Show Business

TAKE THREE

Interior: Night

I can’t believe I’m doing this.

Me, Ashok Banjara, undisputed Number One at the national box office, the man for whom the filmi press has just invented the term megastar, the hero who earns in a day what the president of India makes in a year, not to mention lord and occasional master of the pulchritudinous Mehnaz Elahi, chucking my little triplets under their shapeless one-year-old chins, lip-synching the juvenile inanities that their fond mother addresses them from the other side of the cot. But it is me, it’s my mouth that’s puckering in an inaudible kitchy-koo, it’s my finger that Leela, or is it Sheela, or even blue-faced Neela, stretches out to grab in her chortling little grip. Me, Ashok Banjara, proud father, a role that sits uneasily on my expensively padded shoulders. But I am happy to play it, at least for a few takes. I stroke each of my daughters’ chubby cheeks in farewell, and they gurgle in response; the Banjara magic appeals to females of every generation. My eyes meet Maya’s over the cot, and we exchange a complicitous smile.

“Do you have to go, Ashok?” she asks, as the ayah begins to change the diapers and we move away from the babies.

“You know I do,” I reply reasonably. After all, it is my profession.

“You spend so little time with the girls,” she says.

What she really means, of course, is that I spend so little time with her. “They’ve got you, my love,” I point out. “That’s the whole idea, isn’t it? One of us must be with them as much as possible. I’ve got to go out and earn the daal and chawal.”

“But you don’t need to work so hard anymore, Ashok,” she says. “We can afford all the daal and chawal we can possibly want, and more. You told me yourself you didn’t know what to do with all the black money that’s been pouring in.”

What she really means is, you don’t have to do so many films with Mehnaz Elahi. She’s heard the rumors, like everyone else. But she never asks about her. Never even mentions Mehnaz’s name. Proud woman, my wife. I like that about her: her pride.

“Sweetheart, it’s a treadmill,” I explain, a slight note of impatience entering my voice. “I can’t get off it. Not without serious injury. There’s a special responsibility to being at the top, you know. I’ve got to maintain my position. And the only way I can do that is by making more and bigger hits. The best scripts keep being offered to me because I’m Number One. I do them, so I stay Number One. The moment I say no to a sure-fire property, somebody else will snap it up and producers will begin to believe that Ashok Banjara is duplicable. Then no one will want to pay for the original article anymore.”

“So what?” she asks. “You’ve achieved everything there is to achieve in the industry. Why should you have to keep on struggling?”

“I’m not struggling, Maya,” I snap. “I’m working. Now you’ve got to be reasonable. Please.” I walk to the door.

“Ashok.” There is a catch in her voice. I remember, almost in wonder, how the slightest hint of tears in Maya’s tone would melt my heart. Not it is all I can do to control my irritation. “Ashok, don’t go today. Please. For my sake.”

“Maya, sometimes I don’t understand you at all.” I do not attempt to dampen the asperity in my response. “People are waiting for me. There is a whole studio gearing up for a shoot. How can I not go?”

“You won’t be the first actor who’s failed to turn up for a shooting,” she says. “You could be ill. I could be ill.”

“But you’re not,” I reply. “And I’m not. Maya, look, if there were a good enough reason, of course I could tell the studio I can’t make it. But just like that?”

“So my asking you isn’t a good enough reason,” she says, averting her face.

I can’t take any more of this. “Look, I’ve got to go,” I growl. I shut the door harder than I intended. But I don’t have the time to go back and apologize.

What has come over Maya these days? Some postnatal emotional instability, I suppose. It’s not as if the triplets are driving her around the bend; with an ayah and two servants, she doesn’t have to do much more than occasionally hold the bottle. Maybe it’s too easy, maybe she needs a more demanding style of motherhood. She seems happy enough sometimes, but then suddenly she goes all teary and irrational with me, like today. I’m glad her mother is coming next week. That’ll take the pressure off me. It would have been even better if she’d gone to her mother for the birth, of course, but then Bhopal’s facilities can’t match Breach Candy’s. So I suggested Maya’s mother come here instead for the delivery, but Maya had some sort of silly determination to start parenthood alone, with just me around. She said it would bring us closer together. She even wanted me to be in the delivery room, for Christ’s sake. The hospital smartly put a stop to that idea, but it was a reflection of the way in which Maya seems to be grabbing for me all the time these days. Through the triplets she’s reminding me all the time that I’m not just Ashok Banjara, megastar; I’m also part — hell, I’m the head — of a unit of five. Paternal responsibility’s the role, and I guess I know the script.

It’s not that I mind all that much. I keep telling Maya I’m happy to see myself that way: Ashok Banjara, husband and father. What the hell, I’ve certainly not shied away from that image in the media. Cyrus Sponerwalla played the births for all they were worth. Filmfare had a double-page spread of Maya and me holding the triplets up to our beaming faces. Star and Style did a whole feature entitled “NEW! Ashok Banjara’s Favorite Costars.” Even Radha Sabnis, whose tone is getting slightly bitchy again since I’ve failed to make a habit of pouring her champagne and submitting to rape, mentioned it in her Cheetah column: “Darlings, Ashok Banjara may not be able to teach Dustin Hoffman much as an actor, but he has certainly turned out to be a pretty good producer, eh? Triplets, and all girls at that! Well, the Hungry Young Man would never be satisfied with just one woman in his life, would he? Grrrowl …”

But now the excitement is fading, and Maya’s brief return to the pages of the film magazines seems to be over. I’m getting on with my life, but she doesn’t seem to know what she wants. Apart from me, that is. All to herself, all the time. Well, she can’t have that. I can’t afford to give it to her.

At the studio they want me to do another song picturization, a duet with Mehnaz. Mehnaz is a big name now; it hasn’t hurt that she’s unusually willing, for a star, to wear what the film industry euphemistically calls “modern dress,” garments so skimpy they make obvious what “traditional” dress used to leave to the imagination. “Modern” is the adjective most commonly applied to Mehnaz, but “willing” is the one I prefer. She’s always willing: on the set, with the dance director, and (why be coy about it?) in bed. Everyone looks forward to working with her. Especially me.

Old Mohanlal is our director today and he’s as anxious as ever, his creased brow revealing nerves as frayed as his cuffs. It looks as if seven has become his standard place on the Mohanlal Scale of High Anxiety. But things have changed. The dance director is a more adventurous soul than was old Gopi Master. He’s a Goan called Lawrence who actually has new ideas, in tune with the new music that is sweeping our sound tracks. The traditional techniques of the Gopi Masters have passed away along with the illustrious, semiclassical composer duos who dominated the film world for decades, chubby men with oily hair who thought the violin the last word in modernity. The principles of classical Indian dance don’t apply anymore to the snazzy rhythms our popular music directors are now unashamedly plagiarizing from the West. Both the beat and the spirit of the films call for a fresh choreographical approach, and Lawrence is the one who provides the fancy footwork for it. Mohanlal just watches, his face lined in worry and incomprehension.

Lawrence must be fifty if he’s a day, a wizened and wiry little man with more energy than Radha Sabnis after champagne. He wears a sleeveless T-shirt, tight corduroy trousers, and smooth-soled dancing shoes specially made for his tiny feet by a Chinese cobbler in Calcutta. Lawrence doesn’t just direct, he dances all the routines himself, my bits and Mehnaz’s, explaining every step and repeating every action till we’ve got it right and his T-shirt is soaked in sweat. Through it all Mohanlal pulls threads off his white cotton shirt and gray hairs off his now more sparsely covered head. A feature of Lawrence’s dancing style for me is the use of martial gestures: feet kicked high and strong, hands slashing through the air karate-style, assertive thumps of leather boots. Thanks to Lawrence I can dance and still retain my macho image; nor is my lack of fluid bharata natyam grace any longer a handicap. But Lawrence also comes up with the hip wiggles and pelvic gyrations that have pushed Mehnaz Elahi so rapidly to stardom. I stand and watch this quinquagenarian gnome, all lean dark skin and sinew, stretch and swivel and grind his nonexistent curves for Mehnaz to imitate, and I resist the urge to laugh. No one else, not even Mohanlal, seems to find anything incongruous in the movements of this fisherman’s son, whose style nets him more dance direction assignments than he can have had chicken dinners throughout his entire childhood.

But today’s scene is a curious mélange: a traditional, even hackneyed, girl-and-boy-get-amorous-in-the-rain song, with traditional, definitely hackneyed lyrics, being picturized to Lawrence’s untraditional, jack-kneed dance movements. While Mehnaz changes into the chiffon sari and skimpy blouse she is supposed to get wet in this scene — the kind of costume that would have made poor Abha’s deception impossible, but which heroines have only been called upon to don in these bolder times — Mohanlal spends fifteen anxious minutes discussing the picturization with Lawrence and me. Mehnaz has to be coy and revealing at the same time, and Lawrence has no doubt which he prefers. It is largely thanks to him that this daughter of an aristocratic Hyderabadi family has become the barest exponent of Bollywood’s brave new whirl.

Mohanlal no longer speaks to me in Hinglish: I’ve been mouthing Salim-Javed dialogues for too long now to need that concession to my Anglophone background. Lawrence’s Hindi has never been too strong, though, and it is soon apparent that his planned moves for Mehnaz completely contradict the reticence of her lyrics. Mohanlal, his anxiety climbing to a nine, feels the dance has to be altered to conform to the song. Lawrence is volubly outraged. “Change the lyrics,” I suggest jokingly. “We can’t,” Mohanlal replies in all seriousness, his pitch ascending to a ten, “the song’s already been recorded.” Of course I know that, but my point is that no one is going to care about the lyrics anyway; they’re just going to want to see Mehnaz succumbing to me on screen, and the words she’s mouthing will seem incidental. I take Lawrence’s side in the debate. Voices are raised. Mohanlal’s voice and nerves both threaten to snap, but finally he gives in. Things have changed since Musafir. I don’t lose too many arguments on the studio floor.

Mehnaz enters at last, a vision in blue georgette on creamy flesh, and Lawrence, appropriately enough, blows a shrill whistle. He is not expressing admiration, merely signaling to the idlers that their time has come to be usefully engaged. The hubbub in the studio dies down. Mohanlal collapses on a chair. We are ready to begin.

“Lights! Camera! Action!”

The tape starts, but the rain doesn’t. We try again. This time the rain does, but the tape doesn’t. Mehnaz and I are prematurely wet and growing increasingly exasperated. “It doesn’t matter,” says Mohanlal, uncharacteristically calm. “We’ll show it raining before the song starts, so you can be wet already. OK? Ready, Ashok?” This last is because I have been staring somewhat obliviously at Mehnaz in the first flush of her wetness. I have seen her without anything on in the privacy of her bedroom, and yet when I watch her fully dressed in public it is as if I am seeing her for the first time.

“Ready,” I reply, though I feel anything but. The tape starts, and I pretend to sing:

Let me shelter you from the rain,

Keep you safe from all pain,

Kiss you again and again,

Let me hide you from the eyes of the world.

Kisses aren’t legal yet with our censors, so Mehnaz evades my offered lips and escapes my clutches, dancing away. But I catch hold of one end of her sari pallav, which unravels, so as I flamenco toward her she is forced to pirouette back to me, pleading:

Let me slip away, my dear,

And overcome my fear,

Please don’t come so very near,

Let me hide before my modesty’s unfurled.

“Cut!” Rarely have I so resented a directorial intrusion. “Now what’s the matter?” Mehnaz asks. Mohanlal’s anxiety is compounded with embarrassment: it turns out her bra strap’s showing. “What do you expect, with this blouse your tailors given me?” she flashes with spirit. “There’s more cloth on one of Ashok’s handkerchiefs.”

I would have preferred her not to reveal so much familiarity with the contents of my pockets, but the point is taken. There is a hasty consultation: actress, director, costume designer, wardrobe attendant, and (since I have nothing better to do) me. Alternative blouses are brought out for inspection and discarded, for a variety of reasons, as inappropriate. The final solution, I have to admit, comes from me: she could wear the same blouse, but without a bra.

Mehnaz looks at me expressively, and I move my hands in a Can you think of anything better? gesture. She retreats to her dressing room while the cameraman calls unnecessarily for a baby — not one of my triplets, thank God, but a small spotlight — and the makeup man powders my glistening nose. When she returns, my heart skips a beat. Little has now been left even to my satiated imagination.

“Go easy on the close-ups,” Mohanlal mutters to the cameraman in less-than-chaste Punjabi. “Keep her you-know-whats out of the frame. I don’t want the censors cutting the entire bloody song.” The cameraman raises a blasé eyebrow and nods elliptically.

We start again. The first couple of verses go without incident.

ME:

Let me shelter you from the rain,

Keep you safe from all pain,

Kiss you again and again,

Let me hide you from the eyes of the world.

MEHNAZ:

Let me slip away, my dear,

And overcome my fear,

Please don’t come so very near,

Let me hide before my modesty’s unfurled.

I pull her to me, drop the end of the pallav, and hug her, as we dance in a circle. She has only the thin blue strip of the blouse between her neck and her navel, and I am strongly aroused:

Let me hold you ’gainst my chest,

Feel the pressure of your breast,

Hug, caress you and the rest —

“Cut!” We hear the dance director’s whistle before the actual word. This time it is Lawrence who is unhappy. We aren’t going around fast enough in the circle and we’re holding each other too close (no surprise there). He summons an assistant, a thin, sallow man in glasses, grips him at the elbows, shows us where his heels are, and demonstrates the way he wants us to dance. Mehnaz studies them attentively, but when I stare at these two middle-aged men solemnly going around in circles, I cannot help breaking into a broad grin. Lawrence is not amused. “Let’s see you do it now!” he says, blowing his whistle.

We start, but Mehnaz falls headlong into my arms and the whistle is blown almost immediately. In getting her grip and pace right, Mehnaz failed to notice her feet and tripped on an inconvenient plant. Lawrence now decides, much to my resentment, since I have done nothing wrong, to dance with her himself in order to show her how it should feel. I watch Mehnaz, blouse bouncing, in his arms and feel a twinge of possessiveness. A makeup man comes up with a dirty handkerchief to clean the current mixture of rainwater and sweat off my face, but I wave him away angrily.

At last, we continue:

Let me hold you ’gainst my chest,

Feel the pressure of your breast,

Hug, caress you and the rest —

Let me wrap you up and keep you near my heart.

I wrap the pallav around both of us. I can feel Mehnaz’s heartbeat through the syncopations of the sound track. I imagine it is her own voice, and not that of the pockmarked fifty-six-year-old playback-singing veteran, that is breathing huskily at me:

Let me go, dearest, please,

I must plead for my release,

Your importunings must cease,

Let me save myself and hold myself apart.

