But Ambarish…he worried her, more than she liked to admit. He had come to see her, after Shankar died, his courtesies had not seemed regular…somehow rather odd, why she still could not fathom. Not once had he uttered any commiserations. Though of course Ambarish had always been a little bit odd. So brilliant in his work, but he mingled with none of the studio lot. No family that she knew of…his mother had died some years ago. He had turned more reticent after they had had to stop work on Pativrata, after Menoka. It was to be his next big picture, though he had directed those two educational shorts in the meantime, the stuff that the big studios had to keep turning out these days. He had himself offered it…given he was out of work, he had joked. And, of course, that comedy short, which had done quite well, really…who knew Ambarish could have a flair for comedy. He really was rather brilliant. He had said he would find a new heroine for Pativrata, and she had left it at that…only Mira had been on her mind. But she had seen less and less of him at the studio. The last time was soon after Raju had arrived, when he had come on the set one morning and watched as Raju had rehearsed. Two months in a row he had not taken his pay from the studio. Was he severing his ties then…with Bharat Talkies? She would need to find him, and speak with him, sooner now than later, though she hardly relished that prospect. What was he up to…Ambarish?
X
The pork curry had tasted good, with the hot chillies. She always made it special for him, how he liked it. He had chanced upon Fan on one of his visits to the China para. Fan kept pigs, and cooked them for the nearby leather workers. It was hard to tell from seeing her how strong she was. He had watched her one afternoon as she had dragged a squealing swine into the open yard and struck it with her axe. The screams kept coming as it had slowly bled, while Fan had busied herself tossing up some lunch. They had eaten silently in her kitchen, by the yard, hearing the cries and the tossing. Fan liked him, he could tell that. He liked her too, though they only spoke in signs. He could see it in her eyes. That she liked being close with them, once the life had ebbed out of them, while she cleaned the bloody mess and skinned them.
Fan’s husband adored her. Why she had to do it all herself, he had said to Ambarish in his broken pidgin. She could get a man for the dirty work, they could afford it. What did he know, that Cheena opium khor? She likes it, she just doesn’t tell him that. That old fool was lucky to have her. He might himself have gotten Ma a bouma, a very dear daughter-in-law, had he found someone like Fan…he giggled at the thought.
He might have taken a rickshaw back to the end of Cheena para, after dinner at Fan’s, but he had chosen to walk. Through the dark allies he knew so well. The darkness that hid him from the world. What a pity, he thought, that one couldn’t axe one of them beshyas and stand by and hear the squeals. Were those beshya houses any different from Fan’s pig sty? What was different… between those pigs and the flesh on a whore? But these English and their darned laws…they’d still call it murder if someone did it to a rotten beshya.
Though he hadn’t gone to one, since he had found Rajbala. She was different from those others. She captivated him. So eager to be at the very top…be seen and counted. He smiled. To put her past behind her, at whatever cost. She had made it easy for him, after a bit. To get inside her head. Build the castles and prisons there. Prisons that she wanted to escape and castles where she wished to ensconce herself. Just as he had wanted it. Rajbala, the prisoner princess.
Menoka…he had made and then unmade her. The little nobody had started to think no end of herself. So he had had to put her in her place. It hadn’t taken him much doing. He had known her…inside and outside… he would, wouldn’t he, picking her from the gutter, that cage stuffed with pigs. Rajbala now, she was another thing. He had to give that to her, bitch in the midst of them dogs, girl that could give the men in their line a run for their money. No matter what raddi junk pictures she was queen of. She’d had the cheek to try her juice on him…those first days, slipping her sari from her chest, making eyes at him…he snorted. Had she imagined him to be one of her Raju Darling public? She had made him think a little bit though, how to get inside that smug head of hers…muddle it up a little bit, and hadn’t he enjoyed it. He was so tired of the likes of Menoka, clutching and clinging, their surrender at his feet…he needed more…a game, like those pigs Fan hunted, petting and pushing them out of their dens to where she had her axe ready. Making them think she would feed them, humming and calling out to them by their names.
