Bollywood Nights

by Shobhaa De

  Jay gave in, as he did to most of Aasha Rani’s whims. Each passing day of her pregnancy was making her bloom and look even more beautiful. He couldn’t get over the fact that she was soon going to be a mother. He clicked hundreds of photographs as she waddled along the garden, or puttered about the house, taking one heavy step at a time. He filmed her on video and assiduously kept a progress chart of each month—detailing all the changes in her swelling body.

  The first time the baby kicked, Jay’s heart nearly stopped. “Jesus! Holy shit! What is the little princess up to?” he asked with his hand placed gingerly over Aasha Rani’s belly. “You are a good man, Jay. I want to make you a good wife. And I promise you, I’ll be a good mother to Sasha,” Aasha Rani said, smiling and kissing him gently.

  SASHA WAS BORN on a beautiful spring morning with Jay holding Aasha Rani’s hand. “She is like a lovely little primrose,” Jay said tenderly, stroking Aasha Rani’s hair. “Just like you, darling,” he continued. “You were wonderful through it all. I’m so proud of you. I wish my parents—and yours—had been here.”

  Aasha Rani was far too exhausted to respond. She gazed at the little perfection lying snugly across her breasts and kissed her daughter’s screwed-up face. “I’m tired,” she said to Jay. “I need some sleep.” Jay sat next to her bed right through the day, occasionally cradling the baby and crooning long-forgotten lullabies to her. He watched his sleeping wife and marveled at their being there together, married and now parents. It was destined, he told himself. How else would anybody explain their having met the way they did? Maybe he had been a Hindu in his last life. He felt a desperate urge to go back to India with his small family.

  The next day he suggested it to Aasha Rani. Her face clouded over and she snapped, “Nothing doing, no way. I never want to go back. And please don’t give Amma the news. I want to protect Sasha from her. I want to bring her up with all the love in the world. I never want her to meet her grandmother. Never!”

  Jay was surprised by the vehemence in Aasha Rani’s voice. He kept quiet, putting her outburst down to post-baby blues. But her attitude remained unchanged even after she’d settled in with the baby. Nothing mattered more to her than her little girl. She told Jay, “It would have been so different back in India. Sasha would have been handed over to a succession of ayahs. I would hardly have seen her. Amma would have pushed me back into the studios to do any role that was going. I’d have ended up playing mother roles to forty-year-old hunks before I touched thirty. And then I’d have graduated to being grandmother to the very same hunks. No, thank you. I’m better off here. I feel happy, relaxed and…” “Bored,” Jay completed the sentence for her. She smiled at him. “Yes, a little, sometimes, but that can’t be helped.”

  “Do you miss your old life? Your old friends? Akshay?” Jay asked gently. Aasha Rani thought for a while before answering. “Yes and no. I didn’t really have friends. I had one, but she turned out to be worse than an enemy. The others? Let me see—I think of Amar sometimes. I knew he was using me but he was sweet. I think of Ramesh—that was one of the few no-strings-attached relationships I’ve had. Perfect while it lasted. Abhijit, I just feel sorry for him; that’s all. I wish him well. And Nikita too. I suppose we were using each other too—he for his reasons and I for mine. The old letch, the Shethji. I think of him often. He didn’t harm me. I think he was quite fond of me, really. And Akshay—yes, I do think of him. And miss him. I’ve never understood my obsession for that man. Or the hold he had on me. Maybe it was his image that swept me off my feet initially. I was so completely overawed, so overwhelmed that somebody like him—a top hero—would notice someone like me. Even after his films started flopping and mine were hits, I couldn’t get over him. He was so cultured and civilized compared to the others. He recited poetry. He read books. He ate exotic food. He dressed well. I felt like a villager in his presence. It’s not even as if he was a great lover or anything. But there was—there is—something between us. Why should I lie to you? I often wonder what he’s doing, where he is, how his films are faring. His health had started failing him—poor man. He needed an understanding, warm woman by his side. Instead, he had that bitch who was so harsh to him. I hate her. I’ll hate her till I die. I learned so much from Akshay. I wonder if he knows how grateful I feel. You don’t mind my talking about him, do you?”

