She had emerged clutching her jhola in which she carried her victuals, spotted Anil, made a face and turned the other way, when he had run up and held her arm, ‘Raju…’
She’d shrugged him off and tried to walk away. But he was having none of it.
‘What has happened? Have I done something? Tell me.’
Her face had hardened as she had looked down at the floor, ‘No…nothing…’
‘Then…?’ he’d pleaded.
‘Then what?’ had come her retort.
‘Why didn’t you come, last day? You don’t even look at me anymore.’
‘Why, didn’t you only say, don’t look at me…no one should know? Then, what now? Move aside, let me go.’ She had tried to dodge again past the corner, but he’d put out his arm stopping her.
‘Raju!’ Anil had fondly placed a hand on her head. ‘Don’t you even understand why I said that, what I had to do to get you here to Bharat Talkies? I can never forgive myself for all of that, still, I did it for you.’
‘I don’t need it, your pity, I could have done it myself too.’ She had tossed her head stubbornly.
‘Raju, don’t be angry, see, your picture is almost finished. After this we will tell everyone, I have decided. Enough of this, no more hide-and-seek. We will take Madam’s blessings, she praised you Raju, I had misunderstood her…I will touch her feet and ask you from her.’
‘Don’t pull Madam into this.’ Raju had looked even more determined. ‘What if Madam wants me for another picture? Will she take me if she hears all this?’
‘But Raju…’ Anil had felt the anger rise in him. ‘Hadn’t I said, after you came to Bharat Talkies, that after this we will go to Kalighat, get married? You wanted to show Unique Pictures, your Lily Madam and Mishtu Da…now what else?’
She had snapped, ‘You said…so what? Do I have to do all you say? Am I your bought slave or what? You feed me? Keep me? I earn my own keep…’
He had felt the blood boil inside him, ‘Who got you to Bharat Talkies, Raju…that today you can talk back to me? You would still be there, at your Unique studio, if not for my doing. Not another word from you after this picture is done or else…’
It was the wrong way, he had known even as the words had escaped his mouth.
Raju had spoken with poison in her eyes. ‘Is that so, Anil Babu? You think that Rajbala would be nothing, if not for you? Like Lily Madam would say, like they all like to say…’ She had twisted her face, ‘What will you say Anil Babu, if a very big director makes me his heroine, for his best picture?’
‘Big director…who?’
‘You find out, Anil Babu, if you think that you made Rajbala. Do what you want.’
He had taken her hand. ‘Raju listen to me, is this all that there is…these bioscope pictures and you being a star, am I nothing to you?’
‘No…nothing. You tried to keep me under your feet, you never would have got me to Bharat Talkies had I not gone away from you. You only wanted to keep me, like a dasi…but Rajbala is nobody’s bonded servant. You stop me Anil Babu, if you can. I have art in me. I will be the biggest star, bigger…than…than even Ramola Madam, if even I have to hang from the roof.’
As Anil stood agape, Raju had stridden away her plait swishing behind her.
IV
‘Menoka had not understood. She could not take her art to its highest.’ He had told her. ‘She put a rope around her neck and hung. And the others, before her, haven’t they told you, at the studio, tongues wagging, all about me…and those girls?’
Raju had not replied.
Saheb had laughed. ‘They had wanted me, Rajbala, not my art. That is why they failed.’
Tonight, again, he was speaking of Menoka, how she had wasted her art, not done his bidding. ‘It ate her inside…got her…in the end.’
‘She became mad, I heard?’ Raju whispered.
‘Mad? No, why mad. She became disobedient, in her mind.’ Saheb shook his head. ‘She thought too much, about everything, it became her sickness. She would think too much of herself. I turned her out. I will get a new heroine, I told her…she could not bear it. It was her fault…all of it her fault. Will you do as I say, Rajbala? Will you be my heroine?’ His eyes made her look away.
‘It will not be easy, being my heroine. You must never say no to me…never question…if you are to reach the highest step…the very top. If you think too much, it will become a cause for worry, for you and me.’
‘But…Madam…’ Raju hesitated.
‘Madam…yes…and what about your Madam?’ His eyes twinkled.
