Menoka has hanged herself

by Sharmistha Gooptu

  Avinash knew he could charm people with his quiet, persuasive ways. He knew how to lay bare their neediness, in the face of his own studied aloofness. It had given him a kind of power—over others, and over himself and his bodily desires. Years of physical practice in an akhara had taught him to conserve energies and command his mind and body, and he took pride in his capacity for self-control.

  For that same reason, he had not found it hard to resist the allures of the studio para, whether the women, the drunken parties or the money that flowed. With Ramola he found that same resolve crumbling. He had wanted her, and he also wanted to see her hurt…and break. She was almost too secure, too sure of herself. And it angered him for his own weakness.

  He felt the now familiar sharpness in his head and drew himself back to Shankho.

  ‘…you say, what jhamela, what utter nuisance,’ Shankho was grumbling.

  Avinash smiled, ‘What is it?’

  ‘You never listen…’ Shankho faked a pout. ‘That’s what I’m telling you…our Bharatmata studio is trying to get Rajbala…Raju Darling. The boss has got it into his head to enter action…if he can get her. But what of me? What if they try to make me do action…can you imagine?’

  ‘But,’ Avinash broke in. ‘Isn’t she with Unique? Have they released her?’

  ‘Arre na na, that girl is chalu, very clever. Managed to wiggle one outside picture from Unique. I know their owner, Mishtu Modak…lives under the spell of that Anglo mistress of his, Lily Madam they call her. She made Rajbala…training her and everything…one day no one knew of her, then there she was…Miss Raju Darling…fate, what else…’

  Avinash laughed, picturing Shankho in action costume. ‘You will have to quit Bharatmata, then, won’t you?’ he teased.

  Poor Shankho, from his tame socials to action, and that too pitted against the Raju Darling. He would be like a fish out of water.

  ‘Hmmmm, laugh all you like…Raju Darling my foot…’

  Shankho lowered his voice, ‘You know what someone from inside was telling me? That she was doing thoose types of pictures before…darling of night-shows she was then, show it all…wouldn’t be a thread left to cover her body.’

  He cocked his head and raised his eyebrows, ‘…quite young she was that time…and now a star…fate what else,’ he rued again.

  ‘Good for her then…’ Avinash was feeling empty again. ‘At least she’s not some high up devi, thinking she’s too good for everybody…’

  Raju

  Raju was furious. Another argument with Lily Madam and Mishtu Da. All over again about doing that outside picture.

  ‘You cannot do action with a bahar ka studio. Action is the second name of Unique, we cannot allow it,’ was Lily’s diktat.

  All ways to try and stop her. A Raju Darling picture was always all-in-one—action, romance, song and dance, everything. Any studio hiring her would want it all. But Lily Madam was more than clear, ‘No kicks, no ghusaas, no fights, kuch action nahi, no action…’ she had said. Now she would have to say no to Bharatmata studio. They wanted her to do action, they too were quite clear.

  ‘What if I don’t listen?’ Raju mused. ‘What if I just sign with Bharatmata? What can they do?’

  She wasn’t sure really, that was the thing. She didn’t even remember now what the contract had looked like. She remembered writing her name on some papers in her halting hand, but that was two years now, after her first hit Captive Princess. Mishtu Da had called her to his office one morning. Lily Madam had been there. They had told her to put her name on some papers and she had done it. And now they were using it to hold her back, the two of them. As if she didn’t know what happened in the afternoons…inside Mishtu Da’s office. That’s why he listened to everything she said. What was Unique, before they got her? When Lily Madam was heroine, dancing about in those tight blouses and small skirts? Who knew about Unique then? She had made them, not them her.

  It was true. Mishtu Modak, proprietor of Unique Pictures, had almost closed shop when silent movies had started becoming the talkies. The company had made a few passable mythologicals but really stayed afloat with the jungle adventure romances which were meant to showcase its heroine, Miss Lily. Lily did what she called ‘the wiggling and jiggling at the studio’. She would swing from the studio’s overhead props and false foliage, front and then back to the camera, climb from tree trunk onto the painted branches, her bare legs dangling from where she would perch herself, do somersaults and hip-swinging dances. The company hired girls like Raju from one picture to another. Lily had seen promise in Raju, and on her urging Mishtu had taken the gamble and produced his first sound picture, and launched Raju as Raju Darling.

