidedly hurtling towards the stars.
But then, even stars get shot down one day, don’t they?
The Army brass band started trumpeting ‘Mere desh ki dharti’ as soon as the nine cars and an ambulance in the Prime Minister’s motorcade poured into the Siri Fort premises from Special Gate-1. It was one of four Hindi film tunes, all Manoj Kumar film hits incidentally, that they were used to performing regularly. Their version sounded cacophonous instead of melodic—what one might get if Mahendra Kapoor was replaced by a herd of exhausted elephants.
The longest car in the convoy stopped next to the red carpet. IndiAction!’s Gajanand’s and a hundred other TV cameras captured the images of the tall and impressive Satyendra Saran emerge from the black Mercedes S500. He was wearing his usual navy blue trousers and a matching band-gala jacket with a maroon cravat around his neck. His shoes were black and shiny. His hair was sparse but well arranged. The bald spot above his forehead and the crown shone in the setting sun.
The media reporters were close enough to yell questions at their classically stylish Prime Minister, but not close enough to hear if he had responded in his naturally soft voice.
‘How does it feel to be presenting the awards to film stars, Saranji?’ screamed a female voice on Ruby’s right.
‘Who is your favourite actor among the winners tonight?’ yelled someone else.
‘Don’t be scared of Jazmeen, Prime Ministerji, the nation is with you!’ howled a third person, and the entire throng of mediawalas broke into good-natured laughter.
The Prime Minister heard none of the playful media banter. He waved at the crowd and walked on, quickly swallowed by the back entrance of the giant building.
12
Wind Beneath My Wings
One year ago
The lead-in music of the most popular chat show in India was both classy and mischievous at the same time—much like the studio sets where it was held, and the disarming man who hosted it. Week after week, ‘Gupshup with Charan Grover’ was a TRP-ratings smash because it gave the star-crazy India a chance to get to know the people it revered just a bit better. Charan, a livewire TV host and powerful, well-networked media personality, came packed to the gills with quick and intelligent wit that he dispensed liberally in his interviews. His talking style coaxed smart rejoinders and startling revelations out of his guests who were too vain to allow themselves to be upstaged! Most stars were scared as well as excited to be on the show. Scared, because no one ever knew which unexpected direction the interview might take; excited, because being on the show meant two things—one, that you had ‘arrived’ in celebrity-land, and two, that your ascending star was about to take a quantum leap into superstardom. Such was the power of ‘Gupshup with Charan Grover’.
The host chose his guests personally, and carefully, and, in all likelihood, he would have never picked his latest one had it not been for a gentle but determined nudge of a close buddy. It wasn’t as if his new guest was not in the lexicon of pop celebrities of the day. She most definitely was. But Charan was concerned that her appearance on such a la-di-dah show, which featured stylish fashion divas and debonair industrialist-bachelors, was going to raise eyebrows so high that they might not revert to their normal position. Yet, after enough rumination on the pros and cons on having her on, he had decided to go with his gut instincts.
‘This one seems like a spicy lemon tart. Let’s bite into her and see what she is all about!’
The program’s theme music wound down and, as soon as it did, all the lights in the studio went into full bloom, illuminating the set as brightly as the sun. The show’s host lit up as well, and he looked straight at the camera.
‘Hello, and welcome to another date with me, Charan Grover! Tonight, you are in for a hot and fiery surprise. And that surprise is the guest I have for you. Two years ago, she was just an ordinary girl making a simple living working at a hair salon. And then, overnight, just like it happens in the fairy tales of Hindi cinema, she went from obscurity to being “that” girl that everyone wanted to know more about. In these two years, my guest has gone from being a nobody to being the one face that we can’t seem to get enough of on our reality shows, on the covers of our tabloids and glossy film magazines, on our music channels, and, yes, on the big screen, rocking away to the latest chartbuster hits!
Ladies, hold on to your gentlemen, and gentlemen, I present to you, the “it” girl of our country today, the new Goddess who rules our hearts, minds, and some other parts as well—Jazmeen!’
