Nishani’s facial muscle twitched in appreciation.
‘That’s weirder. You feel guilty and yet you do something that you are not supposed to do. I mean, my sympathy would sooner be with a sexually frustrated person than a happily married man following a girl.’
‘To escape. That’s exactly why I have been following you around.’
‘From what do you want to escape? Your family?’
‘Oh no. That’s dear to me. It’s reality that I want to escape from.’
Vishwas gave her a hope-you-are-done glance and called for the bill.
A minute later, they were out on the streets standing by a cigarette shop. As he lighted his cigarette, Nishani touched its end with hers. As they exhaled, their smoke coalesced and became one.
‘Isn’t your family your reality?’
A puff of cigarette later, Vishwas spoke.
‘I turned thirty five the day before I first saw you at the traffic signal where my auto stood parallel to yours. Nobody really cared to wish me except my two sweet kids and adorable wife. At my age, you don’t really need a truck load of people around you. But at night, after my family and friends had wished me all through the day and I’d taken my wife and kids out for a sumptuous dinner, I felt it was time for some introspection.
Sitting under the shower, I thought: I have a well-paying government job, a good wife, two wonderful kids, all my flat’s EMI will be over in another five years, and I have already arranged for the money. Plus I have no parents or siblings to take care of; in all a stable life. But when it dawned on me that life has gone the way I prayed and worked for, instead of being happy I turned shaky that night. My guts churned as the cold water rinsed my body. I thought my life, in a passionate attempt to turn it to perfect, lost its essence. Suddenly I craved for it to let me down. Just a bit, if possible. And when I saw you—young and spirited—I realized in this life I won’t ever be like you. That sure was a letdown; something that I won’t be able to achieve no matter how settled I was. Weird, as you may call it, I loved the feeling. To keep it alive in me, I kept following you. Perfection should always be elusive. The moment you achieve it, you realize that’s the most imperfect thing ever.’ A pause later he added, ‘Does any of this make sense?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe not or maybe it has and I’ll realize it later.’
The steady flow of pedestrians made it difficult for them to walk side by side. Out of nowhere, a harried man approached them.
‘Excuse me please. What’s the time?’ he asked Vishwas.
‘Twelve thirty,’ Nishani said. The man looked at Nishani as if he didn’t expect her to be with him and scooted away. Vishwas looked at his watch. It was five past twelve.
‘I wanted him to run to wherever he was going,’ she said with a hint of a giggle.
‘You like controlling people.’
‘I love control.’
‘But you don’t love either Rakesh or Rehan.’
He moved ahead. Nishani’s look held his elusive image as the footpath suddenly turned even busier.
Finally, they boarded a bus together. Nishani had intentionally not brought her bike while Vishwas always travelled via public transport.
‘You are right. I loved neither but then I also don’t know what love is.’
Vishwas shot an incredulous look at her and then moved a strand of hair from her forehead with his hand.
‘But I know what hate is. I hate someone.’ She allowed herself a contemplative pause and then said, ‘That’s also a relationship, isn’t it?’
It took a trice for Vishwas to realize her query was drenched in covert worry. ‘Yes, it is. Perhaps more intense and selfdestructive than love. But whom do you hate? Me?’
‘No,’ she managed a smile. ‘I don’t want to name him, but I really loathe him with all my heart and want to take back from him what is rightfully mine in the first place.’
‘Which is?’
‘Life.’ Neither Nishani elaborated on it nor Vishwas poked her to do so.
‘Anyway, I broke off with Rakesh and Rehan both.’
‘Why?’
‘Both had made me the target of their obsession. For Rakesh, it was about marriage and spending a life together till death do us apart; while with Rehan, it was about sleeping together till one of us called it quits. I don’t understand why to limit a journey with a destination?’ Vishwas bought two tickets from the conductor.
‘Look, I am not asking the journey to decide the destination even. All I’m saying is can’t a journey be just that—a journey! Who made this stupid one life-one love diktat? I mean if I am committed to one, I might love someone else as well. Why does love have to limit me to one?’