He had pictured it…Ma in a cage with Putu when Putu would feed at her breast, then Putu pulled away from Ma, like Fan’s fattened piglets. Putu streaming blood at the neck, while Ma looked on. Still, he sighed, one had to be sensible about these things. Not get carried away. And Rajbala was no Putu. Putu had pulp in place of brains…Ma’s little piglet, but Rajbala, she was sharp alright. How clever are you Rajbala? Clever enough to force back a dream? Because, after all, it is only a dream, is it not? You never could get there, could you? One of your kind be one of us? No matter what the great and good Ramola Devi says to you.
Ramola Devi…our big director of tomorrow, so sure, are you, that this picture of yours will see light of day? He grinned, keep a hold on your heroine, Madam… keep her very close to you. For who knows, what might happen?
PART 5
I
Natabar had known something was wrong. But what could he do about it. The girl did not want to see his face even. Still, he had not lost sight of her…no, not he… nyaka Natabar knew when he had to keep his eyes and ears open. He had put Kajol on the job.
Kajol was fifteen or sixteen. Birthed and left to die beside one of the nullas in the studio para, he had found a nest with Natabar, though these days after he got the high from his nesha, he would swear and beat Natabar, sometimes causing Natabar to run out onto the street to escape the blows. Still, Kajol had his uses. Dark and shrunken with two or three bald patches on his head, he could melt into the shadows of the night. Nobody ever noticed Kajol, or if they did, they never remembered him. Kajol had kept watch outside of where Raju lived, in the evenings and until the early hours of morning when the car from the old house would bring her back.
‘Big car, black one…’ he said to Natabar. ‘Dent in the side.’
‘Whereabouts does she go? You made anything of it?’ Natabar asked eagerly.
‘You saala nyaaka, what can I make out,’ Kajol spat at Natabar, ‘…middle of the night…what, will I go flying after the car, to see where it goes? Picks the girl and off it goes, then back again, how do I know where that saali slut goes in the night?’
‘Who drives?’ Natabar tried again.
Kajol pondered. ‘Man’s a musalman, one day he stepped on something dead, something in the dark…rat or cat or something…then said, ya Allah.’
‘Hmmm…’ Natabar mused, that was precious little to go by, so many of these rich people had musalman drivers.
‘But it’s the same car every time…now, give me the money…’ Kajol was getting thirsty. He wanted to get to his adda.
So, she’s got a fixed babu now. But that was the funny thing, Natabar pondered. Raju had hardly ever wanted to see again the face of anybody she took once…how could it be that she had changed, just like that. Why… so many of them had pleaded with him, but she had refused. Else, Natabar sighed, they would be sitting on a mountain of notes. That girl always had too many likes and dislikes. It wasn’t like her, to settle with a babu, like some of these other girls.
Who put her to it? That magi Kamala? Surely not. Wouldn’t she shrink in fear in front of Raju? No, Raju had kept her under her feet. But then, who else? If only this boy Kajol wouldn’t be so stoned.
And her man? Who was he? Someone of the studio para? But whoever it was had to be somebody important. Natabar knew Raju well enough.
‘Ei buro, you old fool, you give my money or I’ll find that stick.’ Kajol was lounging in the corner of their dingy room. Suddenly, he perked up.
‘Arre, see I forgot…saal
a, without drink in my stomach I can’t even think.’
Natabar was fumbling in his pocket for some change.
‘What now…’ he was fed up of this boy. Showing his face after so many days, and with what?
‘…Arre…I forgot, that old magi, that one that keeps them whores, feeds on them…ufff I can’t remember my own name sometimes these days…’ Kajol cackled. ‘Some flower, that’s her name…jui…golap…hmmm yes, yes, I remembered, padma, Padma masi of the studio para. That magi came to that girl’s house one day, before the car came, stayed a half hour…or maybe one…I fell asleep on the footpath, woke up when the car came. That buri, that hag went in the car, with your pyaari, your precious slut.’