  Jay had been listening to her monologue quietly. He shook his head. “Go on. You’ll feel better.” But Aasha Rani changed her mind. It was as if she’d had enough of the past.

  “I’m sorry. Let’s talk about you. Actually, even after all these months, I still don’t know too much. You never speak of your earlier loves, besides the air hostess. What about white girls? You must have had several local girlfriends?” Jay shook his head. “I was shuttling back and forth far too much to fall seriously in love with anyone. Besides, this may sound strange to you—it does to most Asians—we white men are not exactly sex maniacs. And all white girls aren’t nymphos. Why do we have such awful reputations? This used to happen to me in India, in Bangkok, Hong Kong, even China. Women would be wary of me, and all of them would assume I was looking for quick sex. I have my preferences. I have my moods. I’m not into sex for the sake of sex. As for love—it doesn’t happen to me that easily. But I knew the moment I saw you in that tacky disco that you were the one. I wanted you—not just in a superficial, physical sense, but I wanted to make you my wife. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. Does that sound corny? And I was so confident it would work. It has, hasn’t it? We have pulled it off, haven’t we?”

  Aasha Rani’s eyes were full of tears. “Don’t cry,” Jay said. “You make a wonderful wife and mother. I must be blessed. My only regret is that our families don’t know how happy we are. I’m sure my father would be filled with joy to see our Sasha. Perhaps someday they’ll come to terms with our decisions.”

  Aasha Rani had a hard look in her eyes. “I don’t really care. This is my life—our life—and for the first time I’m living the way I want to. I certainly don’t miss Amma. As for Sudha, by now Amma must have pushed her into enough producers’ beds to get her a few roles. That’s all over now. It’s behind me. My life belongs to Sasha; she will have the best of everything. I’ll see to that.”

  SASHA AT FOUR was an unusually pretty child. This didn’t surprise Aasha Rani, who’d point out to Jay that nearly all children born of mixed parentage turned out to be exceptionally good-looking. But her little girl was something else. She’d inherited Jay’s gray-green eyes, Aasha Rani’s features, and their joint coloring. Her skin glowed like milky cocoa; her hair was like burnished copper.

  Sasha was precocious for her age, but that was because she didn’t have companions to play with. Her “friends” were farm animals, and her favorite a pony called Trixie. On weekends Jay and Aasha Rani made it a point to take her for outings, but these occasions weren’t enough to satisfy her lively and curious mind.

  Aasha Rani had put on some weight. Not too much. But she was no longer lithe and firm, and her breasts hadn’t shed the extra fat even a year after she’d stopped nursing Sasha. Jay brought home the latest workout tapes and urged Aasha Rani to take up a sport—go riding or swimming. But she was reluctant to move out, preferring to spend the day playing with Sasha and watching TV soaps. It seemed unnatural to Jay that she was so indifferent to the life she’d left behind. She refused to watch Hindi films, read Indian magazines or even dress and eat Indian. She was practically unrecognizable with her bleached, permed hair, nondescript clothes and uncertain accent. Jay would try to joke her out of her lethargy by saying, “Come on, girl, I didn’t marry a chichi farmhand. My bride was an exotic, oriental beauty. An absolute knockout. How about wearing a sari for me tonight? Who knows, I might get turned on enough to produce a brother for Sasha.” Aasha Rani would pretend she hadn’t heard and turn on the TV.

  She found Jay’s preoccupation with India—and his idealistic image of it—hard to swallow. It was obvious that he hadn’t been ther
e for a long time. The crowds had multiplied; the pollution was even more rampant. And the Bombay film world—one brush with that and he’d never talk about India again!

  Jay bided his time. One day when Aasha Rani was in a particularly good mood he broached the topic of India again: “Feel like a trip to India? Or London? Or both?” Initially she said nothing and carried on putting the final touches to the salad she had fixed for lunch. He didn’t push the issue and started playing with Sasha. After five minutes, Aasha Rani spoke, almost to herself: “We’ll be in time for Holi if we leave next month. Sasha would love that. I used to enjoy Holi as a child.”