  ‘So what?’ scowled Raju as she strode out of the studio, then crossed the chowrasta, the nearby crossing of four busy streets.

  It was after five in the evening and her empty insides growled. She had her head covered with her sari, pulling it over her face on one side, in case she was spotted and followed. In a few minutes she was at Nawab’s, a Muslim eatery. The waiter in his uniform knew her and showed her into a tiny cabin, pulling the red curtain to hide her from view. Raju ordered beef kasa, a spicy curry made with beef.

  ‘Surely you don’t want this, it’s cow, goru,’ Lily had asked, when she had first brought her there. ‘You can have egg curry.’

  But Raju had nodded her preference for the beef, to Lily’s amazement. Even the most hardened of the Hindu girls in the ‘line’ who smoked and drank did not touch the forbidden meat. Today, as she dipped her bread in the red curry, Raju almost didn’t taste the food in her mouth. She had to get one picture, just one outside picture with a top studio to throw off that Unique chappa. Being Unique’s Raju Darling, how she hated it now. She couldn’t, she just couldn’t wait another two years. They had said she could work outside…morning eleven till five in the evening, six hours for twelve days a month until before the time of Durga Pujo. That she had managed. But who would take her if she didn’t do action.

  ‘If I was with a big studio, like that Menoka, I would get some respect,’ thought Raju bitterly. What is Unique? One heroine studio, selling the skin off my back. Making me work to death. As if I’m their slave, not a star… won’t even let me try any new thing. Why can’t we do one comedy picture? Nahi chalega, won’t run. Why? Because Lily Madam says so. Won’t even give me the chance. Even that gone-to-hell Menoka got to do some good acting. And why not? She was at Bharat Talkies, not some phaltu Unique Pictures.

  Still, she was not without friends. A sudden smile played on Raju’s lips, cutting the sullenness of her face. Anil Babu was there. And that evening she would see him. She could make him do anything.

  It had been him that had put it in her head, the outside picture deal with Unique. He had known how to get one over Lily Madam and Mishtu Da.

  ‘As if I have so much brains,’ she smirked. No brains, and no mother or father, no English. Nothing…except for these breasts and legs and hands and fingers. Raju licked her fingertips, then took out the mirror from her handbag and studied herself. She had to make the best use of herself.

  Anil

  I

  Anil wanted to be a horse. Or a dog. Or even a donkey, if Raju would mount him. He had got shivers up and down his spine when he had watched and watched again the Raju Darling pictures where Raju whacked and walloped the villains, then mounted a horse, whip in hand and triumphantly trotted off. Or when she danced flaunting her bare waist, her skirt twirling up to show her ankles and calves. What a girl! And she was his, temper and tantrums and all. One instant she would flare up, and then be prancing again, like nothing had happened. Kept him on his toes! And she could cuss! The last hour she’d sulked, spewing abuses at that Madam of hers and Unique studio, and here she was now, her sweet self again.

  ‘Mine, mine, mine…’ she was singing, as she hugged the baby doll in her arms. It had arrived by order from London dressed in pink woollens, in its crib of pink silk, and felt like a real baby, soft and cuddly.
And it cried and said ‘mamma’ if you pressed its stomach.

  He laughed, and lunged, pulling her close. He had known she would love it. Poor girl, never anyone to look after her, never any nice things. He had seen it in the window at Francis, Harrison, Hathaway and Company on Free School Street but they had had only one, the one that was in the window. He had waited for close to an hour for them to find the old catalogue and placed an order there and then. It was expensive; you could buy two or three bottles of good cologne for that price. The advertisement in the catalogue had said it was a doll loved by the children of the royal household in England. Nothing but the best for his pet! She just needed somebody to calm her down.

