The Strange Disappearance of a Bollywood Star

by Vaseem Khan

  “I will know,” said the Master stubbornly.

  “There is a better way,” said Parvati. “We will search for you. The eunuchs of Mumbai are like a hive of bees. Nothing happens in our community without us knowing about it. And we keep records. Not in dusty ledgers, but here—” She tapped the side of her head. “Our oral tradition goes back centuries. If your son is alive we will find him.”

  The Master looked at the eunuch with astonishment. “Why? Why would you help me?”

  Parvati’s pumpkin-like face split into a smile. “Because it is the right thing to do.”

  THE FESTIVAL OF COLOURS

  The Holi festivities were well underway when Chopra and Poppy left the restaurant and headed through the thronged streets towards Film City. Around them, the city was a carnival of colour. For one day, the gods had granted the residents of the subcontinent’s most vibrant metropolis the licence to paint the town red. And green… and yellow… and every other colour under the sun.

  As the Tata van weaved its way past knots of celebrants, Poppy looked out with sparkling eyes.

  Holi was her favourite festival; something about the childlike gaiety that it inspired in even the most staid of her fellow Mumbaikers transported her back to her carefree youth, in the little village of Jarul where both she and Chopra had grown up. Even there Holi had brought people together—people of all faiths and castes—for Holi was the one Indian festival that transcended the barriers that so often kept people apart.

  She glanced into the rear of the van where Irfan and Ganesha had their faces glued to the windows, wistfully observing the merriment.

  Suddenly, a broad swathe of orange colour smacked against the windows, causing the pair of them to leap back with delight.

  Poppy smiled. Holi! Street urchins with bands of red smeared across their foreheads like holy ash. Balloons full of water arcing over the streets to unerringly find their targets. Roads puddled with vibrant colour. Even the city’s animal population was not spared—cows, goats, dogs, and pigs wandered about in bemused consternation, their faces painted like Pandava princes from the Kurukshetra War.

  And on the balconies, the rich celebrated in their own style, with urbane Holi parties, canapés, and white-suited brass bands.

  They arrived at Film City where Chopra drove them to the set of The Mote in the Third Eye of Shiva.

  Parking the van, he let Ganesha and Irfan out, then turned just as Vicky Verma, resplendent in the costume of a Mughal prince, bore down on them. He was accompanied by his sister Aaliya Ghazi, who was wearing a bright yellow blouse, blue jeans, and a red headscarf. She smiled as she reached out to tickle the top of Ganesha’s head. The little elephant responded by shyly tapping her cheeks with his trunk.

  “Chopra!” beamed Vicky. “So glad you could come!” The actor’s arm flashed from behind his back in a blur.

  Whump!

  Chopra looked down at his pristine white shirt, freshly laundered that very morning. An enormous pancake of mustard yellow marked the front.

  “Happy Holi!” laughed Vicky.

  Oh dear, thought Poppy. Her husband had always been one of the few curmudgeons who preferred to stay aloof when the annual “madness” of Holi gripped the city. For one alarming moment, as she observed his grim expression, she thought that he might explode… but then he winched forth a smile. “And a happy Holi to you too, Vicky.”

  They moved to a table on the edge of the set. The cast of thousands milled around on all sides, waiting for the director to summon them for the big shoot.

  As they sipped glasses of watermelon juice, Chopra asked the actor how things were at home.

  “It’s been a real shock for my mother,” admitted Vicky. “But she’s taken it better than I had hoped.”

  Chopra recalled the meeting with Bijli Verma, immediately after he had tracked Vicky to his hideout in Film City. He had advised the young actor to confront his mother that very night—and to take his half-sister with him…

  Chopra had expected the encounter to be difficult and he was not disappointed: dredging up the past and forcing those who had behaved badly to confront the consequences of their actions often was. At first Bijli was overwhelmed with relief to be reunited with her son and to discover that he was unharmed. And then the truth came out and she slumped, stunned, onto the sofa of her Malabar Hill apartment, listening glassy-eyed as Vicky poured forth the whole sordid story.