Natabar had frozen. Kajol grabbed the money from his hands, and ran out. Natabar sank to the floor.
Padma, that whoring bitch. She would sell the skin off the back of these girls, eat their flesh. How she hated them, him and his kind, and he for one had turned half the studio para against her. Everybody knew it was him against her, in their side of the line. Only, he could fight tooth and nail for his girls, so what that he put them in the line…and that Padma, Natabar smirked…in her hands, those girls were as good as dead. Raju had never said anything about Padma. Not even her name. How did Padma get her hands on Raju? Kamala…must be that. Kamala, that rotten old magi, she’d left the studio para a long time but she had her friends. Padma…that was it, Padma had gotten Raju to where she would go in the night. That Padma could kill…for money. He had to know, somehow, where Raju went. Kajol wouldn’t do. Who could he tell? Should he tell Jhantu? Perhaps, but first he would have to know more.
II
He’s going to run, Ramola thought. He’s not going to be able to go through with it.
The tall man in the grey trousers was hovering near the door of the main dining hall of the newly opened private hotel, the Ritz. It was twenty minutes past one in the afternoon, and she had come in sharp on time. He was late, and he was looking like someone had dragged him there.
Avinash Mukherjee bowed slightly not looking at her, then walked across stiffly and gingerly seated himself across from her. Ramola puckered her lips.
‘How are you Mr Mukherjee, I thought you weren’t coming after all,’ she raised her eyebrows in mock displeasure.
‘I…I am late…I…’ he fumbled before looking up at her. She was smiling. He looked away.
‘You’re really making me feel rather ashamed Mr Mukherjee,’ she said. He had ordered only soup, she the chicken and gravy, her favourite. ‘Are you not hungry?’
‘Yes…no, not exactly Madam, late breakfast I took, in the office,’ he took another swig from his glass. She wondered what might be a suitable subject of talk.
‘Tell me Mr Mukherjee, you have been…err…involved with the pictures for some years now, the business side of it, I mean? Did you ever think of getting in them, I mean as an actor…you do have that kind of face you know.’
It wasn’t something she’d thought before, why, he really was rather good-looking, now that she had looked at him more carefully. In truth, he might have been in the pictures.
Avinash Mukherjee choked on his glass, coughed, then unexpectedly broke into a smile.
‘Well in fact, Madam…I did try my luck, in the very early days of my career. Silent picture it was…but not quite my thing, as it turned out.’
‘Now that’s a little secret you’ve hidden from us all,’ Ramola beamed. ‘But even my first picture…it was a success of course, but I was still so, so raw, I still had so much to learn, then. You might have given yourself another chance, don’t you think?’
A bashful Avinash Mukherjee ran his hand through his hair.
‘But then, it is direction…that side of it that draws you now, is it not? Shankar did tell me a little bit, about your conversations,’ Ramola leaned forward eagerly.
‘It’s nothing really, just some thoughts in my head. Nothing very serious.’ He shook his head deprecatingly.
‘But why?’ Ramola had not seen the front of her sari starting to dip into the sauce boat.
Avinash Mukherjee’s arm shot forward even before she knew it, and had gently pushed her back by the shoulder. The very next moment he was up on his feet looking fairly stricken.
‘I am most awfully sorry Madam…I did not mean, I…’ He looked again like he might bolt forthwith.
‘Do sit down Mr Mukherjee,’ Ramola laughed, ‘and thank you…tomato gravy sauce does rather ruin clothes, white especially.’ She gestured to her white chiffon.
Avinash Mukherjee glanced around uncertainly, lowered his head in what looked like a small bow then sat down again. Ramola turned the topic.
‘Tell me, did you have occasion to watch any of Rajbala’s pictures, the ones she made earlier? I must admit I haven’t myself, though of course I did know of her, and, of course, the pictures of her, in the magazines…’
‘Well, yes Madam, one or two with a friend…he is himself in the pictures, character artiste…’ he paused, ‘though…they are not exactly to my taste.’