The whistle sounds again. This time Mehnaz’s lips were out of sync with the sound track. She flushes, but I move my lips to indicate, “Don’t worry.” We resume, and a dhoti-clad delivery man bearing a tiffin-carrier walks into one of the reflectors, sending Mohanlal’s hands skyward and the cameraman into paroxysms of choice Punjabi invective. At last we catch up to the bit where Lawrence gets really bold: I push Mehnaz back from the waist as we dance, my face dangerously close to hers, my hands shimmering on her torso, and intone:

Let me taste your shining lips,

Place my hands upon your hips,

Feel your rises and your dips,

Let us travel to the heights of paradise.

Mehnaz is obviously aflame. She wants me, she wants me here and now, but the script and the situation leave her no choice:

Let me be, precious one,

I am burning like the sun,

I’m afraid I have to run,

Let us only speak the language of our eyes.

“Cut it!” Mohanlal shouts in triumph. “Thank you, Ashokji, thank you, Mehnazji. We’ll use that one.”

“Sorry, boss.” The cameraman is lugubrious. “We can’t.”

“What d’you mean?” Mehnaz, already beginning to turn toward the dressing room, is apoplectic.

“Look, Madam.” The cameraman points into the distance. Well in the background, unnoticed by all of us but certain to show up on the screen, a uniformed security guard sits placidly on a stool, surveying the scene with indifference.

“I don’t believe it,” I say, but secretly I am happy to cavort once more with Mehnaz for the camera. Strange: with Maya, the moment I realized I loved her and wanted her to be mine, I desired nothing so much as to lock her away from prying eyes, to protect her from the cheapening gaze of the public. But with Mehnaz, I can resist no opportunity to flaunt her in front of everyone. I enjoy being with her in public, and I enjoy being watched enjoying her. “Let’s do it again,” I say decisively.

Mehnaz acquiesces, as she always does with any of my suggestions. I begin to look forward to making a few more suggestions, of a more intimate nature, after the shooting.

The rain falls, my enthusiasm rises, her blouse falls and rises, and we sing-dance to the throbbing climax:

ME:

Let me taste your shining lips,

Place my hands upon your hips,

Feel your rises and your dips,

Let us travel to the heights of paradise.

MEHNAZ:

Let me be, precious one,

I am burning like the sun,

I’m afraid I have to run,

Let us only speak the language of our eyes.

I am still holding her when the whistle blows. As the lights are switched off, I take her face in my hands, and in full view of the entire unit, kiss her full-bloodedly on the mouth. She does not pull away from me; I can feel her nipples harden against my shirt. Her tongue darts between my teeth, and my hands caress the small of her back, pressing her body into mine. Our need is so urgent we might have gone on, but the uncharacteristic silence of the unit, which ought to be busy making dismantling noises, reminds us of our audience. Mohanlal’s eyes are almost bulging through his glasses. We laugh and trip and stumble toward her dressing room. The shocked silence follows us, as I imagine its authors would have liked to.

I unhook her blouse even before her startled Chinese dresser has fled the room. Her breasts fill my hands like prasad from a generous temple, and I take them in worship, ritually putting them to my mouth, my eyes, my forehead. Her moans are chanted slokas of desire, invoking heavenly pleasures. No man may wear a stitched garment in the sanctum sanctorum of the divine; I bare myself in reverence. In turn, I pull at the coil of her earthly attachment, the knot of her sari. It collapses wetly at her feet, followed by her drenched petticoat. Liberated from these worldly shackles, she circles me seven times, her fingers tracing mystical patterns on my torso. My own hands light the lamp of her womanhood and move in a rite of oblation. She kneels, her mouth closing on the object of her veneration, upright symbol of procreative divinity. Her prayer is bilingual. Our fingers pour ghee on the flames of our need. Rising, the flames unite us with the sacred thread of desire and we are as one in the lower depths of our higher selves.

I have no idea why I’m suddenly turning all religious about Mehnaz. After all, the girls a Muslim, for Christ’s sake. And we usually prefer the missionary position.

Money is becoming a bit of a problem. I don’t mean the lack of it, but as Maya pointed out, what to do with what I have.

The problem is, basically, that Subramanyam keeps asking producers for ever more outrageous amounts of money, and the producers then astonish us by paying what we ask for. They come to me in shabby dhotis and stained kurtas, clutching synthetic briefcases that, when opened, turn out to contain bundles of incredibly crisp notes of whose existence the Department of Revenue is blissfully unaware. These notes change hands, with sometimes the briefcase thrown in as well, and no receipt is ever issued. Over the years I have had to think of increasingly ingenious places to cache the stuff, and it is beginning to — if the verb can be pardoned — tax my imagination.

The small portion of my cinematic remuneration that comes by check is, of course, dutifully banked and the proceeds recorded by Subramanyam in his neat, precise hand in a register that is available for inspection whenever officialdom so desires. Actually, officialdom has never yet so desired, possibly because my father’s party has never yet been out of power. Not that my father has consciously tried to protect me. He would never raise a finger to protect me, but he doesn’t have to: that is the beauty of being important and influential in India, the number of things you get without having to ask for them. Yet I cannot entirely overlook the possibility that some over-zealous tax official will try to prove his integrity by raiding the son of a senior congressman, and if that happens it is obvious I cannot afford to have my briefcases lying about.

What does one do? At first I made some discreet inquiries of my more successful peers, but I found my colleagues disappointingly closemouthed, perhaps because of my paternal antecedents. The best I could elicit was from Radha Sabnis. “Why, false ceilings, darling, but of course,” she said, as if every actor’s home came equipped with them. I debated whether to install such a ceiling in my house, despite its actual low ceilings, with the attendant possibility that if Amitabh Bachhan came to visit in the summer he might be decapitated by the ceiling fan. However, even the prospect of eliminating my principal rival in the box office stakes lost its attraction when the next tax raid reported in newspapers involved the unearthing of currency notes and gold bars from an actress’s false ceiling.

But I digress. It’s true, of course, that there is no shortage of enterprising fellows on the fringes of the film industry anxious to persuade me of ingenious ways to spend my money and enrich themselves in the process. They offer gold mines in Karnataka and liquor distilleries in Kashmir, or quite possibly the other way around. After my first couple of encounters with their ilk, I have given Subramanyam strict instructions that they are not to cast their shady shadows anywhere near me.

It’s not that I have just sat on the stuff. I’ve done the obvious and bought the inevitable bungalow for some outrageous sum, most of which does not figure on the deed of sale. (This is when I discovered that the world of real estate has found innovative use for the language of kindergarten. “How much number two you giving?” asked the unctuous seller when we met to clinch the deal. I was so taken aback I nearly told him my bowel movements were none of his business, but Subramanyam hastily intervened to explain that the term referred to “black” money. Only 35 percent of the already inflated price of the house would be paid in number one, the money you could, so to speak, afford to piss away by check.)

But now that I have my bungalow, and now that Maya has spent several fortunes renovating, equipping, painting, decorating, and furnishing it, what do I do next? I am not attracted by more property I’ll never have time to visit. So I turn away offers of farms outside Delhi, cottages in hill stations, my own patch of Himalayan snow in disputed border territory. At least one filmi wife runs a boutique and I ask Maya whether I should buy her one, but she’s not overwhelmed by the idea, and then the triplets overwhelm her. In any case it’s not so much a new investment I’m after as a safe place to keep the unaccountable surplus cash for the proverbial rainy day. Abha’s has come, it’s practically a monsoon, but she seems to have weathered it reasonably well. I too must plan for a life after Golden Jubilees.

I cast about for advice hopefully, but in a world where people’s most intimate relations are publicized under twenty-four-point headlines in the filmi magazines, the only secrets the denizens of Bollywood are allowed to keep are their financial ones. Money is to be spent as visibly as possible, but never talked about.

So — what to do? It is a measure of my desperation that I actually decide to ask my father. I mean, we haven’t exchanged a confidence since the time I told him with boyhood pride that I’d managed to throw a stone through a neighbor’s third-story window, which happened, unfortunately, to be closed at the time, and was beaten black-and-blue for my achievement. But who else do I have, right? He is at my home on one of his rare visits to Bombay, clad in his khadi politician’s costume and uncomfortably sipping my Scotch in guilty violation of his party’s prohibitionist principles. I gulp down my own Macallan and, looking around as much for something to talk about as for his counsel, I broach the subject.

“You know, Dad, you’re in politics and all that stuff, so you must know what people do with their money,” I suggest obscurely.

“Why, put it in the bank, or spend it, or invest in the stock exchange,” says my father, who has a staggering facility for the obvious. “Are you asking, Ashok, for an introduction to a broker?”

“Not really,” I admit. “No, I’m sort of asking — generally. You know, there are lots of things people can do with their, uh, white money, but how do your political friends handle the black?”

My father draws himself up to his fullest possible height while still remaining seated and adopts a stern manner. “No political friend of mine has what you call black money” — he says the words with distaste— “and if he did, he would cease to be a friend of mine.” My father adopts what I have come to recognize as his Cambridge manner: he went to Cambridge as a young man, largely because the only alternative was jail, and he never misses an opportunity to remind me of it. “Ashok, my boy, undeclared revenue is the curse of our country. If the money that is lost every year to the parallel economy could be plowed back into the official one, half our problems of underdevelopment could be solved.”

My mind is already beginning to back away from yet another Kulbhushan Banjara lecture, of which I have had many over the years. I knew from the start that it was a mistake to ask him. “If you know anyone who has such unaccounted funds, Ashok, you should urge him to declare it immediately,” my father goes on. “The tax authorities are extremely strict about these matters. You know that.”

“Yes, you’re right, Dad, absolutely.” I drain my glass. “Forget I ever asked you.”

He sighs, as at some private regret, though I doubt he was regretting his own scrupulous honesty, which had resulted in a considerable slide in the family’s standard of living during my own childhood. He was the member of a government that had invented so many taxes that at some levels they actually totaled 101 percent. Obviously no one whose taxes were not deducted at source paid them honestly. Before lecturing me Dad would do well not to support the passage of laws that all reasonable people feel obliged to break. But that’s not the kind of thinking my father is capable of, I don’t imagine.

We are saved by Maya’s entry into the conversation. “Papa,” she says brightly — she calls him “Papa” because she finds my use of “Dad” insufficiently Indian — “I’ve been thinking, and I need your advice.”

“Of course, my dear.” My father swells with paternal importance. In his view the best thing I ever did, possibly the only good thing I ever did, was to marry Maya. He has been known to say to friends that he couldn’t have arranged a more suitable daughter-in-law himself

“I’m thinking of making a comeback.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“A comeback. Returning to films.”

I splutter into my Macallan, but my father is even more taken aback. “But why on earth should you want to?” he demands. “You’ve got the children, a house….”

“The house runs itself, Papa,” Maya interrupts. “And now that Leela-Neela-Sheela are on the bottle, they don’t even really need me all the time. Ashok is away with his shooting and his, his film world social commitments” — I try not to read too much into the phrase — “so much that I hardly ever see him. I thought this would be good for us too, you know, to work together.”

My father seems to understand more than I would give him credit for. “I see your point, my dear,” he harrumphs, “but really, for you to be running around trees and all that, at this stage …”

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that, Papa, you’re quite right,” says Maya. “A more serious sort of film.”

“Your husband,” my father says pointedly, “doesn’t act in serious sorts of films.”

Maya laughs, and her laughter is sharp-edged, like the tinkle of broken glass. “Well, this wouldn’t be a Satyajit Ray film or even something by one of the New Wave directors, but a slightly more serious commercial film. Songs and maybe a fight or two, but not too much running around the trees for me.”

I find my voice at last. “And where do you think you’re going to find such a script?” I ask. “People don’t write scripts like that, and more to the point they don’t film them.”

“Oh, I already have the script,” Maya says casually. “Subramanyam gave it to me.”

I hadn’t realized Maya and Subramanyam were such good friends. My secretary, of course, works out of an office in my house, but I had always supposed their contact did not go much beyond Maya sending a servant to ask what he wanted for lunch.

“And why,” I ask, my teeth increasingly on edge, “would Subramanyam do that?”

“Because I asked him to,” Maya replies matter-of-factly. “We’ve been talking about things, and I’ve told him to pass on scripts I might find of interest. So anyway, Papa, what do you think?”

My father begins to realize he is being set up. “Well,” he says, looking more uncomfortable than ever, “what does Ashok think about all this?”

“I don’t know,” replies Maya, untroubled. “We haven’t discussed it yet.”

“Well, then, my dear, I think you ought to discuss it with each other,” says my father. Good for him! But then he spoils it all by adding, “You know that whatever you do, Maya, you will have my blessing.”

“Thank you, Papa,” coos my scheming wife. “I knew you’d say that.”

My father looks at me looking daggers at her, and diplomatically remembers a prior commitment he has not yet mentioned. I escort him to the waiting official car, which is also to take him to the airport.

“Try and be kind to your wife, Ashok,” he says gratuitously.

“I don’t need you to tell me that, Dad,” I reply.

He looks at me sadly. He is always looking at me sadly. He shakes his head, opens his mouth as if to say something, then closes it. I am about to honk for the driver, who was not expecting to leave quite so soon and is not in the car, when my father opens his mouth again. This time he speaks, but on a different subject.

“Ashok,” he says, his expression inscrutably heavy-lidded, “do you know Gangoolie? Our party treasurer?”

I don’t really know him, but I know who he is. I nod.

“Well, in his line of work, he knows a fair bit about black money,” my father says unexpectedly. “I am not a fool, Ashok, I know there is black money in politics. I have never touched any of it myself, but ever since we idealistically abolished company contributions to political parties, businessmen have found this other way of financing their preferred candidates.” Spare me the lecture, Dad, I think. Get to the point. “Anyway, I asked Gangoolie once where people kept their undeclared assets. The small-timers, as he put it, kept their currency in their homes, in safes, in false ceilings, under beds. When necessary, our tax people know where to look. The big-timers, however, use Swiss banks.”

“Swiss banks,” I repeat.

“It seems,” my father sighs, “that they find people abroad who need rupees in India, at a favorable rate of exchange of course. The rupees are handed over here, and the equivalent deposited, in Swiss francs, in Geneva or Zurich.”

“Isn’t that — illegal?” I ask, as the driver, his keys jingling in the pocket of his uniform, runs up to the car.

“Of course it is,” my father says. “But because of Swiss banking secrecy, it is difficult for our authorities to do anything about it.”

He embraces me in farewell and gets into the back of the car.