  And finally came the rage.

  The name Ayesha Azmi—her bitter rival all those years ago—acted as a magic incantation. For a moment Chopra saw the old fire, the fire that had once made her the doyenne of Bollywood, feared by directors and paramours alike. At one point he thought Bijli would actually strike her son.

  He stepped between them. “The past has a way of catching up with the best of us,” he said, holding fast against the tide of fury pouring from Bijli. “You and your late husband may not have committed any offence in the eyes of the law, but what you did was nevertheless a crime. A crime of the soul. Your son has attempted to make amends for that crime. Perhaps the manner in which he has gone about it is questionable. But he has done what you should have a long time ago.” Chopra paused. “‘Anger and intolerance are the enemies of understanding.’ Gandhi said that. It is time to make things right, Bijli.”

  Bijli’s furious eyes scanned his face… and then the rage drained away.

  He watched as she stepped up to the girl.

  A silence fell as the former starlet scrutinised Aaliya. “You look like your mother,” she said finally. “She was very beautiful.” She sighed. “I always knew you would come, one day. To be honest I often wondered how you would turn out… It’s no good looking at me like that. I have never claimed to be a saint. Besides, what else could I have done? Should I have just given him up? He made his choice. He chose me. I loved him, don’t you see?” Chopra had the feeling Bijli was talking to herself. “I was young. Immature… No. That’s not true. I knew what I was doing. I knew what I wanted and I wasn’t prepared to let anything stand in my way. And once I made that decision, once I stepped onto that path, how could I turn back? Some skeletons are supposed to stay buried.” Finally, her face crumpled. “I thought of her, so many times. I thought of you. Out there in the darkness I left behind.” Tears glistened on her cheeks, but she did not raise a hand to wipe them away.

  “So what now?” she finally said, looking up at Vicky. “Are you still my son?”

  For a long moment Vicky was silent. Chopra knew that the actor still retained a deep anger towards his mother. He felt betrayed in a way that few others could comprehend. On the way to Bijli’s apartment he had again said that he’d wanted to punish his mother, to make her feel the pain of loss, just as Aaliya’s mother had once suffered. But there was something else too. The revelation of his mother’s actions had forced Vicky to look into the mirror. And in that mirror he had seen a reflection he did not much like. His own cavalier attitude towards the legions of women who adored him; the ease with which he took advantage of their affections when it suited him. He felt ashamed of the man he was turning into.

  “I don’t want to become my father, Chopra,” he said.

  Chopra had patted him on the shoulder. “Life forces us to re-evaluate at every step. This whole episode has given you the opportunity to change. The rest is up to you.”

  “I will always be your son,” said Vicky finally. “The question is, can you be the mother that I want you to be? A mother I can be proud of?”

  Bijli looked into the distance. “The truth is: I don’t know. I am old, like wood. And wood doesn’t bend.”

  “Will you try?”

  She looked at Chopra, who nodded gently.

  “Yes,” said Bijli Verma. “I will try.”

  Returning to the present, Chopra remarked, “These things take time. I am sure your mother will come around.”

  “If she does it will be all Aaliya’s doing,” said Vicky, nodding at his sister. “She is determined to win my mother
over.”

  Aaliya smiled. Her pretty face shone. “She is my mother too now. The only one I have left.”

  “It’s lucky you have the patience of a saint,” chuckled Vicky. “Some of the barbs my mother lets fly… Anyone else would have run off by now.”

  “Oh, she’s not as bad as all that,” said Aaliya. “To be honest, I think she quite likes having a daughter around. Apparently, you were a bit of a brat.”

  The pair laughed again.

  Chopra felt a resounding happiness engulf him.

  He could not have hoped for a better resolution to what had at first seemed a grim case. In the past few days the newspapers had had a field day with the story: FORMER FILM PRODUCER’S ABANDONED LOVE CHILD; VICKY VERMA’S SECRET SISTER; BIJLI VERMA WRECKS HOME OF PREGNANT RIVAL.