Millions of eyes looked at their TV screens expectantly. One pair among them was that of her lover.
Just moments before leaving for the studio, Jazmeen had whispered something in his ear that he had neither expected nor imagined. It was only now, as Arty watched her through the artificial window of his television, that the full impact of what she had shared was dawning upon him.
The feeling was making him float in the air with joy.
Arty had never imagined himself to be someone who could fall in love. OK, so maybe he wasn’t the one-night-stand kind of guy, but he was most definitely a three-month-stand type man, someone who sought the comfort of a familiar woman, but only in moderate doses. The longest relationship he had ever been in had lasted almost six months. It had been with a British-Indian girl with the nice traditional name of Sunita, when he was still in London. But, truth be told, three months of even that ‘long-term’ relationship had been spent with Arty lying on his back in bed, recovering from the broken bones that he had suffered in a motorcycle accident near Saint John’s Wood where he lived. As soon as he was back on his feet, it was ‘Ta-Ta, Suni-ta’.
Arty had always seemed to go for the same kind of girl all his life—leggy, lanky and lovely, with straight long hair that reached the middle of the back at its shortest, bored eyes that looked right through ordinary people, and a full mouth that was incapable of producing anything more worthwhile than a great kiss. To the girls, the attraction was always to Arty’s looks, wallet and surname—in that order. But, all of them, even the most dim-witted of the lot, always knew within days of getting together with him that they were nothing more than a mere place-filler until the next girl came along. That they were on some kind of an assembly-line of relationships based on the mutual respect and understanding of each other’s coital and social companionship needs. No more than that.
And then, one day, Jazmeen had walked into his life.
There had been something so inscrutable about this one that it had made Arty power-off his assembly-line of women. He was tempted to take the time to know more about Jazmeen. Curious to ‘check out’ the girl who was so unlike the ones he had been used to all his life.
And different she was! A girl with dubious antecedents, clearly out of the league of the local crook who had introduced her to him. At 5-foot-7, tall, yes, but with healthy curves, large breasts and full, round buttocks—pretty, but not the kind that came with model-like features; dark-brown hair ending at the shoulders; skin not pristine white like the Taj, but mellow, like coffee that might need a bit more cream. And eyes, the kind that stared without sentiment or shame, just clear, as if they might be impressed by anything or nothing at all. Eyes, that you didn’t want staring at you, but demanded that you stare at them, long and hard, as you would the sky on the clearest day of the year.
Some people call it sixth sense. Sometimes, you just know. Arty’s intuitive gambles had always served him well with money. He was now tempted to play a hand of luck on a woman. And four weeks into his relationship with Jazmeen, Arty had already kno
wn that his sixth sense had not failed him.
He was going to keep this one for as long as he could. As long as she would.
Months later, it was the strength of his feelings for Jazmeen that had compelled him to quietly purchase the rights to the shelved Gaon ki Lady-Doctor from its producer Ankit Mohile, with explicit instructions to that man to not let the fact become public. He had then spliced the deadly item song ‘Mere saiyyan tora ang taape yun’ off the dud film.
Arty had known how much he cared for Jazmeen when he had flooded the market with the video and audio of the song, relying on the simple mantra from his MBA days that with the right marketing and distribution, and a shitload of publicity money behind it, nothing could pin a good thing down. And he had done it secretly. Not whispering a word of his deeds to Jazmeen. For he knew that telling her would have hurt her feelings of self-worth.
Arty had known how much Jazmeen mattered to him the moment he had done all of it—selflessly. In a way he had never done anything for anyone before.
In a way a man utterly in love with a woman would do.
‘After the spectacular success of your first song, you almost disappeared from the scene for a while, didn’t you?’ asked Charan Grover. ‘I mean, one minute you were on every music channel, on every FM channel, and the next minute you were—gone! What happened?’