‘Love is a choice. You are making it sound like an obligation.’
‘Hold on, let me try explaining this. I love a guy. The guy loves me. We get married. But won’t that mean we are claiming we wouldn’t love anybody else because I love him and he loves me? Won’t we constantly remind ourselves, with the unfolding of our marriage, not to even think of falling in love with someone else even if in the veil of our hearts we know reality is or could be the opposite; that people can fall in and out of love all the time. Then, now, and later! That it’s okay to have the urge to sleep with someone other than your partner and not think of it as infidelity because it’s okay for you. Okay for him.’
‘My thing is I don’t want to make any such claim. Nor do I want the same claim from my partner. By the way you are married, so you should be able to tell me: what does a marriage mean? I love you? Or I love only you? Or I won’t love anyone else? Or is it the worst—I can’t love anyone else anymore?’
There was silence between the two amidst the chaos of the traffic around them. The conversation had come to a point when neither knew what to say because too much had been said. A few minutes later, Nishani asked, ‘Do you too have a destination to whatever relationship we are in?’
‘Yes,’ he returned her look with the same intensity. ‘But the destination that I had in mind was my own internal thing. It didn’t concern you or us. I wanted to escape reality just by following you. But tell me, why does it upset you; the destination thing?’
‘I don’t know. It’s not that I am a flirt and I’m piling on excuses just for guy hopping. In fact before Rakesh or Rehan, I never had any guy in my life.’ For a second, Kaash’s chubby face flashed in front of her. And their first kiss too. She moistened her dry lips and continued, ‘I know if someone doesn’t want a destination out of a relationship, people say the person is merely passing time. It’s the “no strings attached” theory at work. But I don’t think the kind of complexity we carry between our ears and legs would ever allow us no strings. There’s always a string which eventually becomes a rope and if not catered to, might end up being a chain too.’ A pause later, she innocuously added, ‘Am I making sense?’
‘Perfectly. Perhaps, I followed you to unleash myself from that very chain. But that doesn’t answer my question: what’s wrong with a destination?’
‘I have realized the destination of every relationship—good, bad, ugly—is separation. And I am afraid of separation. Since childhood—’ Nishani checked herself. Though she liked Vishwas, she couldn’t trust him with the most private secret just yet.
Vishwas shrugged, signalling her to carry on.
‘I have been like this since childhood.’ Her words changed course.
‘They say a person feels ruined if someone leaves him or her. But I believe the ruining process starts with the acceptance of someone in your life, for separation foreshadows acceptance. Like you said you hate someone. That’s an acceptance as well. And one day you will be separated from that hatred too.’
Nishani suddenly felt like throwing up. She couldn’t foresee a day when she would not hate Shahraan Ali Bakshi. It was impossible. Period. Even after she had destroyed him beyond anything, she would still hate him. Very much!
Vishwas dropped Nishani at her place in an autorickshaw. Initially, h
e had not taken a day off, but he wanted to hold onto her company for as long as he could. Strangely after their lengthy discourse in the bus, they didn’t speak one word to each other for the rest of the day. They went to Marine Drive, India Gate, and lastly to Flora fountain. And wherever they went, they took along a silence which seemed not to judge but understand the other.
‘Is it always this crowded?’ Vishwas said, checking out a heap of cards and a media van.
‘No, it’s not. There must be a party or something happening at someone’s place.’
‘Hmm. I don’t think we will meet again,’ Vishwas sounded curt.
‘Never?’
‘If we meet again, it would be a relationship totally unlike what I experienced following you around all these days, including today. And I don’t think I am in that place in life where I am allowed to desire such a relationship. You asked me about marriage earlier in the day.’
‘And the last statement is your answer?’
Vishwas beamed. He had judged her smartness right. Nishani looked at him without blinking. Next, she leaned sideways and kissed him on the cheeks.
‘Goodbye,’ she said. The autorickshaw driver was ogling through his rear-view mirror, wishing for some further public display of affection.