“And these people? The ones abroad, who need the rupees? Where do the big-timers find them?”

“The big-timers,” my father says, “don’t need to look very far.” Then he waves sadly and rolls up the window. His car drives away, leaving me more to think about than I had expected.

Strange man, my father. Sometimes I wonder if I have fully figured him out.

* * *

Inside the house, I erupt at Maya.

“What was the big idea of bringing this comeback nonsense up with Dad?” I demand.

She is unfazed. “It’s not nonsense, Ashok. I’m perfectly serious. And it’s not my fault if the only time you are around to be spoken to is when your father has come to visit.”

“Maya, we had agreed.”

“We had agreed I wouldn’t make a comeback if I turned out to be pregnant. I was. Well, now I’ve had the babies. They’re fine, and they’re in good hands, which don’t necessarily always have to be mine. The agreement is over.”

“But there’s still a basic agreement. When we got married.”

“You’re a fine one, Ashok Banjara, to be citing marital commitments to me.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

“You know perfectly well what that is supposed to mean.” Her voice is cold. “Don’t make me say it, Ashok.”

Guilt rises in me. I try a different tack. “Look, Maya, I understand your need to do something. I really do. But you don’t want to rush into a thing like this. Let me look at the script, talk to the producer. Then we can see. What script is this anyway?”

“You mean you really don’t know what script I’m talking about? Ashok, you surprise me.”

Realization dawns, like the baby spots at the studio. “Not Dil Ek Qila, for God’s sake?” I ask in horror.

“Why not?” Her voice is calm.

“But… but that film is already cast! Subramanyam had no business giving it to you. The only reason the script is here is because the actress who has the principal part specifically wanted me to be offered the male lead. It’s not the kind of film I’d usually do….”

“But you’re planning to say yes.”

“Maybe.”

“Not maybe, yes.”

“You’ve been talking to Subramanyam.”

“Leave him out of this, Ashok. I’m your wife, for God’s sake. Don’t I count for anything in this? Can’t you tell me the truth for once, without beating around the bramble bush?”

Once in a while, Maya’s English slips, and I am reminded of how far she has come since her diffident days as a provincial newcomer. But where did she find this rage, this strength?

“OK, I think I’ll do it. Choubey, the producer, says it’ll enhance my image. Broaden my appeal.”

“Bullshit!” Maya’s small thin frame is taut with anger. “It’s a weak and sentimental script, neither New Wave nor commercial. It’s a colossal risk that no actor in your position would normally take. But you want to do it because that slut is in it and she has got Choubey to ask you to.”

“Maya,” I begin in warning. She rides roughshod over me.

“Don’t you see what she wants? Are you so blind, Ashok Banjara, that you really can’t see what she’s up to? You’re going to play a married musician helplessly in love with her, the stunning dancing girl. Do you think the great Indian public isn’t going to see that as a statement about your real life? And you want to allow this whore to flaunt her affair with you across the nation while I sit quietly at home. Well, I’m not going to play along with this, Ashok. I am the mother of your children and I’m not going to reduce myself to an object of pity!”

“He stays with his wife in the end,” I say lamely.

“Because the slut dies in heroic circumstances to save them both,” Maya blazes. “Have you no shame, offering the script as an excuse?”

I can’t take any more of this. There are times when the easy way out is the best way out. “I’ll tell Choubey I won’t do it,” I announce.

“You’ve signed already,” she says.

“I have?” This is genuine, because half the time I’m not sure what I’m signing. But it’s true that I’d told Subramanyam I would, so he could well have thrust that paper in front of me along with a dozen others.

“You have,” Maya confirms. “You could still get out of it, but it wouldn’t be worth the grief. And besides, Choubey is probably already selling his territories on the strength of your name.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll do him some other favor. He’ll want me for another film soon enough, and I’ll promise him all the dates he wants.”

“No.” Maya is firm. “I’ve thought about it. If you pull out, they’ll probably make the film anyway, and that slut will still get the story across the way she wants it. It’s better this way.”

“What way?” I ask, pouring myself another whiskey. I wave the bottle at her, but she ignores the offer.

“To do it, but to make sure I have control,” Maya says grimly.

“Control? How?”

“We’re seeing Choubey tomorrow,” Maya says. “And we’re going to tell him you’re laying down three conditions.”

“We are?” This is all too much for me. “I am?”

“Yes. One, I shall executive produce.” This will be a new one to Choubey, who’s never had an executive producer in his life. “Two, I shall be script consultant. The screenplay, you will tell him, needs some minor revisions, and the dialogue wallah will work with me. Three, under these conditions, but only under these conditions, I shall play the wife.”

I am totally speechless. I gasp. I gape.

“No one is going to pity me when this film comes out,” Maya says determinedly. “I don’t know whether it will do anything for you at the box office, Ashok. My comeback may never take off with this part. But everyone who sees it is going to say, wah, kaisi aurat hai. What a woman she is. They’re going to admire me for having taken this situation into my own hands and confronted it with pride and self-respect.” She turns to face me, her eyes bright. “Are you going to be with me in this, Ashok? Are you going to stand up for the dignity of your wife, the mother of your children, or are you going to let that whore walk all over the honor of this house?”

She really knows how to put it, that girl. She should never have left the theater. “Of course I’m with you, Maya,” I say. After all, I have a family to maintain. Mehnaz won’t like it, but then I’ve never lost much time worrying about what Mehnaz might like. Thank God there are still women like that.

“Tell me it isn’t true, Ashok,” begs Cyrus Sponerwalla, all three of his chins wobbling in anxiety.

“What isn’t?”

“Like you’re going to do a film about adultery,” he squeaks. “You, Ashok Banjara, epitome of moral rectitude from Jalpaiguri to Jhumri Tialaiya, are going to play an errant husband on the silver screen.”

“I am,” I concede.

“The Indian public isn’t ready for this, man,” Cyrus pleads, blinking behind his glasses like an owl at noontime. “The consumers in the twenty-five-paisa seats won’t accept it, idea-wise. Your image will take a dive, man.”

“There isn’t any explicit adultery in the film, Cyrus. Relax, have a Charminar.” I quote the well-known advertising slogan, but offer him an India Kings.

Cyrus turns down the cigarette, and the commercial wisdom behind its marketing. “I can’t relax, man, when you’re in the process of destroying yourself image-wise,” he flaps, dabbing at perspiration with a scented handkerchief. “Look, you’re a hero, and a damn good one at that. Why not just stay a hero? Isn’t that enough for you?”

“Cyrus, Cyrus.” I laugh. “The film magazines have hinted at the looseness of my morals and at that of every other actor and actress in Bollywood for years. It’s done me no harm whatsoever. I thought you told me any publicity’s good publicity. Speaking of which, take a look at this.” I pass him the latest Showbiz.

Like all PR pros, Cyrus cannot resist the printed word. And Radha Sabnis is in her element:

Darlings, Cheetah hears the love scenes in our studios are getting more and more torrid. Tongues haven’t ceased wagging at Himalaya over a sizzling performance by The Banjara with his leading lady, the ultraliberated Mehnaz Elahi — yes, the very girl who told an interviewer last year that anyone over eighteen claiming to be a virgin was either a liar or a cow. Cheetah learns that the love scene in question continued well after the camera had been switched off, and that the Hungry Young Man’s costar turned up for the next shot with a substantial tear in her costume. Well, darlings, perhaps our self-confessed Erich Segal fan thinks that love means never having to sew your sari, eh? Grrrowl …

I hear the Sponerwalla chuckle, like an asthmatic chicken gobbling its feed, and then Cyrus is bleating again. “This is a different market altogether, man,” he explains. “These things don’t matter to those who read them, like, but those who can read anything at all are only fifteen percent, twenty tops, of your overall audience. My PR strategy for you is segmented, man: frequent publicity in the print media, clean image on the screen. The readers of Showbiz are thrilled and titillated by all this, and it’s fine, so long as the likes of Radha Sabnis don’t go on repeating that you’re a bad actor, which is what can harm you with this segment of the market. Right? But the people I’m concerned about today have never read a film magazine, and they’re the core of your mass appeal. Illiterate villagers who go six, seven times to the same film, and who think you are the heroes you play. The rural masses don’t make fine distinctions between the actor and the part, Ashok. That’s why children aren’t being named Pranay anymore, or Prem Chopra, because the actors’ own real names are so completely identified with their screen villainy. If you were called Chopra, man, would you name your son Prem? He wouldn’t be able to introduce himself without women yelling ’rape’! Now you, Ashok, you’re clean, image-wise. Not as pure clean as someone like N. T. Rama Rao in Andhra, who has played so many gods in mythological epics that some people have actually built a temple to him. Or MGR in Madras, who has defeated the forces of injustice and evil in so many films that the masses are pleading with him to take over the state government and set everything right. But you’re somewhere there yourself, image-wise. You don’t go spoiling it by betraying your wife on every cinema screen in the country.”

“Point taken, Cyrus,” I laugh. “I shall bear it in mind as I look over the screenplay. Look, don’t worry. Everything’s going to be all right. Maya’s going to have the final say on the script.”

Sponerwalla looks relieved. “Why didn’t you tell me that to begin with?” he asks, putting away his damp handkerchief.

“Because I love to see you earn your fee,” I reply heartlessly. “Speaking of which, Cyrus — what do you know about Swiss banks?”

Exterior: Day

DIL EK QUA

(The Heart Is a Fortress)

THE FIRST TREATMENT: THE ORIGINAL VERSION

A hillside in Kashmir. The camera pans across azure sky, verdant slopes, technicolor flowers. Mehnaz Elahi runs laughing across the screen to the strains of an electric mandolin as Ashok Banjara pursues her, singing:

You are my sunlight

You brighten my life

You are my sunlight

Come be my wife.

He finally catches up with her and hugs her from behind: she continues trying to flee and they roll down the hill, locked in an embrace. Close-up: their laughing lips are about to meet when the camera swings skyward and the opening credits fill the screen.

Domestic scene: Ashok with his parents, Godambo and Amma, in their luxurious, indeed palatial, home. Early moments of dialogue establish father’s strength (deep, gravelly voice), wealth (luxurious furnishings), and traditionalism (caste mark on forehead). Ashok gets to the point: “Father, I want to get married.” “Excellent,” says Godambo: he has been thinking along the same lines. It is time Ashok settled down. It would be good for the family and, provided a suitable match was made, good for the business also.

Ashok looks uncomfortable. “Father, I have already found the girl I wish to marry.”

“What!” Outrage on Godambo’s face, consternation in his bulging eyes. Amma rolls pupils heavenward and mutters a brief invocation. “And who can this be?” asks the paterfamilias.

“I would like to bring her here to meet you,” Ashok suggests.

“Wait!” Godambo is a man of procedure. “Before you bring any such person to our house, let me make some inquiries. Tell me everything you know about her. Who is the girl? What is her name? Is she of good family? Who are her parents? Do we know them, and if not, why not? Where does she live? How did you meet her?” And Amma adds, “Is she fair?”

“Yes, she is,” Ashok answers his mother, but one useful response does not get him off the hook. Godambo is not to be diverted. Squirming under his relentless probing, Ashok has to admit that his ladylove is neither rich nor well connected. “But she is a wonderful girl,” he says with deep-pupiled intensity. “And I love her.”

“Love?” Godambo barks. “What is love?”

“Love,” Amma explains maternally, “is something that comes after marriage, Ashok. I love you, I love your father. How can you love a stranger?”

“She’s not a stranger, Mother,” Ashok begins, then realizes it is hopeless. “Look, if only you both would meet her, you would see immediately what I mean.” But his father is reluctant to take matters so far as to welcome this impecunious interloper into his own living room. Then Ashok has an idea. “Come and see her at the Cultural Evening tonight,” he pleads.

Godambo is not interested, but Amma, ever the obliging mother, persuades him on behalf of her son.

Scene: an auditorium, every seat full. Ashok and his parents are escorted to a front row. The curtain parts to reveal a stage with the painted backdrop of a flowering garden. Mehnaz enters in a cascade of anklets, covered head to foot in kathak costume of billowing red skirt, long-sleeved red blouse, red head scarf, and red leggings, all spangled with silver. Godambo grunts appreciatively. Mehnaz bursts into song:

My heart beats for you,

I’d perform feats for you,

You are the landlord of my soul;

My eyes light for you,

I‖d gladly fight for you,

Without you I don’t feel whole.

As she sings and dances, all arched hip and elegant fingertips, she manages to exchange meaningful glances with Ashok, making it clear every word of the playback applies to him. Meanwhile, Godambo, oblivious to this byplay, appears to enjoy himself hugely. When the song is over the audience bursts into well-rehearsed applause, and Ashok rises to his feet to clap vigorously.

At the end of the show, Godambo, in mellow spirits, looks around the hall. “So where is this girl you wanted me to meet?” he asks his son.

“You’ve seen her, Dad. And I could tell you liked her. Mehnaz Elahi, the kathak dancer. Wasn’t she something?”

“What!” Godambo’s eyes bulge in horror. “An entertainer! My son wants to marry an entertainer!”

Amma restrains him, but he storms out, wife and son in tow. They are getting into their chauffeur-driven Impala when Mehnaz, now freshly changed into a sari, emerges from the auditorium and walks expectantly toward them. She stops short, though, her pretty face clouded in bewilderment, as Ashok shuts the car door after him with a look of helplessness. Mehnaz is left staring crestfallen into the camera as the Impala drives away in a cloud of dusty intolerance.

Inside the house the scene is Godambo’s: rage and outrage alternating with advice about vice. He is furious that his son wants to marry the first plausible hussy who has allowed him to embrace her. Of course young men must sow their wild oats, but marriage has nothing to do with sexual attraction. The girl might be pretty, she might be talented, but she was completely unsuitable for the son of Seth Godambo. When Ashok marries, it will be a social event; his bride will be handpicked from a dazzling array of well-endowed virgins from well-endowed families. There is the business to be considered, the family’s standing in the community, the expectations of the society in which they live. If Ashok married — the word makes Godambo choke—married Mehnaz Elahi, he and his parents would be laughingstocks. “I understand your needs,” Godambo adds in gruff paternalism. “I was a young man myself once. But marriage is another matter altogether.”

Yes, Amma explains. Marriage is not just a relationship between individuals, but an arrangement between families. Ashok would not just be marrying one woman, he would be acquiring another family. Can he see Mehnaz’s simple father and shrouded mother socializing in Seth Godambo’s living room? Ashok has to admit he cannot.

Yet when his parents have finished with him, Ashok is defiant. “Mehnaz is the woman of my heart,” he declaims. “I will not let her down.”