  He sat her on his knees and cuddled her, a hand around her waist.

  ‘Put the baby…here,’ he whispered in her ear and pressed the doll against her stomach. It felt real, the three of them.

  ‘Ooff maaa,’ she squealed.

  He had squeezed the breath out of her. He laughed again. He liked worrying her, just a little bit. He would get the best imported creams and lotions for her, and perfumes and powders. For when he would make her lie down and press her legs and back, and knead the soles of her feet. Then he would spray her with perfumes and dust her with powder. And watch her fall asleep.

  No hurry, he always told himself, there was no rush, she was his. Sometimes he would open out her long plait, clucking in distaste at Kamala’s handiwork, and lovingly smooth out the tresses to do them up again, neatly and carefully. Raju hated it. Having to sit so still and him take so much time with it. Still, she needed him. He knew their world, the big people…

  ‘We’ll show them…’ he said to her another time, though he knew Unique would not let go of her without a fight.

  They would do everything in their power to keep her. Like that Lily woman telling her she couldn’t do action… as if they had a patent on it. He knew how the studios worked, creating their own stars and then tying them down. By hook or by crook. He himself fairly ran the biggest of them.

  And it was a saving grace that these girls were all uneducated, and all so young. It didn’t take much for the studios to nail them. He needed to see that contract. But he could hardly march to Modak and demand to see it without revealing everything. About him and Rajbala. It would cause a scandal. If really her contract was for another two years they would ask unheard of monies to release her, and he himself did not have that kind of money. And even if he did, Raju did not want to leave her life of a star. He would have to let her carry on, for now, with Unique or another studio, before she was ready for him…their life together.

  She had freed herself from his embrace, and was opening out the bottles of pickles and candies he kept for her. She gestured to him, ‘Khaben? Want some?’ She never used the more informal ‘tumi’ for him, always ‘apni’. Was it her respect for him? Or…did she still not think him close enough? Why he so often imagined the worst when it came to her, he didn’t know. She always seemed happy enough with him.

  How he envied Shankar Chattopadhyay. To make a star of Ramola Devi and keep her too! Shankar was a winner. He had made his life out of nothing. But Ramola? Born with a silver spoon in her mouth, acting like she was the Queen herself! Did she know what it was to want and not have? Life was kind to the likes of Ramola Devi, they had had everything, and all too easy. Shankar sheltered her from all worries, like she was a child. He himself had disliked her from the start, when he first joined Bharat Talkies, that was six years ago, though he admired Shankar Da. Still, he had made sure that she liked him, always jumping up to open doors and pull up chairs for her. She liked that, when people danced attendance on her, looked small in her presence.

  He lit a cigarette, puffed out a ring of smoke and watched it rise and disappear. Thanks to Ramola Devi, smoking was now prohibited inside the studio buildings. She said it choked her!

  He could see Raju pottering in the next room. He smiled as he watched her. How different Raju was from the likes of Ramola. She had spirit. Always wanting to try new things, good and bad. She had smelled his cigarette. ‘You didn’t give me the first pull,’ she scolded, then ran to him, ‘give it to me’.

  He allowed her one puff then pushed her away, ‘Naaaaa, no more’.

  But he secretly loved the way she would run up to him for a puff. Her way of always wanting to do things she wasn’t supposed to. That’s why she came with him the first time, he suspected, and then every time thereafter. For the thrill of having a secret. And of plotting, and planning together. Like they had planned to trump Mishtu Modak and that Lily Madam of hers.

  Raju wasn’t the first to wring an outside studio deal. Only, she had had no sense really, of her own worth. He had told her. She hadn’t even known what was happening inside most of the other studios. He knew, of course, it was part of his job. Some actresses and actors in Bombay were doing it, blackmailing the studios to let them work on their terms.

  Bombay had more money floating about, new companies making unheard-of one picture offers to the stars. They were safer here in Calcutta, less money flying here and more control for the big studios. Though, with the smaller studios the star always had more power, to swing things his or her way. And Unique Pictures was no Bharat Talkies. With Bharat Talkies it was different— there even the biggest stars knew their place.