‘Madam says, listen to your own voice in your mind. Hear the director carefully, then do it in your way… think…and then…’
‘Think, think what Rajbala! It is not your part to think.’ He pushed back his chair, stood for a moment then walked to the open window. They were in the room with the bed and the big almirahs. Saheb had sat in his chair with the long arms, she on her side of the bed.
For a while he stared out at the darkness. Then turned back.
‘Your Madam…Ramola Devi, do you know why I never cast her in any of my pictures, in all of my years at Bharat Talkies? Because she thinks too much…way too much. Only a third grade director will tolerate such impudence…when the heroine tries to think, when her task is to act, and act only at his behest. That husband of hers, he would lick her feet, that was why he lost his touch…not that he ever was much of a director.’ Saheb grinned.
Raju sat still.
‘Have you ever eaten pig meat, Rajbala?’ His eyes were somewhere else, he wasn’t seeing her anymore. But something made him smile, before he looked back again at her.
She wasn’t sure what he meant, she shook her head.
His mouth twisted in mock surprise. ‘Shey ki, you don’t mean it, such a forward thinking girl like you. Do you know, in some places they eat human meat, humans like you and me, cooked alive sometimes.’ He laughed. ‘You must try everything, you know, once at least in your life. It is a must for an artiste…to feel, taste, smell, if you are to bring life to your work, you must live life to its fullest, do you understand, Rajbala?’
He let his voice trail as he leaned back to study her face. Raju turned her eyes away. She never could look him in the eye, not when he looked like that. But it would make her heart run, like she had not ever known before. Sometimes it would make her want to fall at his feet.
‘Menoka, now…’ he was speaking again. ‘Far too finicky, too much manamani, too many observances. I am a Brahmin father’s girl, she would tell me, not willing to let go of her obstinacies. At the end, marriage and home was all she could think.’ The scorn poured from his lips. His voice turned a pitch higher, ‘An artist cannot say no, if it is demanded of her. Menoka refused my commands, to play the role that I…I myself had written for her.’ His face curled into a smile, ‘She paid for it, with her own life.’
‘Why…’ Raju’s voice shook. ‘Why didn’t she want… that role?’
He shrugged. ‘Perhaps she had her reasons, but that is no matter, Rajbala. Your own wishes…your mind…they must all turn to dust if you are to become one with your art.’ He thought for a moment, his eyes on her. ‘Perhaps she imagined that I would give in, to her whims, what she had asked of me. She imagined…that I loved her.’ He stopped, again making her heart jump.
‘I might have given in, you know, just a little bit, even at the cost of art…if it had been now. If I too had loved… like I do now…’
V
‘How nice you look, it suits you’, Ramola smiled her affection. ‘Not a colour that I should wear anymore. It was a present from my father, when I was like you. It hasn’t aged a bit, still looks new, doesn’t it?’ She ran her eyes over the pink silk that Raju had worn to the tea-room. The pink of the sari matched the famous pink chandelier that hung in the room’s middle.
Raju blushed. She looks happy but somehow not herself, like she’s got something going on in that head of hers, Ramola thought. She’d been so very o
dd, so quiet when they were shooting outdoors, even when they had had a picnic. Then again her old self, that last row with Nishith Babu, but, after that, all funny again. Starts at nothing at all, not even looking you in the eye sometimes. Just not our Rajbala. What indeed is up with her, she thought again, as she studied the girl seated across from her.
First time probably, that she’s at a place like this, she must feel a little bit strange, though she’s trying to live up to it…English and all, Ramola mused, as she reached out for the plate of scones. ‘Try one of these, have it with some of that jam…here, let me.’ She placed a warm scone on Raju’s plate, leant over to cut it open and spread it over with some of the home-made jam.
‘Is it nice?’ she asked, trying to not notice the two memsahibs at the next table as Raju licked the jam off her scone and then bit into it. As it was, Raju had fairly distressed the young waiter with her solemn ‘How do you do, sir…I am fine, thank you,’ all in one breath. Not used to patrons greeting him thus, the poor boy, he must think she was making a fool of him. Must have picked it from some Hollywood picture, Ramola thought.