“Why don’t you talk this over with her?” Godambo is surprisingly reasonable. “She may well prove more sensible than you. When are you seeing her next?”

“Tomorrow evening,” Ashok replies. “She was supposed to join a show in Bombay, but I persuaded her not to. Dad, I’m not sure I can live without her.”

“Don’t be so sure she can’t live without you,” Godambo says meaningfully.

Next scene: Godambo with our heroine, in her lower-middle-class home. Peacock-green walls, peeling ceiling, plastic-covered sofa, garish calendars of androgynous deities. “Miss Mehnaz, I enjoyed your performance at the Cultural Evening last night,” he says gutturally. “I would like to engage you for a very special occasion.”

Mehnaz is all pretty and obliging.

“You see, my son is getting married,” Godambo goes on. “And we are celebrating it in a big way, as befits an alliance between two of the city’s biggest families. I would like to have an entertainment show worthy of the occasion. And I would like you to sing and dance for my son’s wedding.”

“Your son?” Mehnaz asks.

“Ashok Banjara,” Godambo says with pride. “Why, do you know him?”

“And he is … getting … married?”

“Yes, to Lalaji Chhoturmal’s daughter, Abha,” Godambo replies. “Ashok has liked her for a long time. You see, they were in the same school, and of course we know the family very well.”

“Of course.” Mehnaz’s tone is dull.

“So — will you come for the event? Three weeks from now. I hope you are free, and I would of course be happy to double your fee on this happy occasion.”

“No,” Mehnaz says quietly. “No, I am afraid I cannot accept your invitation, Sethji. You see, I have a prior commitment in Bombay. In fact, I am leaving tonight.”

“I am most disappointed,” Godambo says, but he cannot conceal the gleam of triumph in his bulging eyes.

It is later, at dusk; Ashok is waiting at a palm grove near the beach, wearing jeans and a troubled expression. He looks at his watch, then up at the darkening sky. Studio stars twinkle at him. He sings plaintively:

Where are you, my love?

I wait for light from the stars above.

You have taken my heart

And hid it from view,

Now no one can start

To rid me of you.

Wh-e-e-re are you, my love?

There is, of course, no answer.

Song finished, and with one more futile look at his watch, Ashok leaps into his two-seater sports car and drives to Mehnaz’s house. “Where is she?” he demands of her poor but dignified parents, as the calendars flap omnisciently on the walls.

“She has gone to Bombay,” replies the mother. “And she specifically told me to tell you, if you came by, that she has nothing to say to you. Except to give you this.” She puts a crumpled envelope into Ashok’s hand. Out of it emerges a silver bracelet, with the image of a dancing goddess on a medallion at its clasp.

“But I gave her this,” Ashok protests in dismay.

“And she is giving it back to you,” Mehnaz’s father, Ramkumar, replies. “She doesn’t want it anymore.”

“I don’t understand.” Ashok’s eyes are hot with tears. “I don’t know what’s come over your daughter, but you can tell her I shall always keep this bracelet for her — till the day she comes back to me.”

“I shall tell her,” replies the kindly mother, “but she isn’t coming back, Ashok. She has gone to make her career in Bombay.”

Sad, portentous music. The screen intercuts two sets of images: one of Ashok’s wedding ceremony, complete with demure bride dripping with gold, sneezy guest dripping with cold, and overweight mother-in-law dripping with tears, the other of elegiac soft-focus shots showing Mehnaz in Bombay, gazing wistfully at the horizon, her sari billowing in the sea breeze, and singing the refrain of Ashok’s song:

Where are you, my love?

I wait for light from the stars above.

You have taken my heart

And hid it from view,

Now no one can start

To rid me of you.

Wh-e-e-re are you, my love?

It is some years later. Ashok is seated on a dhurrie on the floor, taking music lessons from a maestro with a harmonium. “Very good,” says the maestro, Asrani, an actor seen more often in the role of stock comedian. “Now once again: sa-ri-ga-ma-pa-da-ni-sa.” He tosses his head back with a tonal flourish as he runs through the scale. “Now you.”

Ashok dutifully echoes his guru: “Sa-ri-ga-ma-pa-da-ni-sa.”

“Not bad,” says the maestro. “But there is something missing.” He taps his belly, producing a percussion note like a cork being pulled out of a bottle, and resumes. “Sa-ri-ga-ma-pa-da-ni-sa.”

Ashok also tosses his head. “Sa-ri-ga-ma-pa-da-ni-sa.”

“You’re getting it,” says the maestro. “See, it’s simple:

Sa, sambar, a Southie dish,

Ri, what the Frenchies call our rice;

Ga, gaga, as the Bongs are about fish,

Ma, mother, ain’t her cooking nice?

Pa, the man always served first,

Da, daal, the food for healthy chaps,

Ni, nimbu pani for our thirst,

and that brings us back to sa — saag paneer perhaps?

Ashok’s brow unfurrows in comprehension. “You’re hungry,” he says.

“I thought you’d never get it,” sighs the maestro. “Music may be the food of love, but the love of music requires food. Let’s eat.”

As they wrap themselves around the contents of a thali served by uniformed menials, Ashok asks the maestro how good he really is. “Really, not bad at all,” replies his instructor, professionally noncommittal. “What made you want to take up singing?”

The camera lingers in close-up on Ashok’s poignantly inexpressive face. “A friend left me once, some years ago,” he says, a faraway gaze in his eyes. “When she left, I felt she had taken the music out of my life. I decided to replace her somehow within myself.”

”Wah, wah,” responds Asrani heartily. It is not clear whether his appreciation is for the sentiment or the food.

There follow a couple of scenes that establish Ashok in conventional domesticity: scenes involving his dutiful wife and beautiful children. (Note: to be fleshed out if Mr. Banjara accepts the role.) Meanwhile, Mehnaz goes from success to success. She is shown dancing in overflowing halls to standing ovations, receiving prizes and awards, and being featured on posters and in neon lights. (Note: at least one very good song here showing Ms. Elahi dancing, with five costume changes to mark her progress and establish different occasions.)

In some scenes Mehnaz is accompanied by her manager, Pranay, an energetic operator who is seen organizing backstage, berating auditorium managers, arranging for Mehnaz to be garlanded. One day, as Mehnaz emerges fresh from a stage triumph, Pranay clasps her in a joyous embrace. “Wonderful!” he exclaims. “I say, Mehnaz, why don’t you and I do something?”

“What?” she asks innocently.

“Get married.”

Mehnaz averts her exquisite face so only the camera can see the pain in her eyes. “I am sorry, Pranay, but I cannot.”

“Why not? Do you have a better friend than me in the whole world?”

“No, of course not, Pranay,” says Mehnaz. “You’re a wonderful friend, and a great manager. It’s not you. I shall never marry — anybody.”

Pranay is bewildered. “But why?” “I gave my heart once to a man, many years ago,” she says. “I cannot love anyone else ever again.” “Who is this man?” asks Pranay angrily.

Mehnaz does not answer. But in the very next scene the man in question is about to give his first public performance as a singer. And he is introduced fulsomely to a large audience by none other than his own father, Old Mr. Anti-Entertainers himself, Seth Godambo.

“As you know, my son’s profession is business,” Godambo orates. “And in this domain he has worked with me to create a place for himself in this community as an upstanding citizen. But what is not so widely known is that he also has a musical soul. And he has kindly agreed today, under the able guidance and instruction of Pandit Asrani”—the maestro, his mouth full of paan, takes an affable bow— “to sing for you today, all in the cause of charity, of course.” Godambo nods, and on cue, the extras break into thunderous applause.

His aesthetic inclinations thus rendered respectable, Ashok launches into his lament:

Where are you, my love?

I wait for light from the stars above.

You have taken my heart

And hid it from view,

They have kept us apart

And rid me of you.

Wh-e-e-re are you, my love?

Where she is, is right there, for, unnoticed by the singer, Mehnaz Elahi has slipped into the audience, and she listens to him sing with tears glistening in her eyes.

The show is over, and Ashok is standing, palms joined in respectful namaskar, as a succession of elders and strangers congratulate him on his performance. Abha and Godambo are in another part of the hall, conversing animatedly. Suddenly the look of distant politeness on Ashok’s face vanishes as a soft voice cuts through the hubbub near him. “You sang beautifully, Ashok.” Our hero looks up in shock at Mehnaz standing among the throng, which considerately melts away.

“You! What are you doing here?”

“I’m supposed to be dancing on this stage tomorrow,” she says. (Note: perhaps we ought to give her a stage name as well, to explain why Ashok hasn’t heard of her coming.) “I got here early and thought I would look at the auditorium. And I heard you.”

Their eyes meet, and it is obvious even to the villagers in the twenty-five-paisa seats that nothing has changed between them. “Why did you leave me that day, without even a word?” he asks urgently. “Because you were getting married to someone your parents had arranged and you didn’t even tell me,” Mehnaz replies. “Me? But — that’s not true!” Ashok exclaims. “You mean you’re not married?” she asks. “To Lala Chhoturmal’s daughter?” Ashok admits he is, “but only because you left me …”

Before they can go much further, Abha calls, “Ashok?” She walks up to them. “Ashok, some people there are waiting to see you, friends of Daddy’s,” she announces. “Come along now.” There is time for the women to exchange a formal namaskar before Abha drags her husband away. Mehnaz stares after them for a long moment, then turns and leaves.

The next evening: another Mehnaz dance, another song with a familiar echo:

My heart beats for you,

I’d perform feats for you,

You are the landlord of my soul;

My eyes light for you,

I’d gladly fight for you,

Without you I don’t feel whole.

At the end, as the rapturous audience files out, Ashok battles his way backstage. Mehnaz is in her dressing room removing an earring when Ashok enters and shuts the door behind him. “You dropped a piece of jewelry, Mehnazji,” he says quietly. He stretches out his hand; in it sparkles the silver bracelet with the dancing goddess rampant at the clasp.

Mehnaz looks at it for a long time, her hands frozen in their earlier position at her earlobe. “So you really did keep it for me,” she says at last.

“All these years,” breathes Ashok.

She reaches out a hand to take it from him, and his own closes on hers.

“Mehnaz, I have waited so long for you.”

She doesn’t move. “You haven’t waited,” she says. “You’re a married man.”

“That — that was for my parents,” Ashok pleads. “For society. Besides, you had left me. What could I do?”

“I only left you when I learned about your marriage,” she says.

“That couldn’t be,” Ashok responds. Then it strikes him. “Who told you I was getting married?”

“Your father, of course,” replies Mehnaz. “Wasn’t it you who sent him to me …?”

And then, as the enormity of the deception, and of their own mistakes, dawns on them, explanations give way to a clinging embrace. Mehnaz tries to resist, but Ashok is insistent. “So many wasted years to make up for,” he says. She succumbs, and as they fall upon the bed the camera focuses on the ceiling fan whirring rhythmically above.

The next few scenes show the progress of the relationship, including one more flowery song in a rose garden. But gardens are public places, and their chlorophyllous clinch is seen by Pranay, who grits his teeth in jealous fury. “Can’t give her love to any man, huh?” he snarls. “We’ll see about that.”

It is evening at Ashok’s home. Abha confronts him quietly, with all the deference of the traditional Hindu wife. “You are not home very often these days, my husband,” she says. “Daddy says you are not at the office much either. Is something the matter, Ashok?”

“It doesn’t concern you,” Ashok replies disingenuously.

“I believe it does,” Abha insists. “It is that dancing girl, isn’t it? You’ve been seeing her.”

“Who told you that?”

“Does it matter? But it is true.” Abha sobs.

“Look, Abha, I don’t mean to hurt you. But this is a woman to whom I gave my heart before I married you.”

“I am the woman to whom you gave your vow. What about me and our child? If your heart was already pledged, you had no right to plight it to me.”

“I’m sorry,” Ashok says, looking it.

“This came for you today.” Abha extends a scrap of paper. “Oh, Ashok, please stop what you’re doing. I’m frightened.”

On the paper, in a minatory scrawl, are the words “KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF MY WOMAN OR YOU’RE A DEAD MAN.”

“There must be some mistake,” Ashok says. “Mehnaz has no one else.”

“Oh, Ashok, please stop it,” Abha pleads tearfully. “Promise me you won’t see her again.”

“I can’t.” Ashok looks miserable. “I’m sorry.” And two faces, one tear-stained, the other anguished, stare devastated into the camera.

Another performance by Mehnaz: this time Abha is in the auditorium, defiantly by her husband’s side. Pranay stands in the wings and glowers alternately at his star and her lover. As Mehnaz, payals jingling, describes her feelings with fluid, circular motions of her arms, she trills:

So we have loved, why be afraid?

We have loved, we haven’t robbed a bank.

For our love, we’ve just ourselves to thank.

It’s ours, not for others to trade.

So we have loved, why be afraid?

So we have loved, where lies the shame?

We have loved, we haven’t hit and run.

Our love’s as natural as the sun.

Just the two of us need breathe its name.

So we have loved, where lies the shame?

Abha, stony-faced, nestles closer to Ashok in her seat. Mehnaz addresses the song directly to him. Pranay takes time off from gritting his teeth to take generous swigs from a bottle of Vat 69 in the wings.

After the show the inevitable occurs. (This is, after all, a Hindi film.) Overruling Abha, Ashok goes to greet Mehnaz. Pranay, his speech slurred, accosts him. Ashok tells him to sleep off his drunkenness. Pranay lashes out. There is a fistfight, the only one in the film. Ashok shows his stuff, and Pranay is left considerably the worse for wear. “Next time,” he whispers as the blood dribbles down his chin, “next time I will use a gun.”

The following day: Abha goes to Mehnaz, who admits her in courteous surprise. “I am his dharampatni,” Abha says, his eternal wife. They have a child, Ashok has a future in his father’s business. The lives of so many are at stake, above all the happiness of an innocent infant. She earnestly pleads with Mehnaz to relinquish her husband.

Mehnaz is moved. “I have been selfish in seeking to extract a small bit of happiness for myself and Ashok. But I now see that it is at your expense, and that of your child. Never fear, Abha. As a woman I know what love means. I will do the right thing.” (If there are still any dry eyes in the house, the strains of violins on the sound track should be enough to produce tears in them.)

The climactic scene: Ashok and Mehnaz are on stage, performing together. Our hero sits on a dhurrie, singing, while Mehnaz dances around him. The song is familiar, but the lyrics have changed:

ASHOK:

Where are you, my love?

Of you I can’t have enough.

You have taken my heart

And kept it with you,

Now no one can start

To part me from you.

Wh-e-e-re are you, my love?