  Jay was delighted. He went and kissed her, saying, “That’s my girl. I’ll talk to my travel agent. But tell me—London or Bombay?”

  Aasha Rani put some mayonnaise on his nose and said, “Let’s do it in stages. First stop London, then Bombay and then perhaps Madras!”

  LONDON, AFTER A BREAK of nearly five years, made Aasha Rani nervous. She remembered her last visit there and shuddered involuntarily. She’d come with an entertainment troupe to raise money for some cause or another. The organizers had promised them a good time, shopping money and a token payment. This was a standard summer ritual in the industry. A way for stars to cadge free holidays abroad from devoted NRI sponsors, who made up their costs five times over with the ticket money and local advertising. For their part the stars didn’t mind spending two evenings monkeying around onstage, singing songs, dancing, repeating hit “dialogues” and posing with delirious fans. Often it was Indian grocery store owners from Southall who enthusiastically arranged these programs. The formula was the same year after year—one playback singer, one top hero, one up-and-coming heroine, a couple of cabaret dancers, a mimic and a few sidekicks. The top-bracket stars got to stay in suites at fancy five-star hotels and went home with VCRs. The smaller fry had to make do with makeup kits and St. Michael’s T-shirts. Fancy heroines took chaperones along at the organizers’ expense and ran up enormous bills phoning boyfriends left behind. But nobody cribbed. Everything was “covered.”

  Aasha Rani had been the up-and-coming supernova on the scene with three major hits running simultaneously. Amma had insisted on tagging along, but so had Linda. This had led to some confusion, since Amma had demanded a suite, leaving Aasha Rani no choice but to share Linda’s poky little room where there wasn’t even place enough for her vanity case. But the overall experience had been thrilling—with hysterical fans mobbing her wherever she went. She’d been interviewed on Channel 4, wined and dined by a notorious NRI, made it to a profile in the Observer and generally felt like the screen queen she then was. Swarms of young, lusty men had gazed at her with something like reverence as she’d performed her superhit dance number from Chaalu Cheez, swaying her hips and stomping her feet to the strains of “Mujhey kehtey hai chaalu…” The crowds at Wembley had gone wild and had demanded an encore. Aasha Rani, flushed and excited by all the adulation, had flung her dupatta into the audience, driving them to further frenzy. Her trip had been a major feather in the organizers’ cap, and they’d booked her for the following year as well.

  Aasha Rani had enjoyed London on that visit. She had liked being recognized by shop assistants at Harrods and being asked for autographs at Selfridges. But most of all, she had enjoyed walking through Hyde Park, feeding the ducks and pigeons by the lake. Aasha Rani had not minded the attention local Indian businessmen showered on her. She always had a chauffeured Rolls-Royce at her service and was received like royalty in their opulent homes, where other prominent London-based Indians clamored to pose for photographs with her. And the lavish gifts she’d received! They’d arrive at her hotel by the carload—chocolates, flowers, champagne, baskets of goodies from Fortnums, expensive lingerie from Victoria’s Secret, Fendi furs, CD players, video cameras, innumerable French chiffons and perfume by the gallon. The presents she most looked forward to, however, were the soft toys. It was well-known, thanks to all the film magazines, that Aasha Rani had a special weakness for them. Besotted admirers arrived with pandas, cats, koala bears, elephants and teddies. Her passage through customs on landing in Bombay had been colorful in more ways than one.

  WHEN JAY AND FAMILY landed in London, Sasha was exhausted and cranky. Aasha Rani wasn’t feeling much better. It was left to Jay to go through all the motions before depositing them at the St. James Court hotel near Buckingham Palace. The choice of the hotel had been Jay’s. “You’ll feel more comfortable with the baby and all that. It’s run by the Taj people.” Aasha Rani was a little skeptical but went along.

  Living in “propah” British-run hotels in London had not been one of her best experiences—especially when she’d taken Amma with her. All that fuss made by housekeeping over something small like asking for a mug in the bathroom. Amma didn’t like taking showers and she hated bathing in a tub. Plus, Amma with her fussy vegetarian hang-ups drove room service wild with her questions and demands. She suspected everything, from the cheese sandwiches to the mushroom soup, and embarrassed everyone by sniffing all the food on the buffet table.