‘Goodbye,’ Vishwas tapped on the driver’s shoulder and he drove off.
The main door to her flat was slightly ajar and she could hear people in groups inside the flat talking in hushed tones. Before she could understand what was happening, she saw her grandfather approach her with a solemn look on his face. And then, she stopped dead in her tracks. ‘What’s happening, dadu?’ she enquired, mustering courage. In her head, she already feared the worst.
‘You lost your father this evening.’
Only a few loyal old journalists, film producers, and a few industry people who had once stood by Shekhar, though had recently lost touch, were allowed inside the Rai bungalow. There were a few media people waiting outside, but due to lack of anything spicy, they soon dispersed. Shekhar Rai was a forgotten hero.
Inside, Nishani kept on staring at her father’s dead body for five hours straight. People around her were crying, sobbing, wailing. But she turned dead quiet from the moment she heard the news. You lost your father this evening, she was told. But when did I ever have him?
The moments that could have been and the moments that were started a fierce duel within her. A father and daughter relationship is different from a mother and son one. The latter is about an inseparable attraction while the former is about a fervent attachment. Separation foreshadows acceptance, Vishwas’s words rushed to her mind. There were a thousand and one flaws in her relationship with Shekhar. But never did she doubt that fact, never did she ask ‘why him?’ to God about it.
When the others took the dead body to the nearby burning ghat, Nishani, for the first time, entered Shekhar’s room. There was his wheelchair next to a neatly done up bed. A wardrobe lay adjacent to it. The door of the attached toilet was closed while a series of three windows with pitch black panes on the opposite side of the bed were shut. There were no curtains because the windows were never opened. Nishani felt the room had the same plight which Shekhar existed within all these years. Soon her eyes fell on the wall opposite to the wardrobe. Finally, tears burst out of her eyes like rain from a clouded night sky. On the wall right in front of her were her photographs—all framed to perfection—from the time she was an infant to the time she ate for the first time to when she started walking to her first school dress to her wins in school and lastly a photograph of her college time; all different moods, different point in time, different memories but one life. Nishani cried her heart out as she realized for the only time in her life there was someone else apart from her who had missed out on a whole lot just like her—her father.
It was evening and she was alone. The servants were sorting out the bouquets which had poured in from all over the country. The maid was calling out the name cards on each of them in her attempt to read who the bouquet was from and then handed over the bunch to another servant who sorted out the fresh flowers from the dead ones. One of the names the maid called out was of Shahraan Ali Bakshi. It piqued Nishani’s interest.
‘Give me that,’ she instructed. The maid handed her the elegantly done up bouquet. The flowers were fresh. They smelt like shit to her. She read the tucked message on a small card on it.
RIP. I am sorry.
Nishani locked her jaw till it ached.
‘You aren’t sorry yet. Not till Nishani Rai makes you sorry.’
Life was going to be a different game from now on. She knew.
Nishani decided to visit those producers who had come to Rai bungalow to pay their homage. They were single producers who were giant names during the 70s and 80s, but most of their cinematic instincts had fizzled out with time. The list named ten of them who had assured her help in the industry if she decided to give it a try. Try? You are kidding me. I’ll rule the industry just like my dad did. She laughed at their ignorance.
Five out of ten producers in her list, as they confessed to Nishani, were too broke to conceive a large scale Hindi film, never mind make one. Three, who used to go by star power not script power, hadn’t had a single release in the last fifteen years. And for the sake of Shekhar Rai who gave pots and pots of currency to them Friday after Friday, they could least be honest with his daughter. Nishani appreciated it. Only two producers were left by the end of a month: Nirupam Agarwal and Jignesh Shah.
Nirupam Agarwal had debuted as a producer with Shekhar. His horror film titled Janam se Pehle ran successfully for twenty weeks. Inspired by his first success, he kept his eye on the horror genre only. As Nishani went to his small but busy office, there were numerous posters of some successful horror films and a few upcoming ones framed all over the walls.