MEHNAZ:

Where are you, my love?

You float away like the clouds above.

You have taken my heart

And made my life new,

But now we must part

For Í must give you your due.

Wh-e-e-re are you, my love?

Ashok looks troubled by this departure from the script, but Abha, in the audience, understands the sacrifice Mehnaz will make, and her eyes fill with tears.

But it’s not yet over. As the song goes on, Pranay appears in the wings, his eyes bloodshot, his feet unsteady. He is carrying a gun.

The audience of extras cannot see him; the movie audience can. Ashok, his back to the wings, cannot see him either; nor at first can Mehnaz. But as she turns in her dance, she realizes to her horror that Pranay has raised his weapon and is aiming it directly at Ashok. She throws herself directly on her lover as Pranay fires — once, twice, the bark of the revolver punctuating the music and bringing the sound track to a screeching halt.

There are screams, Abha’s the loudest. She rushes up onto the stage. Mehnaz lies in Ashok’s arms, blood oozing from her wounds. Pranay breaks down, crying, “Oh, Mehnaz, what have I done?” He is promptly handcuffed by two culturally inclined policemen. Ashok cradles our heroine’s head in his hands. Abha kneels by her side. “Call a doctor!” Ashok shouts. But Mehnaz smiles poignantly and shakes her head.

“It’s too late,” she says faintly. “I don’t have much longer. Give me your hand.” Abha obliges. With difficulty, Mehnaz moves Abha’s hand toward Ashok’s and joins them. Close-up: husband and wife’s hands linked forever, smeared by the blood of the Other Woman.

“Mehnaz,” Ashok pleads, “don’t leave me.” She smiles sadly. “I would have left you anyway,” she breathes. “Be good to Abha.”

Then the light dies in her eyes, and a drop of red blood drips onto the medallion of the dancing goddess at her wrist. Ashok and Abha look at each other.

“She was,” Abha says, “a truly noble woman.”

Closing shot: Ashok stands with his arm around Abha, a child by their side, as the flames from Mehnaz’s funeral pyre lick up to a bloodred sky. The long notes of “Where are you, my love?” fill the sound track and on the flames appear the words

THE END.

Interval

EXTRACTS FROM “CHEETAH’S CHATTER,’ SHOWBIZ MAGAZINE

DARLINGS, nothing can really shock your worldly Cheetah, but shouldn’t we draw the line at bigamy? Rumors have reached our scalded ears that one of our more irrepressible shooting stars, who used to be called up-and-commg for more reasons than one, has been going around whispering about a secret marriage to a megastar! The libel laws don’t allow Cheetah the dubious pleasure of purring their names, sweethearts, but the hitch is, the hero in question is already hitched!! Of course, if you want to give his ladylove the benefit of the doubt, he could have converted to Islam for the purpose, since that considerate faith allows a legal escape from the monotony of monogamy, but Cheetah has seen no evidence of that — and believe me, wicked ones, Cheetah knows where to look! Grrowl…

MORE, DARLINGS, on the mysterious marital goings-on around Bollywood. Remember Cheetah told you last week about the star who’d allegedly put his light into eclipse by “marrying” one of his satellites? To be honest, little cubs, your Cheetah didn’t take it all too seriously, because the uninhibited source of the story isn’t exactly famous for needing a wedding ring before making the bedding sing. Why would anyone, let alone the straying superstar in question, need to marry her? Or so Cheetah thought, and that was fair enough, wouldn’t you say, darlings? Well, the lady (and we may as well call her that, until the mystery man says, “that’s no lady, that’s my wife!”) is deeply offended by Cheetah’s suggestion that she has been playing fast and loose with (among other things) the truth. The newly respectable Mrs. says she can even name the temple where the ceremony actually occurred! Can you believe it, darlings, a temple! After all, God only knows what goes on in Bollywood, eh? Grrrowl…

PARDON MY BREATHLESSNESS, darlings, but things are really hotting up in Bollywood’s Bigamous Boudoirs! Remember the trail your Cheetah has relentlessly sniffed out over the last few weeks? Well, it certainly seems that there’s some fire beneath the smoke, after all. The jungle tom-toms tell Cheetah that a garland was indeed draped around one of the screen’s more swanlike necks, though it’s other portions of her anatomy that usually need draping! The suhaag story is only marred by the fact that the man is already married. And that his original dharampatni is far from amused. Bollywood’s know-it-alls speak in hushed whispers of her righteous fury when the Other Woman’s name is even mentioned. Which is more than slightly awkward, since the three of them are actually doing a movie together! What a set of tangled vines for Cheetah’s little cubs to figure out, eh? Just put two and two together and you’ll come up with a ménage à trois! Grrrrowl…

TO MOVE to more mundane matters, darlings, what is arch-villain Pranay doing making so many trips to the land of Araby? Cheetah’s invariably well-informed sources speak of many a flying visit to the modern souks of Dubai, which of course is better spelled “Do-buy.” So villainy must be paying! It seems the man with the evil mustache is much seen in the company of an expatriate desi businessman, Nadeem Elahi, who is reported to be in “import-export.” Now there’s a phrase that conceals a multitude of sins, eh, darlings? But it wouldn’t be fair of Cheetah to point out that the principal export of Dubai, at least until oil came along, was gold to our own ill-protected shores, would it? No, Cheetah much prefers some more innocent explanation. Really, with our filmi smuggler’s thinning hair, it would be too too boring if life imitated art so baldly! Grrrowl…

REALLY, DARLINGS, what is happening on the sets of Dil Ek Qila, Jagannath Choubey’s much-touted multistarrer that’s supposed to mark the comeback of ex-national sweetheart Maya Kumari? Bollywood is rife with stories of flashing tempers and stormy walkouts, script changes and sullen sulks — and that’s all offscreen! It’s no secret, of course, to Cheetah’s well-read little cubs (especially those who read well between the lines!) that the film’s two female stars don’t exactly see eye-to-contact lens with each other. And neither has to look very far for the cause of their mutual dislike — not much beyond their bedrooms, if Cheetah makes herself clear! Indeed, some of the problems on the set are not entirely unrelated to other matters we’ve chattered about in recent weeks, but sorry, darlings, the libel lawyers won’t let me say more. Meanwhile, producer Jagannath Choubey’s bills are mounting every day and director Mohanlal has been seen popping tranquilizers as if they were golgappas. Question of the week, darlings: will Dil Ek Qila ever get completed, and if it does, will anyone recognize it as the film Choubeyji’s enthusiastic PR-wallahs were telling us about months ago? As the costume man said to the actress, I have my doubts on both points! Grrrowl…

DARLINGS, whoever heard of a good villain? Well, it seems our nasty old Pranay, he of the paan-stained mouth and the evil leer, has a heart of gold, and that isn’t a snide reference to his visits to Dubai, I swear! It seems the man every woman loves to hate has actually set up a fund for Junior Artistes, the long-suffering small-fry we can’t bring ourselves to call “extras,” and he puts in a percentage of his take from every movie he does, as well. Now there’s an example for some of our heroes to follow, eh? Grrowl…

NOW ALL YOU faithful little cubs know that Cheetah doesn’t waste time on soulful gush, don’t you? We only chatter about the sinful and the salacious. But Cheetah heard something soulful today that’s too-too interesting to pass up. Remember the unnameable bigamist you’ve heard all those whispers about? Well, he was in a confiding mood the other day, over a glass of Cheetah’s favourite libation, but — alas! — strictly off the record. Which means it’s OK to quote him as long as we don’t mention his name (or height), eh? So gather round, little cubs, and Cheetah will tell you a slightly longer story than usual!

Well, we asked our friend, why the first marriage, and why the second? He looked intensely into the amber pool in his glass and breathed, almost to himself: “You marry someone. Because she seems right, because everyone else loves her, because you want your father’s approval. Even if you’ve never admitted to yourself, let alone to him, that you want your father’s approval. And at first it feels great. Everyone admires her, envies you. Wonderful. Then, after a while, the magic fades. You lose interest in her. Not all of a sudden, but gradually, inevitably. You can’t do anything about it. But you don’t want to lose her either. It’s not as if you dislike her or anything, or are desperate to get rid of her. In any case, it’s too late for that: there’s the fear of scandal, there are the kids, there’s the guilt, and there’s the fear of, once more, letting yourself down in your father’s eyes. So you go on. You tell yourself it doesn’t matter: you’ll find your own escapes.”

And doesn’t she notice? “Perhaps. I don’t know. Of course she has her own frustrations. But it’s different for women.” (You can imagine how much self-restraint it took for Cheetah to let that pass, darlings.) “Anyway, you’re always conscious of your own escapes, your own betrayals, so when you’re with her you try to be considerate. You give in to whatever she wants. You avoid quarrels, resentments, anything that’ll bring your own duplicity up and into the open. You do and say what’s necessary, no more. Out of guilt, yes, and because there’s no point in fighting. It’s the least you can do for her. It’s all you can do for her. What you want for yourself you get elsewhere.”

And, I can hear you asking, little cubs, what about the Other Woman? “Well, you have no illusions about why you’re with her, what you want out of her. She’s your escape, your pleasure, no more, no less. Problem is, you think you’ve made that all clear to her, but it’s never clear enough. She expects things, things you can’t give her, never intended to give her. Attention. Engagement. Commitment. She wants to feel special, too, and however special you make her feel by being with her, there’s one thing your wife has that she doesn’t: your ring. Your name. A connection to you in the eyes of society and the eyes of God. You keep dismissing it, but in the end the pressure keeps mounting. You’ve either got to give in or give up — give her up.

“So of course you try to find some sort of compromise. You can’t give her any of the public acknowledgment she wants, of course — you can’t make her yours in the eyes of the world. So in a moment of weakness, after a sleepless night in her arms and bombed out of your mind anyway, you give her the next best thing — you tell her you’ll make her your wife in the eyes of God. Before you quite know what you’re doing you get her to pull on her sari and you trot bleary-eyed at dawn to a temple on the rocks with a garland you’ve bought on the beach, and drop it over her head in front of the idol. No witnesses, not even a priest. Of course you tell her God has blessed your nuptials and that’s far better than the blessings of society. But no sooner have you done it than you’ve got to stagger home and look at yourself in the mirror and confront the enormity of what you’ve done. And then you find you can’t face her again. You can’t deal with her on this new footing you’ve placed yourself on. You did it to preserve the relationship, but in fact you’ve made the relationship impossible.”

So he stops seeing her! Just like that — can you imagine? And what about the fact that the starry-eyed paramour is going around smearing red on her forehead and coyly referring to an anonymous “husband”?

“That’s her problem, not mine. I’d tell her to stop it but I can’t even bring myself to speak to her.”

Sad, stirring stuff, isn’t it, darlings? Cheetah was so moved she promptly gave him another drink — by emptying the glass on top of his head! GRRROWL …!

DARLINGS, Cheetah was at a Bollywood party with a difference the other day. Seems our villain with a social conscience, Pranay, has political commitments too! The man best known for flogging celluloid peasants and ripping bodices off vamps played host to a Delhi VIP last week while producers and distributors tried to look knowledgeable about national issues. The party was to introduce the well-heeled and high-heeled of filmland to Dr. Sourav Gangoolie, national treasurer of the ruling party and behind-the-scenes confidante of the Prime Minister, no less! Despite some notable absentees (including Bollywood’s only ministerial offspring, Ashok “completely-uninterested-in-politics” Banjara), Pranay’s bash has to be counted as a success for the paan-stained veteran. The dapper Dr. Gangoolie, who is not much seen in the public eye but has a reputation for shrewdness and getting things done, was able to meet an assortment of Bollywood luminaries. He spoke affably to all and sundry, but there was a determined glint in his bespectacled eyes as he squeezed the pudgier hands. After all, there’s an election around the corner and Dr. G. is supposed to be the party’s principal fund-raiser. And funds are one commodity Bollywood isn’t exactly short of, especially of the undeclared variety (but of course Cheetah’s just being naughty, little cubs, and the libel lawyers can relax)!! Who’d have thought our Pranay had a top politico up his sleeve, darlings? Mark my words — the best villains always have more to them than meets the eye. Which in Pranay’s case is just as well, eh? Grrowl…

STOP THE PRESS! Remember the soulful confessions of the straying superstar in these pages a couple of weeks ago? Well, the Wronged Woman (or is she simply the Wrong Woman?) has been pouring her heart out to your Cheetah, darlings, and it’s all sizzling stuff! Unfortunately, these lawyers are such a bore, my cubs, they just won’t let me print it all. Anyway, the burden of her song is that marriage was all his idea in the first place — (sorry, His idea, she insists I write it with a capital H) — and that it’s merely set the seal of divine sanction on their holy union. Can you believe such a thing, darlings? But what amazed Cheetah even more was how she went on about Him and what a great influence He is on her life and how she wouldn’t let anyone speak a word against Him because He is her Force, her be-all and end-all. Now Cheetah knows this is usually how actresses sound when their ends no longer justify their jeans and the time comes to discover religion, but the lady in question is in her prime and her hero’s no one’s idea of an idol. Wonders will never cease! Stay tuned, darlings — the lady’s nothing if not “revealing,” and there may be more revelations to come! Grrowl…

TUT, TUT, DARLINGS, all is not well between Bollywood’s hottest screen twosome, at least not after the spectacular fiasco of their Dil Ek Qila, which is finding it difficult to survive its initial week in most theaters! When Ashok Banjara walked into producer Jagannath Choubey’s glittering Diwali bash the other evening (and what a bash it was, my little cubs, more sparkle than a mineful of diamonds, and fireworks to put Venice to shame) guess who should make a beeline for him, slinky in a silvery salwar-kameez, but his recent costar Mehnaz Elahi! And guess who walked past without a greeting, as if he could see right through her!! The poor little itch girl stood helplessly in the middle of the room, her seductive smile turning into a strained simper. Of course this was for all of six seconds, before she was surrounded by her usual sea of admirers and swept away to another shore, but six seconds is long enough for your Cheetah to notice, my cubs! It was not long before the room was abuzz with speculation, much of it asking what Bollywood was coming to if one flop, even such a maha flop, could do this to relations between two friends and colleagues. Some people were already renaming the film Dil Ek Killer! Cheetah, as always, knew more than she was prepared to say — but as The Banjara knows so well, some things are better done than said, eh? Think about that, my little cubs! Grrrrowl…

END OF INTERVAL BACK

TO MAIN FEATURE

Exterior: Night

DIL EK QILA

(The Heart Is a Fortress)

THE SECOND TREATMENT: THE REVISED VERSION

A hillside in Kashmir. The camera pans across azure sky, verdant slopes, technicolor flowers. Maya runs laughing across the screen to the strains of a dozen violins as Ashok Banjara pursues her, singing:

You are my sunlight

You brighten my life

You are my sunlight

Come be my wife.