  The details of the “kidnapping,” however, had been kept out of the media—Chopra had felt that little was to be gained by making a public issue out of Vicky’s badly judged attempt to rectify the past.

  Besides, was it really a crime to kidnap yourself?

  Instead, Chopra had encouraged Vicky to give the press the story that mattered: the story of his sister.

  And that is exactly what he had done.

  With the country’s eyes upon him he had publicly declared his kinship to Aaliya Ghazi, informing a packed news conference that as far as he was concerned Aaliya was his real sister. He confirmed that should she wish it, she was free to adopt their father’s name—though Aaliya had politely declined—and that his sister was entitled to her share of their father’s estate.

  The press conference had done wonders for his reputation. His transformation from Bollywood brat to compassionate sibling had won him a whole new legion of fans. Chopra had even overheard the usually hawkish Mrs. Subramanium, the head of the management committee of the apartment complex where he and Poppy lived, remarking: “What a sensible young man.” High praise indeed from a woman who had once accused Gandhi of being little more than a “badly dressed rabble-rouser.”

  Nor was Mrs. Subramanium the only one to have mellowed.

  Chopra had been surprised to discover that the lawyer Lal had not been dismissed by Bijli following his admission that he had sabotaged the ransom drop. Explaining his reasons with a stiff-backed formality—and gaining some measure of relief by finally confessing his lifelong devotion—he had proffered his resignation. Which Bijli had declined, to universal astonishment.

  Perhaps Aaliya was right. Perhaps Bijli wasn’t “as bad as all that.”

  Privately, Chopra thought that Bijli, having been forgiven for such a grievous error of her own, was now willing to show more compassion for the mistakes of others. And as for Lal… the man had almost cost Chopra his freedom. But it had not been his intent. Could Chopra really hold a grudge?

  In this respect reel life, he reflected, was different to real life. In Bollywood there were no shades of grey: heroes were whiter than white; villains were irredeemably bad. But men and women like Lal, Das, and Bijli herself, did not live up to these tropes in the cold light of reality. He thought of the producer, rescued at the last minute from ruin. Was Das truly a thug, as Panipat had labelled him? Chopra could not be sure. Das, like so many in the industry, was an enigma, a reflection of the smoke-and-mirrors nature of Bollywood.

  He realised that Poppy was looking at him. His wife, radiant as ever in a multi-hued Holi sari, was a sucker for a happy ending. She was also a tremendous fan of Vicky Verma, and had bent Chopra’s ear to get her an audience. Well, here they were…

  He coughed. “Vicky, I wonder if I could trouble you for something?”

  Vicky smiled. “Don’t worry, Chopra. A cheque is on its way to you. With a substantial bonus, I should add. You have certainly earned it.”

  Chopra shook his head. “That’s not what I meant.” He pulled a photograph of Vicky from his pocket. “I, er, I’d like your autograph. It’s not for me,” he added hurriedly. “It’s for my wife.”

  “Of course it is,” said Vicky, grinning. He looked over at Poppy and winked.

  “It really is,” said Chopra. “Tell him, Poppy.”

  “Oh, don’t be bashful,” said Poppy mischievously. “He’s your number-one fan.”

  Chopra coloured.

  Behind them, Ganesha gave a little bugle.

  “All right. Number two, then,” smiled Poppy. “Little Ganesha never misses one of your movies. It’s a shame he can’t ask for an autograph.”

  “Perhaps I can go one better,” said Vicky. “Come with me. I need to see a man about an elephant.”

  THE MASTER COMES FULL CIRCLE

  At about the same time that Inspector Chopra (Retd) was visiting Film City, former sub-inspector Rangwalla was making an important visit of his own. Having returned from the haveli of the Master—Thakur Suraj Pratap—Rangwalla had found his usual routine disturbed.

  He discovered that he could not let go of this odd case.

  There was little doubt that the Master was a strange duck, but was it any wonder? The man had suffered terribly in life; fate had dealt him the worst of hands. The horrors that had been inflicted on him—the murder of the woman he had loved, the abduction of his infant child—would have laid low even the most resilient of men, let alone a boy browbeaten from birth by a domineering and black-hearted mother.