  Still, they had their share of troubles, god knew. He had been at his wits end the night that that Menoka went and hanged herself. That rascal officer at the thana had fancied he would set him up with one of the studio girls!

  ‘You’re a lucky man, Anil Babu, sitting in heaven, with these beautiful apsaras…not like us, criminals and thugs, that’s our life…what I would give to change places with you for a night…’ As if his nights were spent in the company of those whores.

  Raju, she was different. And anyway, they had not spent any nights together. Only afternoons and evenings. It was seven or eight months now, and nobody the wiser. But how long could they carry on like this? Somebody was sure to get to know, some time, no matter how careful he was. And Raju, never as careful as she should be. Always too sure of herself, not thinking what could happen.

  But then she had not seen enough of the world, and he had everything to lose if anyone at Bharat Talkies knew. He could not have that, not at this time when everything was going his way.

  He had been like a right hand to Shankar Da, and Shankar Chattopadhyay now trusted him more than even his wife might know, or even like, for that matter. He knew that his boss watched him closely, and that he liked his quick thinking. And the fact that he could keep a calm head and a smile on his face, no matter what. He’d even had him attend some of the board meetings, telling him to take notes, but Anil had had a feeling that Shankar Da had greater things in store for him. On the Bharat Talkies board sat those that were the toast of Calcutta’s high society. A banker, a nationalist leader, a judge, a famous professor, two top directors. In their midst, he was a nobody. But Anil understood his boss well enough. He was forceful and could get his way, but also gave in to people…those on whom he depended. He had already given him charge of the studio’s daily business, so he could work fully on the new picture. Not the expenses, though, Shankar Da still approved those. But the boss would open up to him more…in the days ahead, he knew that.

  Ramola Devi, now she was a harder nut, for all that porcelain beauty of hers. She did not allow many informalities, and she wasn’t the kind that trusted easily. She could also have a sharp tongue, and sometimes Shankar would gently scold her for it. Many of those at Bharat Talkies were there because of Shankar Da. He had a knack for drawing people towards him, and he knew how to keep a balance between all of them. If Bharat Talkies had grown into what it was, one reason was that Shankar Da had kept Ramola away from the day-to-day business of it.

  II

  Raju smirked, as she looked across the room at Anil.

  ‘He’d be good,’ she thought, as he lit another cigarette, ‘…comic hero…running into things, hitting his head�
��’ Him with his round head, cherubic face, and round popping eyes. How she wanted to do a comedy, what fun it would be. They could do it together, her and him, when they had their new company. Should she tell him? He might not like it. He really was so very serious about everything, so affected by anything she said or did… it wasn’t always fun anymore. She frowned. She just needed to grumble about this or that or the other, and watch him start to fret. He wanted her to be happy…all of the time. As if she was a child! As if anyone could be happy all the time.

  He put out his cigarette then strolled back to her.

  ‘Ki, what’s worrying you?’ he placed a hand on her head.

  ‘I don’t like this place, it’s smelly, stuffy…’ Raju screwed her nose and tossed her head. ‘The first one was so nice, all sahibs and mems living that side…even the last one…’

  ‘But this one is closer, easier for you, isn’t it?’

  True, it was closer to Unique studio than the earlier place, she had had the durwan get her a tanga.

  ‘But I liked that last place,’ she pretended to sulk, watching his face.

  ‘Now, don’t you start again,’ he put an arm around her. ‘You know we have to be careful…that masima of yours…at that last place…kept asking…seen your wife somewhere. Very modern girl, I’m very fond of gaan myself, I’m sure she won’t mind singing for me sometime. Anyhow, that story about me renting a place so you can practice your music which my parents don’t approve of, it just didn’t hold water. Just that I was paying her so much that she kept quiet. But she would have placed you sooner or later, that gossipbaaz…then gone to town with a trumpet. And what’s wrong with this place? I got all your things here. You said it was nice, now what’s happened? I only latched the windows so the neighbours don’t pry, haven’t you seen how close the houses are?’