He finally catches up with her and hugs her from behind: she continues trying to flee and they roll down the hill, locked in an embrace. Close-up: their laughing lips are about to meet when the camera swings skyward and the opening credits fill the screen.

Domestic scene: Maya with her parents, Godambo and Abha, in their luxurious, indeed palatial, home. Early moments of dialogue establish father’s strength (deep, gravelly voice), wealth (expensive rings on fingers), and traditionalism (caste mark on forehead). Maya gets to the point: “Father, I would like to get married.” “Excellent,” says Godambo: he has been thinking along the same lines. It is time Maya settled down. It would be good for her and, provided a suitable son-in-law was found, good for the business also.

Maya looks uncomfortable. “Father, there is already a man whom I wish to marry.”

“What!” Outrage on Godambo’s face, consternation in his bulging eyes. Abha rolls her own pupils heavenward and mutters a brief invocation. “And who can this be?” asks the paterfamilias.

“Its someone I met at the music class,” Maya says nervously. “He’s a very fine person and a wonderful singer. Let me bring him home to meet you. I’m sure you’d like him.”

“Wait!” Godambo is a man of procedure. “Before you bring any such person to our house, let me make some inquiries. Tell me everything you know about him. Who is the man? What is his name? Is he of good family? Who are his parents? Do we know them, and if not, why not? Where does he live? What is his profession?” And Abha adds, “Is he tall?”

“Yes, he is,” Maya answers her mother, but one useful response does not get her off the hook. Godambo is not to be diverted. Squirming under his relentless probing, Maya has to admit that her beau is neither rich nor well connected. “But he is a great musician,” she says with deep-pupiled intensity. “And I love him.”

“Love?” Godambo barks. “What is love?”

“Love,” Abha explains maternally,” is something that comes after marriage, Maya. I love you, I love your father. How can you love a stranger?”

“He’s not a stranger, Mother,” Maya begins, then realizes it is hopeless. “Look, if only you both would meet him, you would see immediately what I mean.” But her father is reluctant to take matters so far as to welcome this impecunious interloper into his own living room. Then Maya has an idea. “Come and see him at the Cultural Evening tonight,” she pleads.

Godambo is not interested, but Abha, ever the obliging mother, persuades him on behalf of her daughter.

Scene: an auditorium, every seat full. Maya and her parents are escorted to a front row. The curtain parts to reveal a stage with the painted backdrop of twin snow-covered mountain peaks. The symbolism is made even more obvious as Mehnaz enters in a cascade of anklets, covered head to foot in kathak costume of billowing blue skirt, peak-hugging blue blouse, blue head scarf, and blue leggings, all spangled with silver. Godambo grunts appreciatively. Ashok, seated on a dhurrie on the stage, bursts into song:

My heart beats for you,

I’d perform feats for you,

You are the landlord of my soul;

My eyes light for you,

I’d gladly fight for you,

Without you I don’t feel whole.

As he sings and Mehnaz dances, all arched hip and elegant fingertips, Ashok manages to exchange meaningful glances with Maya in the audience, making it clear every word of the playback applies to her. Meanwhile, Godambo, oblivious to this byplay, appears to enjoy himself hugely. When the song is over the audience bursts into well-rehearsed applause, and Godambo rises to his feet to clap vigorously.

At the end of the show, Godambo, in mellow spirits, looks around the hall. “So shall we meet your young man now?” he asks.

“Oh, yes, thank you, Papa!” Maya exclaims, bright-eyed. “Did you like him?”

“That boy,” Godambo’s eyes bulge with pleasure, “has the making of a very great singer indeed.”

Backstage Mehnaz is cooing to Ashok. “Wasn’t that wonderful, darling?” she asks, placing her hands on Ashok’s shoulder. “You and I,” she adds huskily, “can make beautiful music together.”

Ashok disengages himself. “Excuse me, Mehnaz,” he says. “I have an important appointment.”

Mehnaz tosses her hair in displeasure and flounces out of the dressing room.

Ashok emerges from the auditorium, looking handsome and poised. After he deferentially greets Maya’s parents, they get into Godambo’s chauffeur-driven Impala.

When Mehnaz, now freshly changed into a slinky salwar-kameez, emerges from the auditorium, she sees Ashok — a look of eager expectation on his face — shutting the car door behind him. Mehnaz is left staring crestfallen and resentful into the camera as the Impala drives away into the future with an optimistic squeal of its white-walled tires.

Next scene: Ashok with his parents, in their lower-middle-class home. The decor is conventional: pale-green walls, peeling ceiling, plastic-covered sofa, garish calendars of androgynous deities. His father, Ramkumar, is poor but dignified, and anxious about his son’s choice. Marriage, he points out, has to do with more than mere attraction. Could Ashok cope with the stresses of being married to the daughter of Seth Godambo, of having a wife wealthier and more important than himself? And what about them? Marriage is not just a relationship between individuals, but an arrangement between families. Ashok would not just be marrying one woman, he would be acquiring another family. Could he see his own simple father and sari-swathed mother socializing in Seth Godambo s living room? Ashok has to admit he cannot.

Yet when his parents finally meet Maya, they are charmed by her sweetness and simplicity, her modesty and manners. “But she’s wonderful!” Ramkumar beams. “She’sjust the kind of girl we would have wanted to arrange for you to marry,” he adds. “Despite your obsession with music, you must still have something of me in you if you look for the same qualities in a wife that we would in a daughter-in-law.”

Maya blushes modestly, her smile dimpling her slim cheeks.

It is later, at dusk; Ashok and Maya are running through a palm grove near the beach. Maya wears a sari and a joyous expression. The flow of the tide caresses the shore, sending up froth that seems to gurgle happily in celebration of our heroine’s love. The sun’s rays bathe her beauty in a golden radiance as she runs through the grove, and Ashok, losing sight of her among the trees, sings with feeling:

Where are you, my love?

I wait for light from the sun above.

You have taken my heart

And hid it from view,

Now the trees will not part

To bring me to you.

Wh-e-e-re are you, my love?

And Maya’s answer comes echoing through the palm fronds: “I–I-I’m he-e-re.” Ashok grins in delight and resumes the chase.

Five verses later, he has caught her. They embrace, and her last answer is a lilting whisper: “I–I-I’m here.” Ashok’s head moves toward hers, and the camera caresses the waves as they wash the shore….

Afterward, Maya and Ashok walk by the sea, now calm in amatory contentment. Ashok buys a small garland of white flowers for Maya to wear in her hair. Impulsively, she slips off her necklace and gives it to Ashok. “Keep this,” she says, “as a memento of my love.” It is a thin chain, strung through a medallion of a dancing goddess. Ashok kisses the medallion, then gives it back to her. “How can I wear a necklace?” he asks with a laugh. “Wear it on your wrist,” Maya suggests, “like a bracelet.” Ashok loops the chain three times around his wrist, the medallion resting on it like a watch. “Don’t try and tell the time with it,” Maya giggles. “Any time is a good time,” Ashok responds, “to think of how much I love you.”

Scene: Godambo with Mehnaz Elahi. “I enjoyed your performance at the Cultural Evening last night,” he says gutturally. “I would like to engage you for a very special occasion.”

Mehnaz is shrewdly obliging.

“You see, my daughter is getting married,” Godambo goes on. “And we are celebrating it in a big way, as befits an alliance involving one of the city’s biggest families. I would like to have an entertainment show worthy of the occasion. And I would like you to dance at the wedding. Especially since the bridegroom is an associate of yours.”

“An associate?” Mehnaz clearly hasn’t heard about Ashok’s plans.

“Ashok Banjara,” Godambo says with pride. “Why, hasn’t he told you?”

“There is a lot,” Mehnaz replies with a set expression, “that Ashok doesn’t tell me.”

“Well,” Godambo says, looking uncomfortable, “will you perform at the occasion anyway?”

“Of course.” Mehnaz’s tone is dull.

“Good. So you will come for the event? Three weeks from now. I hope you are free.”

“Oh — three weeks from today.” Mehnaz is quick to make the most of a bad job. “I am afraid I cannot accept your invitation, Sethji. You see, I have a prior commitment in Bombay. Of course, I could try to change it….”

“You must,” Godambo insists, “or I would be most disappointed. And,” he says, looking at her with the eye of an experienced businessman, “I would of course be happy to double your fee on this happy occasion.”

“In that case,” says Mehnaz happily, “how can I let you down for such an important event?”

And so to the wedding. As the ceremony progresses, complete with demure bride dripping with gold, catered food dripping with ghee, and overladen bar dripping with Scotch, Mehnaz, gazing wistfully at the bridegroom, dances for her supper as a temporary accompanist sings a variant of Ashok’s song:

Where are you, my love?

I wait for light from the neon above.

You have taken my heart

And hid it from view,

Now the marriage mart

Has deprived me of you.

Wh-e-e-re are you, my love?

But this time there is no answer.

It is some years later. Maya is seated on a dhurrie on the floor, taking music lessons from a maestro with a harmonium. “Very good,” says the maestro, Asrani, an actor more usually seen in the role of stock comedian. “Now once again: sa-ri-ga-ma-pa-da-ni-sa.” He tosses his head back with a tonal flourish as he runs through the scale. “Now you.

Maya dutifully echoes her guru: “Sa-ri-ga-ma-pa-da-ni-sa.”

“Not bad,” says the maestro. “But there is something missing.” He taps his belly, producing a percussion note like the glug of a drowning diver, and resumes. “Sa-ri-ga-ma-pa-da-ni-sa.”

Maya smiles prettily and in turn tosses her head. “Sa-ri-ga-ma-pa-da-ni-sa.”

“You’re getting it,” says the maestro. “See, it’s simple:

Sa, salary, monthly cash flow,

Ri, receipt for getting same;

Ga, garment, when bank is working slow,

Ma, materialism’s no shame;

Pa, paupers can’t teach a thing,

Da, daal-bhat costs a lot,

Ni, needs are what make me sing —

and that brings us back to sa — something you forgot?”

Maya’s brow unfurrows in comprehension. “You haven’t been paid,” she says in contrition. “I’m so sorry, Panditji.”

“An able pupil,” exclaims the maestro. “Music may be the riches of the soul, but the soul of music requires riches. Or at least a humble pittance.”

As Maya hurries to her safe to pay her teacher, the maestro remarks on how good she has become. “Very good indeed,” he pronounces, nodding in satisfaction at the notes she is deferentially offering him. “What made you want to take up singing?”

The camera lingers in close-up on Maya’s poignantly inexpressive face. “I used to take lessons, years ago,” she says, a faraway gaze in her eyes. “That’s how I met my husband. I gave up singing when I married him. But now, my husband spends more and more time on his music. When he leaves, I feel he is taking the music out of my life. I decided the only thing I could do was to learn it myself so that I could join his world.”

“ Wah, wah,” responds Asrani heartily. It is not clear whether his appreciation is for the sentiment or the money he has just finished counting.

There follow a couple of scenes that establish Ashok in affectionate domesticity: scenes involving his beautiful wife and dutiful children. Intercut with these are scenes of his professional relationship with Mehnaz: he sings as she dances, her sighs in his direction completely unrequited.

Scene: Maya is about to give her first public performance as a singer. And she is introduced fulsomely to a large audience by none other than her own father, Seth Godambo.

“As you know, my son-in-law is a very good singer,” Godambo orates. “And in this domain he is now joined by the not inconsiderable talents of his wife, my daughter, Maya.” (Applause.) “She is a good wife, but what is not so widely known is that she also has a musical soul. And she has kindly agreed today, under the able guidance and instruction of Pandit Asrani” — the maestro, his mouth full of paan, takes an affable bow — “to sing for you today, all in the cause of charity, of course.” Godambo nods, but even without this cue the extras in their seats applaud the winsome debutant with rare enthusiasm.

Her aesthetic inclinations thus rendered socially respectable, Maya launches into song:

All I want is to sing for you

Because, you know, I’ve this thing for you,

That throbs in every note;

All I want is to be with you

Because, you know, I can’t be free with you,

If music sticks in my throat.

Her diffidence slips away with every verse, and at the end the audience is on its feet, applauding, all except Mehnaz, who gets up from her seat at the back of the hall, her mouth set in a thin line of resentment, and slips out.

Maya goes from success to success. In a series of quick cuts, she is shown performing in overflowing halls to standing ovations, receiving prizes and awards, and being featured on posters and in neon lights. Meanwhile, Ashok’s career fades. He and Mehnaz are seen in nondescript theaters before dwindling crowds, his name set in increasingly smaller print on shabby notices, while Maya’s name and face glow in every newspaper. His expression becomes increasingly lugubrious as Maya continues to receive accolades. And after one performance, as everyone else claps, Ashok is seen turning away and walking out of the hall.

“Depressing, isn’t it?” Mehnaz, her curves enhanced by a slinky dress, is by his side in a nearby garden; she is carrying a snakeskin handbag. “To see all this adulation, when true talent like yours goes unrecognized?”

Ashok sees no hint of sarcasm in the question. “I’m happy for Maya,” he says, sounding far from it. “But sometimes…”

“Sometimes you wish this hobby of hers would leave some room for the professionals like us,” Mehnaz says shrewdly, her pectorals heaving in sympathy. “People don’t applaud her singing, Ashok. They’re in love with her, the simple girl-next-door with the looks and manners of a housewife, a woman who looks as if she’d sooner offer you a cup of tea than charge you admission to hear her sing. The crowds love it: they go and sit there, and they look at her, and it doesn’t matter how well she sings or how much better we — I mean you — do. Style and glamour are passé, Ashok.” Mehnaz undulates with regret as she turns toward him. “No one wants excitement any more. Simplicity is in.”

Ashok looks at her. “I rather like style and glamour myself,” he says, in a tone that suggests he does not admit his other meaning, even to himself. “Not everyone rejects excitement.”

“It took you a long time to recognize it, Ashok,” Mehnaz responds huskily. “Come to my place, I’ll give you a drink.”

“But… Maya…” Ashok’s protest is feeble.

“She’s so busy being felicitated, she won’t even notice,” says Mehnaz. “Her manager can take her home. Come on.”

And with only a brief, hesitant glance toward the hall where his faithful wife is receiving her due, Ashok is led from the garden by the temptress with the snakeskin bag. An apple litters the path, and Mehnaz kicks it aside with the tip of a high-heeled shoe.