She poured herself another cup of tea. ‘I’ve been coming to this place since I was little, you know, it used to be a favourite of my father’s. He would always get me the pink sugar cakes they used to have, to match that jhar you see up there,’ she pointed upwards to the pink chandelier. ‘See, it matches with your sari…’
‘Can I keep it, the sari, just a few days?’ Raju gingerly picked some crumbs off her sari, then tossed her curls and announced. ‘If you please, kindly…’
‘It’s for you Raju. I won’t wear it anymore, you can keep it,’ Ramola smiled. There she goes again! Trying to be Rajbala from Hollywood.
‘Your father, won’t he be angry?’
‘No. He’s no more.’ She eyed Raju. ‘Where are your parents, Raju?’
‘Ma…going up.’ Raju tried her English, then pointed to the roof through her mouthful. ‘And your father?’ Raju made a face, ‘Never heard his name even.’
Ramola stirred her tea. Why had she asked? Wasn’t it all the same, for these girls? Why else would they be in the pictures? Cast into the world, a world that sucked the life away from them.
‘And how did you get into the pictures, Raju?’
‘Kamala Masi, she was in the theatre, she got me into this line, or we would have starved, ma and me. I would go where masi said, before. And now…Kamala Masi… she is Rajbala’s dasi…’ Raju smiled mischievously.
Ramola laughed, ‘I can quite imagine that, Raju, who could ever tie you down?’
She pondered a moment, then asked, ‘Raju, is everything alright? I mean, you have been a little bit… different.’ She lightened it, ‘Very…memsahib-like, all chupchap…quiet, like you’ve been thinking about something. If there is anything, you can tell me, you know.’
Raju gulped, looked like she’d been caught taking something that didn’t belong to her, bit her lip, and shook her head at the half scone on her plate.
Ramola frowned, ‘Raju, look at me…look here.’
Raju pouted, looked up a second, pulled a face and looked away again.
‘What is it Raju? Whatever is the matter?’ Ramola’s heart sank. ‘You’re not…not…in any kind of trouble are you?’
Raju smiled and shook her head again, more deliberately this time. The little donkey, Ramola glared, whatever is she smiling about? Surely, the little idiot… good god…surely she hasn’t…
‘Raju, have you…err…have you…been somewhere… with someone?’
Raju blinked. How in Ma Kali’s name did Madam know? She pressed her lips together, she wasn’t going to tell, not till she was full ready. She picked up her fork and started to butter the rest of the scone with it.
Ramola’s patience left her, ‘Raju, will you say something, for heaven’s sake? Have you…have you… lost your shame? When was the last time you had your monthlies?’
Raju blinked again, then hid her face to stop the burst of giggles, startling the two ladies at the next table and causing Ramola to go red.
‘This is not a laughing matter Raju,’ she hissed angrily. ‘You must tell me if it is something of the kind.’
‘What Madam?’ Raju was trying hard to stop laughing. Had some bhoot, some spirit or jin gotten inside Madam…or what?
‘Look here, Raju, if there is someone that I could speak to…if he will hold your hand, if his family will allow it? Does he have a family, Raju?’
‘Who Madam?’ Raju asked, making Ramola more cross still.
‘Don’t pretend with me. How could you Raju, I never could have thought it of you. Though I should have known, really, after how peculiar you’ve been. You girls…your kind…do you even understand the kind of trouble…you foolish girl…’
She sucked her breath in then let it slowly out, it wouldn’t do to lose her calm, ‘We could find a way still. It’s early days, it seems. Is he in the pictures…actor?’
‘No Madam?’
Ramola raised her eyebrows. ‘Then what?’
‘What Madam?’
Ramola clutched her head.
‘Does this masi of yours know?’
‘No Madam?’
Ramola thought for a moment. ‘Well, then you had better not tell her, not just yet. It’s bound to get to the whole world. Women like her are so inevitably without tact.’
‘Yes Madam’
‘How long has this been going on Raju?’
Raju made a face. ‘You won’t say to anyone…until…’
‘No, I won’t say it to anyone, for your sake. Now tell me, how long have you been at it?’
Raju considered, ‘Five…no…four days Madam. Three days in the last week, and one day this week, then no more. No time Madam. What to do? So much work in the studio. Even this last Sunday was rehearsal, you know it, Madam.’