Ramola nodded, ‘I quite understand that Mr Mukherjee. I worry…how the audience will take Rajbala in Mirabai.’
‘In that case, Madam, if I may ask, what had prevailed on you…to engage her?’
Ramola mused for a moment. How could she tell him?
‘Well, you see, it was thought best, in all quarters, that I not appear in a picture quite so soon after…you know, Shankar…that the public would not accept it,’ she sighed. ‘Also there was the studio, so many things that I needed to put my mind to, I possibly would not have given my full to this picture.’
Avinash Mukherjee appeared a little bit agitated.
‘But Madam, whoever told you that…that the public will not accept you, in the present circumstances? As if you were in some way responsible? Surely, it is just a passing thought? You do mean to appear in future pictures…soon enough?’ He seemed about to scold her.
Ramola puckered her lips, ‘I don’t know yet, I really don’t have something in mind, for myself,’ she laughed.
‘I’m suddenly a little bit uncertain, like you yourself… about those thoughts you have in your head.’
Avinash grinned and looked away, scooping up a spoon of his lemon soufflé.
Ramola smiled as she skimmed off the top of her own caramel custard.
‘Quite unlike my heroine, Rajbala, you know. Never a doubt in her mind, ever, about her own capabilities. She is quite convinced that she is the very best and no less.’ She rolled her eyes in mock disapproval. ‘Really rather impetuous, but rather a remarkable young woman.’
‘I noticed, she has her own mark, over and above how she is directed…’ Avinash Mukherjee nodded thoughtfully to his half-eaten soufflé.
‘You did see it, didn’t you?’ She was pleased. ‘And that I do think is the mark of a star. When you can write yourself into the picture, hand in hand with the director… whatever his views. Nisith Babu is rather opposed to that, he is rather fixed in his ways. With me too he did do his very best to…smooth over my own peculiarities… on the screen.’ She laughed.
Avinash looked up at her, ‘Those very same peculiarities are what so many ladies model themselves on, Madam’. Ramola reddened, then gathered herself.
‘But in truth, Mr Mukherjee, we have such thoughts, about good pictures and bad pictures…which is art and which not. Yet, somehow, this girl has rather opened my eyes. About how superfluous they are sometimes, these markers of high and low…how Raju could move on from such a very different class of pictures to the Bharat Talkies kind, bringing to us her very own way of doing things…rather remarkable, really.’
‘Do you plan to retain her further, after this picture is finished?’
‘Truly, I couldn’t say yet, Mr Mukherjee. Though I would like to. I hope to, if we do get a favourable response to her…you know what the business is like, we must not go too far away from the audience’.
Avinash Mukherjee nodded his understandin
g.
‘Though I must say…’ for an instant, lines creased Ramola’s forehead. ‘Raju has been a little bit…different, of late. More serious…you know. She is almost a child, coming into my office to ask for biscuits, throwing fits for nothing at all…why…those things are rarer now.’ She seemed suddenly struck by the fact of it.
‘Perhaps it is the role…’ Avinash Mukherjee proffered. ‘If the last part is still how it was first written, rather demanding in its terms…was it not?’
‘Quite…you are right, Mr Mukherjee, it must be just that. She has not been used to such deep immersion in a character, possibly it has made her think. Some things change you so much, don’t they?’ Ramola was pensive, not seeing Avinash Mukherjee’s eyes as they came to rest on her face.
‘Though…’ she sighed. ‘I am a little bit worried. Of course, her work is not to be reproached, rather she makes every last effort. But she has looked…well, fatigued. The make-up hides it of course…but her eyes are…sunken. I do hope she’s not unwell…’
III
Raju shook off Anil’s hand, glared at him and walked off.
He had been lurking around the girls’ dressing room, cigarette and matchbox in hand. In case someone came by he could always feign that he was there in that quiet corner of the building for a quick smoke…not wanting to go all the way to the back garden. None of the other girls were in sight. She would step out any minute, he knew. She would always eat her lunch in the back garden by the peara tree, he only had to wait.
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