Inside the hall Maya turns to her manager, Pranay, an energetic operator who has been seen earlier organizing backstage, berating auditorium factotums, arranging for Maya to be garlanded. Maya’s gentle features are clouded in apprehension.

“Ashok doesn’t seem to be anywhere,” she says. “What do you think could have happened?”

“He must have got tired of waiting,” Pranay says. “Don’t worry, I’ll take you home.”

“It’s not like Ashok,” Maya says, her dark eyes troubled. “I hope he’s all right. He hasn’t seemed himself of late. I hope he isn’t sick.”

“He’ll be all right,” Pranay retorts unsympathetically. “If you want my opinion, the only thing he’s sick of is your success.”

“How dare you say that!” Maya blazes at him loyally. “How dare you!”

“Take it easy.” Pranay backs off. “No offense meant. But the fact is that he’s less and less happy with your good fortune. I’ve been watching him closely, Maya. You and I have been together too long for me to hide these things from you.”

“If you go on saying these things, Pranay” — Maya’s delicate nostrils flare with rage — “you and I won’t be together much longer. Ashok’s my husband. He doesn’t even think like that.”

“Fine.” Pranay concedes. “He’s your husband. Just forget I said anything.”

But the seed of doubt has been planted in Maya’s furrowed mind. “Where do you think he is now?” she asks.

“I don’t know,” Pranay says guardedly. “Seeking consolation of some sort, I suppose.”

“You mean sitting in some bar drinking himself silly in self-pity?” snorts Maya derisively. “Huh — that shows how much you know Ashok. He’s not like that at all. Take me home. I’m sure I’ll find him there.”

“I’ll take you,” says Pranay. “But remember, drink isn’t the only consolation there is.”

The audience knows that, because Ashok and Mehnaz are in a warm room with a log fire. (Note: this is Kashmir, remember?) Each sports a glass and a smoldering look. They circle each other, the glow from the fire reflected in the heat on their faces. Mehnaz sings:

You and me, locked in a room,

And I have lost the key.

You and me, locked in a room,

And I know you want me.

ASHOK JOINS IN:

You and me, locked in a room,

And I have shut the door.

You and me, locked in a room,

With a rug upon the floor.

MEHNAZ:

The look in your eyes

Is really no surprise

(SHE LIES DOWN)

And I’m not prone to argue.

ASHOK:

There’s nothing shoddy

About your body

(HE BENDS TOWARD HER)

And I’ve only seen the far view.

TOGETHER:

You and me, locked in a room,

With only each other for comfort.

You and me, locked in a room?

Ashok is almost upon her. The camera shows two logs burning, the flames licking toward each other. Then suddenly the logs fuse, and the fire spurts upward in a searing triangle.

Maya is still awake when Ashok returns home. They are both red-eyed, for different reasons.

“Where have you been?” she asks.

“Out.”

“I can see that. But where? Have you been drinking?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“Don’t you have anything to tell me?”

“No. Do you?”

In the face of his belligerence, Maya bites her lip in silence.

“Well? Do you?”

She says nothing, but the tears well up in her limpid eyes.

“No? Good. In that case, good night.” And Ashok throws himself on the bed, while Maya, sitting with her knees drawn up against her chest, sinks her chin into her folded arms and weeps through the night.

It is the next day. “I’m sorry, Pranay. I don’t feel like singing this evening. Please cancel the show.”

“What has happened? You sound terrible, Maya.” Pranay takes her chin in his hands and removes the dark glasses with which she has covered the evidence of her tears. “My God, you’ve been crying. What’s the matter?” She does not answer. “Is it Ashok?”

Maya averts her gentle face so that only the camera can see the pain in her eyes. “Please don’t ask me, Pranay.”

“Why not? Do you have a better friend than me in the whole world?”

“No, of course not, Pranay,” sobs Maya. “You’re a wonderful friend, and a great manager. It’s not you. It’s just that I can’t talk about this … to anybody.”

Pranay is bewildered. “But why? Did he beat you?”

“No,” she sniffs, shaking her head for emphasis. “It’s worse.”

Comprehension dawns on Pranay. “So I was right, wasn’t I?” he asks. “He was out seeking consolation” — she nods miserably — “with a woman. My God, I even know which woman.”

“Witch-woman,” echos Maya.

“Mehnaz,” breathes Pranay, “of course.” He turns to her with a sudden onrush of passion. “Maya, that man is not worthy of you. Leave him, Maya. Come with me. I shall look after you the way I have looked after your singing.”

“Stop!” Maya’s face is again awash with her sorrow. “Pranay, how can you even speak like that! Ashok is my husband, my dharampati. I can never think of leaving him.”

“But Maya, stop thinking only of your duty to him! What about your duty to yourself?”

“My duty to my husband is to myself,” Maya says slowly, as portentous music fills the sound track. “When I married Ashok I gave my heart to him, and my life. I cannot love anyone else ever again.”

“But look at the way he is treating you,” says Pranay angrily. Maya does not answer.

“Don’t waste your life like this, Maya,” Pranay pleads.

“My life is committed,” Maya says nobly. “There is no waste in fulfilling my dharma as a wife. But I do not intend to sit idly and let my husband drift away from me. I must have done something wrong. I shall undo it now and win my husband back.”

(Respectful applause from the twenty-five-paisa seats.)

Ashok is on stage, singing as Mehnaz dances. But his eyes are not on her: he has a sad, wistful expression on his face as he gazes soul-fully at the dress circle and sings:

Where are you, my love?

I wait for light from the stars above.

You have taken my heart

And hid it from view,

Life has kept us apart

And rid me of you.

Wh-e-e-re are you, my love?

Where she is, is right there — for, unnoticed by Ashok, Maya has slipped into the audience, and she listens to him sing with tears glistening in her eyes.

The show is over, and Ashok is standing, palms joined in respectful namaskar, as a thin trickle of decrepit well-wishers congratulate him on his performance. Suddenly the look of distant politeness on Ashok’s face vanishes as a soft voice cuts through the hubbub near him. “You sang beautifully, Ashok.” Our hero looks up in shock at Maya standing among the debris on the stage.

“You! What are you doing here?”

“Ijust thought I’d come and watch you sing,” she says softly. “Do you mind?”

“Mind? Of course not. It’s just that — you haven’t done this in a long time.” Their eyes meet, and it is obvious even to the villagers in the twenty-five-paisa seats that nothing has changed between them.

“Why did you leave me that night, without even a word?” she asks intensely.

“Because I didn’t think you cared whether I stayed or not,” Ashok says miserably. “I wanted — oh, I don’t know, attention, perhaps.”

Attention is just what he’s going to get, for Pranay suddenly appears, his eyes bloodshot, his feet unsteady. He is carrying a gun, which he points directly at Ashok.

Maya turns, sees him, and throws herself on the assailant. But she can only deflect the shot. Pranay fires — once, twice, the bark of the revolver punctuating the music and bringing the sound track to a screeching halt. Maya screams. Ashok collapses, bleeding profusely in Eastman color.

Scene: a hospital. Ashok lies swathed in an improbable array of bandages that carefully leave his face made-up and visible. Bottles drip assorted fluids into his veins. A worried Dr. Iftikhar tells Ashok’s parents, “I am sorry, but the situation is serious. We cannot save your son without a rare type of blood. And yours,” he tells the stricken Ramkumar, “does not match.”

“But I have the same blood type as my husband’s,” Maya exclaims. “Please take whatever is necessary to save my dharampati’s life.” Cymbals clash on the sound track as symbols flash on the screen.

“Shabash,” says Dr. Iftikhar. (He has been waiting a long time to say it.)

After a few quick cuts (both cinematic and surgical), Ashok and Maya lie on adjoining cots, smiling wanly at each other. The precious red fluid drips into him from a large bottle suspended above his bed.

“You saved my life,” Ashok declaims. She smiles in satisfied response.

Ashok, remarkably restored, goes on. “Oh, Maya, I’ve done a terrible thing. I’ve been untrue to you and to myself. I’m miserable, Maya. Won’t you forgive me?”

“There is nothing to forgive, Ashok,” Maya says, rising from her bed to embrace her husband and placing her head against his chest. “I want to tell you something. I have decided to give up singing.”

“What?” In his astonishment Ashok almost sits up, but he is drawn short by his tubes. “Give up singing! But why?”

“I only took it up to become closer to you, my husband,” says Maya, as treacly notes drip through the sound track. “Instead it has only driven us apart. I don’t need it. You give me all the music I need in my life.”

“You’re doing this for me,” Ashok says in wonder. “What a noble woman you are, Maya! How could I ever have dreamed of betraying you?”

They look at each other in wordless communion.

A knock sounds at the door. It is Mehnaz. “I am leaving town, Ashok,” she announces, to catcalls from the audience. She says to Maya, “I took something I had no right to. I must now return it to its true owner.” And she drops a chain into Maya’s palm. The medallion of the dancing goddess shines back at him as the dancing godless turns on her heel and walks out of their lives.

Scene: another Ashok performance, but this time there is no Mehnaz, no dance to accompany. Ashok is on center stage himself, having taken over the spot of the woman who now sits in the front row smiling adoringly at him, as he dedicates his impassioned and familiar melody to her:

My heart beats for you,

I’d perform feats for you,

You are the mistress of my soul;

My eyes light for you,

I’d gladly fight for you,

Without you I don’t feel whole.

At the end of the song, as the rapturous audience exclaims their admiration, Ashok steps to the front of the stage. “As you know, I am singing to you today because my wife, Maya, has announced her decision to give up the stage,” he declares. The crowd expresses its disappointment. “But I too do not wish her to abandon something that gives so many of you so much pleasure.” Shouts of enthusiasm from the crowd. “Maya is determined not to pursue a single career. So today I am proud to announce the birth of a new singing duo — Maya and Ashok!”

The crowd erupts. Maya, taken aback, blushes bashfully in her seat. Then, urged on by the crowd and by her own husband, she walks up to the stage to stand by Ashok’s side. Together, smiling, they sing:

ASHOK:

Where are you, my love?

Of you I can’t have enough.

You have taken my heart

And kept it with you,

Now no one can start

To part me from you.

Whe-e-e-re are you, my love?

MAYA:

Where are you, my love?

You shelter me like the roof above.

You have taken my heart

And made my life new,

We shan’t ever part.

I’ll always give you your due.

Whe-e-e-re are you, my love?

As they sing, Ashok’s arm wound protectively around his wife, Pranay smiling fraternally in the wings, the camera moves back, taking a long shot of them, the stage, the crowd. The long notes of “Where are you, my love?” fill the sound track, and on the now-distant image of the happy couple appear the words

THE BEGINNING.

Monolog Lie: Day

MEHNAZ ELAH1

They wouldn’t let me in, would you believe that? “Sorry, moddom,” that lousy little Bong at the entrance to the intensive care unit said, “strict instructions. Doctor’s orders.” Doctor’s orders my foot. I bet it was that shrewish little wife of yours. Honestly, what you saw in that woman is beyond me. I know, I know, I shouldn’t be saying these things against your wonderful, saintly Maya. But as long as you’re going to lie there and not tell me what I can and can’t say, I’m going to say what I think. And what I think is that that precious Maya of yours is an absolutely insufferable little prig. There’s nothing she wouldn’t do to put me down, to humiliate me. Me! The only woman who’s been a real woman to you.

“You mean you won’t let me see Him?” I asked incredulously, and the Bong shivered, in this Bombay heat he shivered, I tell you. “If you don’t let me through,” I said, “I’ll kick up such a fuss that this hospital will find itself torn to shreds in every film magazine in the country.” Do you know how many film journalists are waiting outside? I’m asking you, Ashokji, not the Bong. At least twenty-five, I swear. “Do you want your name in all the papers, Mr. Bannerji, for being the banner-ji who banned Mehnaz Elahi from visiting her own husband?” That really shook him up, I can tell you. He looked around nervously, up and down the antiseptic corridors, and whispered through his crooked teeth. “Family all gone to lunch, moddom,” he admitted. “You go in quickly now.” So here I am.

I suppose I shouldn’t have used the husband bit, since you seem to hate it so much now. But you didn’t once, did you? When you took me to that temple and put a garland of marigolds around my neck and gave me your ring and said, “In the eyes of God we’re man and wife”? Oh, I was so moved then, Ashokji. I thought you really meant it. Only afterward Salma said to me, “In the eyes of which God, hanh? If he really wanted to marry you, why did he take you to a temple, instead of converting to Islam and marrying you proper?” And I had no answer. I mean, I never expected you to leave your prissy little malnourished wife, but if you were a Muslim you could legally have two wives, know what I mean? Instead of doing this temple thing like all those other actors just to make the woman feel respectable while knowing full well that it hasn’t any validity in anybody’s eyes but God’s. If He’s looking. “Maybe his God was, but Allah certainly wasn’t,” Salma sniffed. OK, so I know she was just trying to make me feel bad, no film star is going to marry poor pimply Salma even as a third wife, poor thing, so she has to get her own back. But even then, I’ve got to admit she has a point, hasn’t she? Go on, tell me, hasn’t she?

But of course you can’t. Look at you lying there, not saying a word, Ashokji, oh, it’s enough to make me cry. Not that you said many a word when you were with me. Always desperately anxious to rip off my clothes you were. And the rest of the time, the real strong-and-silent type. But then you always said I did enough talking for the two of us.

And why not? My mind opened up when I was with you, Ashokji. Really opened up. All sorts of ideas filled my head. And not just the wicked ones you always accused me of! I mean, ideas about really important things. Like life, and love, and philosophy, and things. If I hadn’t known what it was to be loved by you, I’d never have turned to the Guru.

Look at that — I’ve never even told you about the Guru. And whose fault is that, hanh? Ever since you entered politics, you’ve avoided me. Everyone’s going to the Guru these days, simply everyone, except you. And God knows you need him more than most. I wanted to take you to him myself, but could I even get you on the phone? Only that wretched Subramanyam, saying “Sorry, miss, I not knowing.” And you, you don’t know what you’re missing, I tell you. The way that Guru found me, even that was a miracle. The man is really incredible.

But as if you want to know anything about me these days. Me, your wife, Ashokji! OK, not your lawfully wedded wife, but what was it that witch Radha Sabnis called me — your “awfully bedded wife.” I know you were angry when that temple marriage got into the magazines. What could I do? I was so lonely, so hurt when you stopped seeing me, Ashokji, my dearest, and I was simply pining for you, so I had to give those interviews. Will you ever forgive me? Will you? Well, why shouldn’t you? After all, I never used your name. I always said “Him.” With a capital H — I always told them to write it that way. Some young journalist-shernalist said we only write it that way when we write about God. And I said, so what, He was God to me.