‘I have an appointment with Mr Agarwal.’
‘Nishani Rai?’ The receptionist almost had a man’s voice and appearance. As if she had walked out of her sex change operation midway. ‘He is waiting for you.’
Nishani knocked at Nirupam’s cabin door which was covered with the poster of a skull. Between its jaws was written: the Horror King. Nirupam opened the door the next instant.
‘Nishani ji! Please come in.’
The outside was only a trailer. The inside was the real film, Nishani realized, looking at the walls which were covered with horror film wallpapers. One side had all the famous Hollywood horror releases from The Exorcist, The Entity, Poltergeist, The Hills Have Eyes, Nightmare at Elm’s Street, and Evil Dead. On the other wall were Nirupam’s own films. The similarity in the poster designs told her they could all be rip-offs.
‘Please sit down, Nishani ji.’
‘Call me Nishani, Mr Agarwal.’
‘Nirupam.’ He smiled in a shy manner and further said, ‘What can I do for you?’
‘During dad’s funeral, you had asked me to meet you for some film.’
‘Oh yes! We are starting a film soon. And I am indeed looking for a fresh face.’
‘Who is the male lead?’
‘Not decided. It’s a woman-oriented film. So I won’t go for a known male lead. Nobody will agree to play second fiddle to a newcomer. Hope you understand.’
‘I do.’
‘Honestly, since the corporates have come up along with the multiplexes, the financial structure of the entire moviemaking business has changed. I try to keep it simple these days. Make a movie for one crore, release it in single theatres in selected cities, and make a net profit from a theatrical release of fifty to seventy five lakhs. Of course, there is satellite rights and other means of securing some more funds.’
‘What is the character about?’
‘As I said, it’s a woman-oriented film. The girl, our protagonist, is avenging the death of her mother who was killed heinously by some village people.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. The writer is working on that. We’ll cook something up in the flashb
ack scene. Don’t worry. There is also a poignant love story between her and a police officer who helps her with the revenge.’
‘Interesting. What is the name of the film?’
‘Chudail ki Beti. The daughter of the witch. You’ll do the title role. If it does well, we can make its sequel: Laut Aayi Chudail ki Beti. We can take your audition today itself.’
By the time Nishani was out of Agarwal’s office, she swore not to meet the man again.
Jignesh Shah had retired from his family business of film exhibition, distribution, and production long ago and his two sons—Himesh and Pravesh—had taken over the mentle quite fruitfully. They turned their company—Shah Brothers Films—into a studio where multiple projects were being green lighted at a time. Also, they were known to flag off new faces, both in television and cinema.
Though Jignesh seldom came to office but for his favourite actor’s daughter, he made an exception.
‘Jai Shri Krishna, beta.’
The first thing Nishani noticed in the swish office room was a life-size gold-framed poster of the movie Hawa Ke Saath Saath. The Shah Brothers Films’ biggest money churner in India and abroad which they had made with Shahraan five years back. She averted her eyes towards a smiling Jignesh.
‘Hello uncle. How are you?’
‘Krishna is kind. Jai Shri Krishna. What will you have?’
‘Stardom.’
Jignesh burst out of laughing.
‘You have your father’s sense of humour. Where were you all these years?’
‘Preparing,’ Nishani smiled smartly.
‘I am impressed. But unfortunately, I don’t have much say in the company affairs anymore. I’ll introduce you to my son, Pravesh.’
‘Okay.’
A boy came and kept a glass of water beside her which she picked up immediately.
‘Before that, I would definitely like to tell you something. Stardom is a game of snakes and ladders. You need to be proactive enough to judge whether you are about to land on a ladder’s base or a snake’s mouth. There’ll be people who would seem like ladders at first, but shall eventually turn into snakes. So trust people, but don’t have faith in them. Believe what people say but don’t rely on it. Life is strange. But in this industry, it is stranger. Being Shekhar’s daughter, it was my duty to alert you.’
How About a Sin Tonight? Page 15