‘Charan, I was trying to find myself, my identity,’ his guest spoke in a sexy voice.
‘You mean, like trying to come to terms with your massive overnight success? Trying to slow things down a bit? I know how intimidating sudden success can be!’
‘No, not really.’
‘Yes, exactly. I needed some time to come to terms with it,’ Jazmeen said, untruthfully.
The truth was that there was no ‘good’ work after Jazmeen’s initial success with ‘Mere saiyyan tora ang taape yun’. The persona of Jazmeen that the song had created was so far removed from the real person that it took everyone who came to her with new work by surprise.
‘Why the hell is everyone coming to me with item songs only?’ she complained to Arty after returning from a meeting with the sixth producer in four weeks. This meeting had also ended at a dead-end, like all the previous ones.
‘But that’s how the industry works, baby. You are only good for what people think you are good for. Some people call it typecasting.’
‘Bullshit! I was the heroine of Gaon ki Lady-Doctor. It may not have been a big film, but it was still a film! With a heroine who did comedy, emotions, actions, dance—everything! The item song was just one bloody bit of that film!’
‘And the only bloody bit that everyone saw. The only bit that blew everyone’s pants off.’
Jazmeen was bitter, her lips pursed in a straight line. She knew Arty was right, but she still found it hard to accept the perimeters within which her success was being defined. She knew that Jazmeen was a name now. People struggled for years to gain the kind of recognition that she had managed to achieve almost overnight. Most failed despite trying their whole life! ‘I ought to be happy!’ But she wasn’t. This fame felt empty. It felt—cheap.
‘I’m reduced to being known as a stupid Item Girl!’ she exclaimed, finally verbalising for the first time her distress with the notoriety of the label.
‘So?’ Arty asked.
‘So?’ Jazmeen was baffled by her man’s question. ‘Is that what you see me as?’
‘Why, what is the problem in being an Item Girl?’
‘You want to see me do raunchy stuff on the big screen? Do you want to know the lyrics of the song the latest bastard came to me with today?’ she said, alluding to the producer she had just met that evening.
‘What was it? Can’t be worse than “Mere saiyyan tora ang taape yun”!’
‘It is. This one goes “Inspector saab, meri chaabi toh ghumao”.’
Arty chuckled despite having promised himself that he wouldn’t. The chuckle then became a guffaw, and soon Jazmeen’s anger dissolved too, watching her lover’s face crinkle with marks of his infectious laughter.
‘Classy!’ Arty said once he had controlled his emotions somewhat.
‘Arty! How have I suddenly become the new Silk Smitha?’ Jazmeen said, still laughing, but not totally ready to let her anger go.
‘It’s just an image, you stupid girl! A façade, nothing more! Don’t tell me you have never worn a mask in front of people to hide your real emotions?’
Jazmeen was taken aback by the man’s innocent words. It was as if he had just suddenly, unwittingly, unclothed her soul.
‘I have worn a mask in front of people to hide my real emotions. I have done it all my life.’
‘It’s just a bloody act,’ Arty was continuing to speak. ‘If they want raunchy, be raunchy. If they want you to shake your boobs, do it like no one else can. If they want you to smack your ass, smack it so hard that it’s the only music they hear when they go home to their wives.’
Jazmeen just sat and listened, riveted.
‘If the producers want you to speak in a husky voice, give them a husky voice. If the magazine folk want you to use cuss words, use them. I say, use ma-behen all the time! If the TV channels want you to give them a fucking sound-byte, give them ten so that they can keep playing them in a loop!’
‘That producer today was surprised that I could speak fluent English,’ Jazmeen said quietly.
‘Then why speak good English with them? When you are in public, speak like someone who went to school in bloody Jhumri Telaiya!’ Arty replied.
Jazmeen was nodding slowly, absorbing the wisdom like a sponge.
‘Don’t wait for them to figure out what to do with you. No one has the time for that shit, baby!’ he added.
Jazmeen got up from the chair she was sitting on facing Arty. She turned around and started to walk away.