  Yet now, finally, he had been released from the shackles of his past.

  The secrets that had held him in chains had been blown to the four winds. Past had caught up with present, and the only thing that mattered to him was finding the child he had so long believed lost.

  And in this Rangwalla was determined to help.

  It was not an easy choice. His time with the eunuchs had challenged and subverted his most basic assumptions about the transgender community of Mumbai. He found that he could no longer rewire the circuits of his brain to think of them as he had once done. He imagined how it might feel to be sundered from his own family. It seemed to him that the emotions that churned inside the human heart were the same no matter who you were, eunuch or otherwise. To make this journey, however, Rangwalla knew that he had a lifetime of unlearning to do, a daily battle to wage against the smog of reflexive attitudes that darkened the very air of Mumbai. Then again, didn’t they say that every journey had to start somewhere?

  Rangwalla stepped out from the passenger seat of the classic 1950s Chevrolet Fleetmaster.

  It was another stiflingly hot day.

  Further along the street he could hear the din of Holi celebrations.

  He waited as the driver opened the rear door of the cream sedan. The venerable automobile had only just been removed from storage—it had belonged to the Master’s mother—cleaned and polished, and tuned into full working order, in preparation for this momentous trip.

  And now they were here.

  From the rear came a voice. “Here?” asked Thakur Suraj Pratap.

  “Yes,” said Rangwalla. “Here.”

  Silence, then: “I don’t think I can.”

  Rangwalla reached in. “Thirty years is a long time to wait.”

  Thakur Pratap grasped Rangwalla’s hand and allowed himself to be helped from the Fleetmaster.

  Then he looked up at the façade of the Red Fort.

  “He’s here!” sang a voice from the first floor. Rangwalla looked up and saw Parvati’s familiar face. “Halloo!” she waved enthusiastically.

  Minutes later, eunuchs crowded around the little company, showering the bewildered Pratap with greetings and good wishes.

  “So glad you could make it,” said Mamta.

  “You look much better in this get-up,” observed Rupa. “I never did like the munshi look.”

  “Come,” said Kavita shyly. “You honoured us in your home. Now let us welcome you to ours.”

  Gradually, they were borne along by the gaggle of excited eunuchs into the interior of the Red Fort.

  They stopped before a bead curtain. “Are you ready?” asked Rangwalla.

  Thakur Pratap bli
nked. “No,” he said hoarsely.

  “Then you are as ready as you will ever be.”

  They ducked through the bead curtain into the Queen of Mysore’s chambers. The room was as Rangwalla remembered it: red lit, with the curtains drawn, the smell of incense, hashish, and lotus blossom thickening the air.

  The Queen of Mysore sat on her raised divan, toking furiously on her hookah. Once again, she was finely dressed in a sequinned gaghra-choli, her jewellery even more ostentatious than when Rangwalla had last seen her.

  Even the Queen had made a special effort for the occasion.

  Beside her was her young assistant; standing to one side was Anarkali, biting her lip in anxiety.

  “Welcome,” said the Queen, eventually.

  A strange silence descended on the company, holding them all in a sort of electrified paralysis. No one dared disturb the moment.

  Rangwalla knew that they were here thanks to the tireless efforts of the eunuchs who had returned with him from the Master’s haveli, in particular Parvati and Mamta. They had sent emissaries to every eunuch dera in the city, tapping into that vast reservoir of memory that the eunuchs held within their community, and which was passed down from generation to generation in their great oral histories.

  In short order they had discovered that some thirty years previously a boy-child had indeed been handed to a eunuch dera in the southern half of the city by a man who resembled the old munshi of the Master’s estate.

  Then had begun the process of tracking that ill-fated child’s journey to adulthood.

  It appeared that the boy had been castrated as per the rituals of the eunuchs and initiated into their community. He—now she—had been cared for by an elder eunuch, but, when that guardian had passed on, had been left to the whims of fate.