‘Wait…’ Ramola snapped, ‘whatever do you mean Raju…four or five days…’
‘Hmmm…’ Raju was smug. ‘She’s a memsahib…’ She pointed to the mems who were preparing to leave. ‘Like those two there.’
‘A memsahib…what memsahib, Raju?’
‘That one I went to, for learning English. How do you do…I am fine thank you. Sunday…Munday…Thusday… Wed-nesday…good morning. Memdidi said socho phir bolo, think before you talk, think in your head in English, then say. So Madam, I was little bit chupchap, quiet like, thinking, then talking…in this English place…’ Raju nodded smilingly.
‘Well reaaaly…Raju…’ Ramola was shaking her head in disbelief. ‘Do you mean you’ve been taking English lessons on the sly from some memsahib! Anyhow I wasn’t meaning just today, really, but how you have been, for a while now. You really will be my death someday Raju… English, from a memsahib! So that’s why your “how do you do”, and “I am fine, thank you”…whatever got in your head, Raju?’
Raju pouted. ‘Why, won’t everybody say, such a big star and no English! After our picture becomes a hit…’
Ramola shook her head exasperated, ‘Really Raju, how in the wide world do you know the picture is going to be a hit? We never can say such thing…beforehand…’
Raju grinned, ‘With Rajbala Madam, your picture will be hit, that everybody knows. Only, now I have to become like a memsahib…like you Madam,’ her face glowed. ‘If I have to be a true artist I have to be cultured…you will see Madam, one day they will write in the papers, Rajbala was born with art inside her. She gave her life to her art.’
Ramola stared at Raju. Wherever had she learnt all of this?
VI
Shankho was crying. ‘I will hang myself. Put a rope around my neck and hang from the roof. I have said to him, after I die, put me in the fire.’
Dhonu winked at Kusumkumar as he poured more of the golden liquid in Shankho’s glass. ‘And…he said what?’
Shankho wiped his eyes and took a swig. ‘Nothing. I wrote a letter, three letters I wrote, not one reply’. More tears welled up in his eyes.
‘Tum s
aala, you fool. What are your hands and legs for? Put them to use. Remember my Sethji?’ Dhonu grinned.
‘He’s not like that. What will you know…you Nepali…’ Shankho pouted through his tears.
‘Not like that!’ Dhonu mimicked him. ‘They’re all like that, you just have to get them in the right way, you saala nyaka good-for-nothing drunkard. Kya, Jhantu Da? You say…’
Jhantu was dressed as King Pandu of the great epic, his tin helmet of silver and gold lay despondently beside him. His heroine Miss Duniyabala had taken flight, also in full costume, with her lover, the director himself, leaving behind the missive that she was very close at hand and would return if her full pay was given in advance to one bhai she had left waiting outside of the studio.
When he became Kusumkumar, Jhantu liked to think of himself as a messenger of love, what with the amorous roles he was so adept at playing. Love that was shot through arrows from the eyes, and with that the dancing of the eyebrows, the puckered lips and heaving bosom. Though in real life love was not something he kept much faith in. What was it, except the same old pattern? You just had to change it around a little bit every other time. He nodded quietly. The Nepali was right.
All this talk of love was starting to get to him. What with having to sit through the afternoon, awaiting the return of Miss Duniyabala in this den where the studio lot came for liquor.
Still, he didn’t like to openly disparage love. It went against how people looked upon him, in their studio para. Though, love made him afraid sometimes. The way it could rob people of their senses. He looked again at Shankho. And the rascal Nepali. Shankho was on his third or fourth glass, eyes bleary. He really will give his life someday, for that prince of his, if this nesha doesn’t get him before that. Love is not for the likes of us baba, he thought. Who loves people like us? We were not born to be loved, not this kind of love. But who was to tell that to the mad ones…the love-struck.
He had wanted to say it to Raju. After Natabar Da told him everything. And after he had watched her for some days. The girl had changed. Become all stuck-up, naak unchu, after she went to the big studio. Like she’s some memsahib, not the same angry, funny, fun-loving Raju. Spoke with him like he was some untouchable achhut or something, not how she would be with him before, like she had owned him…cussing half of the time.
Menoka has hanged herself Page 20