‘Oh, baby, what the fuck did I say?’ Arty wailed, taken aback at Jazmeen’s reaction. ‘OK baba, don’t do what you don’t want to do, fine? If you don’t want all this Item Girl nonsense, just don’t meet these morons! There will be something else that will come along, OK?’
Jazmeen had stepped into the massive walk-in closet and had started to rummage through her clothes.
‘What are you doing?’ Arty shouted so she could hear.
‘Nothing,’ she called back. ‘Just checking if I have anything bawdy to wear to my next meeting.’
‘I have worn a mask in front of people to hide the real me. I have done it all my life. I can do it again.’
Eight weeks later, Jazmeen was on the sets of her first real, no-holds-barred, big-ticket item song ‘Inspector saab, meri chaabi toh ghumao’. When the movie released five months later, it was a spectacular smash at the box office. There were lines outside the ticket windows all around the country. Some young bucks claimed they had seen the film over twenty times. But, only the first fifteen minutes of it, they said. That is, up until the last note of Jazmeen’s steamy item song.
The rest of the film was shit, they said.
‘Your “in-your-face” attitude is the talk of the town,’ said Charan Grover. ‘And that, in a town that thrives on its “in-your-face” attitude, is no small achievement! How do you explain that?’
‘See, Charan, I never shy away from calling a spade a spade—and a moron a moron,’ Jazmeen replied in her caustic style that her audience had got familiar with in the past couple of years. Her response made the host chuckle. ‘Oh, I see!’ he said.
‘Or a bitch a bitch, for that matter,’ she added quite matter-of-factly.
‘And how can you tell if someone is a bitch?’
‘Oh, that’s easy! They are the ones who like getting their asses sniffed.’
Charan broke into a loud giggle that shook his entire body. ‘I love this woman!’ Then, aloud, ‘It looks like you know quite a thing or two about bitches!’
‘Of course, I do! After all, I am one too! Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed the size of my ass?’ she said, as if taking offence. ‘I can take mor
e than one down there, you know!’
‘What?’ her host was instantly mortified.
‘Noses, my dear,’ Jazmeen said. ‘Noses. I can take a bunch of them. What did you think I meant?’ she asked coolly.
Charan Grover recovered quickly, knowing well that he needed to steer the interview in another direction before his guest uttered something even more risque. The show was going live nationally after all! But, before that, he did need one more clarification.
‘And who, other than you, do you think is the biggest bitch out there? Within or outside the industry?’ he asked amusedly.
Jazmeen laughed. Then she looked directly at the camera and said, ‘Oh, they know who they are, darling! So, why take names?’
Subhadra Laxmi Rathore’s otherwise precise radar had failed to notice the brewing romance between Arty and Jazmeen for quite some time. She had found out from her ‘sources’ that the tramp had moved in with her son at his Bandra flat soon after it had happened. But she had chosen to shrug it off since it wasn’t the first time that Arty had installed a girl in his bedroom. Subhadra didn’t approve of her son’s playboy ways, but had always felt powerless to do much about it. Besides, she had been very busy with other family matters.
However, almost a year after the affair began, Subhadra was surprised at the continuing presence of the same scourge in her son’s life. She confronted Arty when he was in Gorakhpur for a visit.
‘I was amazed to find out the other day that your cabaret dancer is still around, Arty,’ she asked as she poured coffee for her son. They were at the same breakfast table where Jazmeen had been brought up and dismissed as a subject many months ago. ‘Why didn’t you bring her to Gorakhpur with you this time?’
‘You are showing a lot more interest in her today that you’ve ever shown in the past,’ he replied, looking up from his newspaper. ‘Where was this eagerness when I had encouraged her to speak to you on the phone, but you couldn’t find thirty seconds in your busy schedule to take her calls?’ Then, shaking his head, he returned to the newspaper and said, ‘She is a busy girl, Ma, and there are plenty of other things she would rather be doing.’
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