  But Aasha Rani had overlooked one major disadvantage of checking into St. James Court. Within minutes the news was out that she was staying there. Barely half an hour after they had set their bags down, flowers and fruit arrived from the general manager, welcoming them to London.

  Aasha Rani was flattered and apprehensive. She’d been so insulated from this sort of attention in New Zealand. Her days as a movie star had been converted into memories. Memories that she didn’t really care to rake up too often. She had no idea what sort of an impact her abrupt exit had made on audiences back home, or whether she’d been missed at all. She wasn’t even aware whether her marriage had made headlines or if people knew about Sasha. She had cut herself off so successfully that it came as a slight shock when the staff at the hotel recognized her. Jay laughed. “Did you really think you’d be forgotten in such a hurry? You—the ‘Sweetheart of Millions’?”

  “Oh come off it,” she said, brushing him off. “It has been nearly five years since I last made a film. At the pace the industry was moving when I quit, at least ten ‘sweethearts’ must have surfaced by now. Besides, audiences are so fickle, so cruel. Once you’re out, you’re out; that’s it.”

  Jay shook his head. “Certainly doesn’t seem so. Look at how rapidly news of your arrival spread. You can bet the press will zero in on you. So get some rest, put on your best face and I’ll get you some new clothes. The show is on, darling, and you are the star!”

  Aasha Rani signed her first autograph in years, the next morning, while they were breakfasting downstairs. The young woman who came up to ask for it was from Bombay. “I couldn’t believe my eyes,” she gushed. “I wasn’t sure it was you, so I checked with the manager. Gosh! You look so different! I saw your last film five times and cried so much when we learned you’d left India.”

  Jay smiled sympathetically and asked her to sit down. “Coffee?” he asked, while Aasha Rani glared at him. “Is this your daughter? My, she’s cho chweet. Like a real gudiya. Will she join films like you?” “Never,” Aasha Rani snapped. “Why not?” the woman insisted. “She’s so pretty. She will also become famous like you and her aunty.”

  So, Amma had made a star out of Sudha after all. “How is my sister doing? Do you see her films?” Aasha Rani couldn’t resist asking. The woman was thrilled to be answering the questions. “Oh my, Sudha Rani is just too good, yaar. I love her dancing. Kya disco karti hai—don’t mind, but she beats you hollow, yaar. Her latest film was Disco Baby, and I liked it so much I bought the original tape for my library. She and Amar are fabulous, yaar. He’s also great!”

  Jay was watching Aasha Rani’s face for reactions. The fan kept up her chatter: “You must come to India, yaar. Your fans are really missing you. The mags keep writing stories. All rubbish, yaar. You know how these gossips are. One mag—I think it was Showbiz—said you were dead. Then that Linda, big bitch, yaar, she said you’d gone mad and were in a mental asylum
. Someone else said you’d committed suicide. All bakwas, yaar. I told my friends, ‘Never. Aasha Rani must be alive somewhere.’ I thought you’d had an accident. Don’t mind, but the gossip was really too much. I’d also read that someone had thrown acid on your face—you know that businessman—the papers said he’d caught you with his son and threatened to kill you! Anyway, poor fellow, his bahu lost her first baby. We all said, ‘Good! God is punishing him.’ Then we read you had had plastic surgery to change your face, and you had also changed your name. Such crap, yaar. Don’t mind.

  “One mag said their reporter had met you while you were passing through Bombay and you’d shown him your new face through the burqa by lifting up the flap. He said you looked like Dracula ki ma. All scarred. That same fellow said you’d gone crazy and you kept imagining that the businessman was going to kill you for destroying his son’s family. There were rumors he’d paid international goondas lakhs of rupees to murder you. Chalo, I’m so glad all this was rubbish. Now that I’ve seen you, spoken to you, I’ll phone and tell my sister in Bombay. You don’t mind if I bring my relatives here tomorrow for autographs and photographs, do you? My nephew used to be your big fan. We called him a chamcha because he kept all your photographs and he’d also met you at Wembley. He’ll be so thrilled, yaar. He’ll come running. Achcha, so, see you.”