I know some people laughed at me. And that you were angry, so angry you snubbed me in public by turning away from me at Jagannath Choubey’s Diwali party. I bet your little shrew put you up to it. Why were you angry, darling? I hadn’t broken my promise to you never to discuss our relationship in the press. I hadn’t broken my promise because I never confirmed it was you I was talking about. Oh, I had to talk about the relationship, about the influence you had on my life, the Force you represented in my existence — did you like that at least, “the Force”? That was a word my Guru gave me. I had to, Ashokji, or it would have driven me crazy. All alone, knowing I was your wife and yet having none of the prerogatives, isn’t that the word, of wifehood. Sometimes I wonder, why did you do it? I didn’t ask for it. It was all your idea, this whole temple chakkar. You took me there, you bought the mala, you put it round my Muslim neck and pronounced me your Hindu wife. And ever since then you’ve tried to pretend it never happened. Oh, Ashokji, I’d have loved you with or without your mala. I want your love, not your name or your money. Why have you turned away from me, my life?

My Guru tells me I should learn to accept this. Learn detachment, he says. Take life as it comes. So I’m supposed to enjoy your attention when you give it to me, ignore your slights, and don’t let either touch — what does he call it? — the essential core of my being. Oh, it sounds so easy when the Guru says it. But when I’m sitting here, looking at you all silent and bandaged up, Ashokji, it’s not easy at all. I want to weep, you know that? Weep. Even if I’ve got a shift to go to straight from here and it’ll really mess me up.

I can imagine you saying, “Don’t be melodramatic, Mehnaz.” You were always saying things like that. What melodrama-shama did I inflict on you, hanh? OK, OK, the one time that I cut my wrist. But that was just a little cut, really, a skin cut, just to frighten you, just to make you stay. I saw in your eyes then that you didn’t want me to die. That’s all I wanted to see. I knew you’d have to go back to your little pocket edition of a wife afterward, anyway. But I wanted to see you wanting me, you know? Not just my body. Wanting me to live. That’s why I did it. I know I shouldn’t have. Don’t mind, promise? It won’t happen again. My Guru has told me never ever to do anything like that again. He saw it in my eyes, he said, that once I had tried to take my life. Can you imagine it? After that, I’d do anything for him. And I won’t try suicide again, really I won’t. I just wish you’d show me sometimes you need me. Show me that you’re not only committed to that dried-up little minx, and I’ll be as good as gold. Better, even, because gold isn’t going up much these days. I wish you could see this necklace I’m — oh, never mind.

That’s all I wanted, Ashokji, to matter to you. That’s all I ever asked of you. Not just bang away at me when you needed me and then pretend in public I don’t exist. Oh, I know you never promised you’d be anything else. Remember that first time, when I was practically melting in your arms, and I said, as a feeble last attempt at resistance, “But you’re a married man”? And you said, in that voice of yours, God, that voice, “A married man is still a man.” That was all I needed, that line, in that voice of yours, and with that look in your blazing eyes so bright it set me on fire. Of course I succumbed, I practically collapsed around you there and then, so I can’t blame you, you know I never have. But later, when I told Salma what you’d said, she retorted, “A married man doesn’t have to stay married — if he’s a man.”

Oh, you know Salma, I didn’t take her words to heart or anything, not really. But deep down inside, I can’t help feeling there just might be something to what she said. You were just trying to have it both ways, weren’t you, Ashokji? You never intended to acknowledge me in any way, except with that hypocritical temple garlanding of yours, with no witnesses. No witnesses — yes, Salma pointed that out too, and I said that it just shows how spontaneous the whole thing was. And all she could say was, “Mehnaz, you poor sap, when are you going to stop fooling yourself? He knew exactly what he was doing. That man of yours, or rather not of yours, is a selfish, calculating bastard and the sooner you realize it the better/’ You know what I did? I told her to get out of my house. I screamed at her: “Out! Out! You jealous, pimply housewife, just because your husband can’t get it up doesn’t mean you’ve got to get me down! Get out!” And I really pushed her out of the house, you know. All for you. The things I did because of my love for you, Ashokji. Sometimes when I think about them I can’t even believe it myself.

And what did you give me in exchange? Torment, neglect, humiliation. No, I’m not just being melodramatic, Mr. Ashok Banjara. Really, the things you made me put up with for you! I mean, how could you do to me what you did over Dil Ek Qila? A perfect script, tailor-made for me, a great Mehnaz Elahi part, and because I’m silly enough to be besotted with you, I ask them to cast you opposite me. Of course they were thrilled by the idea, everybody knew what was really going on between us, even if you pretended they didn’t. Dream casting, they said, slobbering over the gossip columns. Dream casting.

So you get the script, and what do you do to it? You let that wife of yours take it over, change the story, destroy my part, control the film and drive it to ruin! Did you even try to protest, Ashokji? A perfectly good plot destroyed, all the thrill and suspense taken out, dollops of sacchariney sentimentality added that was bound to turn away the crowds. And I tried to tell you — but would you listen? No huzoor! Heaven forbid! I tell you, if it weren’t for you and my contract, and not even in that order, I would have walked off that film on the first day. I could see what she was up to, the minx! But you, you were so blinded by your guilt, or whatever it was, you couldn’t see anything but her tight little behind. Well, if she was such a loyal and noble little soul, Ashokji, what was Pranay doing in that film, once all the villainy had been cut out of the story? What was the need for him to be there at all? You tell me that, Mr. Devoted Husband. Go on. Tell me. Just try.

Not even that worked, hanh? Poor thing, you must be really bad. The doctor says he can’t understand it. Did I tell you I telephoned the doctor? He was absolutely thrilled to be speaking with me, I tell you. “Miss Mehnaz Yelahi, yis it yactually?” He was practically gurgling with pleasure. But when I asked him what was the problem he sounded really troubled. “There yis no yapparent medical reason why He cannot talk,” the doctor said in that all-knowing Tamil way. They’re all very concerned about you, Ashokji. Not just me. But look, isn’t being India’s Number One Superstar enough for you? Must you try to be India’s Number One Medical Mystery as well?

I’m sorry if I’m sounding so flippant. It’s not easy for me, really. When I first heard about the accident I thought I would kill myself. “Why Him, O Lord?” I asked the heavens. “Why not me?” I’ve been simply frantic with worry ever since, Ashokji, really I have. But my Guru tells me to be calm. He says there is no use worrying about what has happened and what might happen, because it is already willed. “Why shed tears about the workings of destiny?” he asked. “Does the river weep because it must flow to the sea?” I was really impressed by that. But I don’t find it all that easy to be calm about destiny when there is a chance it might take you away from me. Even more completely than you’ve taken yourself away.

Stupid of me to say that, I’m sorry. You’ll be all right, everyone says so. The whole country is praying for you, Ashokji. Really. There are open-air prayers in mosques and temples and gurudwaras and churches and fire temples and jamaatkhanas and wherever else it is that people get together to ask their Maker for favors. I even hear the Prime Minister is planning to break an official journey tomorrow to visit you in the hospital. I know your father is a politician and all, and you were even in Parliament for a while, but the Prime Minister just doesn’t do that for everyone, you know. You’re special. Not just to me — you’re special to the whole country, to India. You’ll be all right. Everyone wants you to be well.

Even my Guru. You must meet Guruji one day. I think you’ll really like him, Ashokji. He’s got this marvelous smile: suddenly his lips part wide, revealing two rows of brilliant white teeth lighting up a gap in his brilliant white beard. And his eyes, Ashokji — you ought to appreciate them. Where yours are so clear and transparent, his pupils are black and deep, so deep they contain the wisdom of the world and you feel you could drown in them. He speaks in a quiet voice, not a particularly remarkable one, but what he says, Ashokji, what he says! I’ll try to bring him here sometime. Actually people go to him, you know, he doesn’t come anywhere, but perhaps for you, in your condition — I’m sorry, I’m making you sound as if you were pregnant or something, isn’t it? No, I think he’ll come. If I can get Mr. Horatio Bannerji to let us in.

Aren’t you going to ask me what I’m doing with a Guru? Me, a good, convent-educated Muslim girl from a nawabi family? No, I don’t suppose you are going to ask me anything today. Salma did. At her most pompous. “You’re betraying both your religion and your class,” she said stuffily. “Not to mention your education. But then that’s never mattered to you, has it?” And the truth is, it hasn’t. Nothing has. The only thing that’s mattered to me since I joined Hindi films is you.

My joining the movies was a betrayal too. My parents had forbidden me even to see Hindi films. They were only made, they said, for the servant class. So of course I had to go. And I loved them! The glamour, the clothes, the dazzle — I wanted so much to be a part of that world, to escape the boring old prison my parents kept me in. I didn’t think of acting first. I mean, how could I, I hadn’t even acted in kindergarten. And if I had even tried to get a role in a local play, my parents would have flipped. When I entered the Miss India contest, just to spite them, and I won, they practically disowned me. Their daughter, being stared at by strangers! But what really made them go bananas was when I stayed on in Bombay after the contest and accepted all those modeling offers. I mean, what else does a Miss India do, right? And I enjoyed it. I think I particularly enjoyed their hysterics about it. My father even came to Bombay to take me home. But I’ve told you about all that, I think. Anyway, when I did the soap ad, the one that showed me in the shower, they really disowned me. My father said, “I have no daughter,” and he went into mourning. Just like that! My uncle sent me a telegram telling me not to come back home, ever. Can you imagine?

I still remember my first day as an actress. My crash course at Roshan Taneja’s acting school didn’t count. I was the beauty queen who’d done the soap and towel ads; that’s all the producer knew or cared about when he signed me. I had visions of stardom, fame, glamour. The movie was about, what else, a beauty queen who sold herself on the side. It was called Call Girl. Really subtle stuff, hanh? Lots of bikinis and leather microskirts that none of the established actresses would wear. Or could wear.

They sent a car for me, I remember, and that was my first disappointment. I’d expected a swank foreign car like the ones the stars drive around in Malabar Hill, but it wasn’t even an Impala, let alone a Cadillac convertible. Just a scratched, black, rattling Ambassador with holes in the upholstery and rusty springs poking through. We drove into a ramshackle shed in some grimy suburb, which turned out to be the studio. I got out, still expecting air-conditioning and gloss. What I got was a bunch of stinky studio sidekicks pushing me this way and that, change this, wear that, wiping their brows and their noses and shouting at each other and at me, with an occasional “ji” thrown in as an afterthought. This went on for hours and hours and then I found myself stumbling into a dingy room. “Makeup, madam,” they said, and a thin, slimy man with the hands of a skeleton plastered all sorts of evil-smelling white and pink muck on my face, neck and, most enthusiastically, my cleavage. His nails were black and chipped; a cockroach ran out of his powder case. After all this they wanted me to stand before the shining spotlights and smile seductively.

“Ya Khuda,” I groaned to the director, “this is supposed to be glamorous?”

“No, madam,” he replied, pawing me with his eyes. “You are.”

And you know what? I was. Because none of that mattered.

What matters to you, Ashokji? Anything? Me? No, I’d only be fooling myself. Your wife? I don’t think so. As a woman I can say that if she mattered to you, you couldn’t treat her the way you do. Or treat me the way you did. Your children? You hardly talk about them. I think that what matters to you is your image. The way you see yourself is the way others see you. It doesn’t matter what kind of husband or father you are, the important thing is that you’re seen as a husband and father. You are all those roles you play on the screen, aren’t you, Ashokji? Because there’s nothing else, is there, nothing else underneath — no other character competing with the character of the role. Maybe that’s what makes you so good: you are the role each time, or maybe the role is you. But what that “you” is nobody knows. I wonder sometimes about those scriptwriters who write roles “for” you — what “you” do they base it on? The screen “you,” or course; they write a part that is as much as possible like the other parts they’ve seen you play. And so you are what you’ve been on the screen, and the screen continues to let you be you, and no one knows the difference, if there is one.

Have I ever told you how alike you are to everyone? Because you are, you know. With everyone you behave in the same sort of way, the relaxed, confident pose, the smooth voice, the effortless charm. It always works best the first time, or when the other person is alone with you. But when they meet you again, and they see you’re exactly like that once more, or worse still, when they meet you in a larger group or with other people, and they see you treat all the others the same way, they feel terribly distanced from you, Ashokji. The same people whom you’ve won over the first time feel cheated, because they feel they are no different to you from anyone you might meet the next day or the next year. And indeed they aren’t, are they, Ashokji? No one makes the slightest difference to you — all that matters is how you relate to them. In the process you offer them this perfect exterior, but people are terribly inconvenient, Ashokji, they don’t stick to the script, they don’t confine themselves to their quota of dialogue, their interactions don’t cease when the hero has no further use for them in the plot, their feelings aren’t switched off when the director says “Cut!” And so they walk away from you, and they find other friends, and you’re left without friends in the world. Even those who’d normally be happy to be a supporting actor to a hero, because this hero makes it plain, without ever saying a word, that he doesn’t need their support and won’t notice it when it is taken away.

OK, OK, I know what you’re going to say, or what you would say if you could. You’d say, “Don’t be silly, paglee, am I the same with you as I am with Cyrus Sponerwalla? You see a different me than other people see, or most other people, anyway.” I suppose that’s true, you are different, but only just. With women you’re different not because you want to reveal any more of yourself to them but because you want them to reveal themselves to you. Physically, of course. I don’t think you’ve ever cared very much what goes on inside our heads. So with women you switch on an extra bulb in those eyes of yours, Ashokji, but it doesn’t cast any light on you. And if you do treat a woman who attracts you differently from the way in which you treat a man, you treat most women alike as well, whether they’re sleeping with you, costarring with you, or merely writing gossip columns about you. Except when we’re actually in bed together, for instance, is there much difference between the way you behave toward me and the way you behave toward Radha Sabnis? The casual observer would find it difficult to tell from your conduct which woman is actually your lover and which is the bitchy columnist you’re trying desperately to avoid, without showing it, of course. Though actually, the thought of anyone being Radha Sabnis’s lover is hysterical — I bet you’d never do it for all the black money in Bombay.

Hai, what a fate, to be able to talk like this to you at last, for the first time sitting down and fully dressed, and not even to know whether you’ve heard a word I said! Whenever I tried to talk to you before, you know, after we — don’t make me shy — afterward, I knew you weren’t listening. Don’t try and protest your innocence, I knew. All along I knew. Well, almost. I became suspicious at first because you would seem so attentive as I talked, lying there with my head on your shoulder, and you’d grunt every time I paused, which would only encourage me to go on. But whenever I asked a question you answered with a kiss, and the kiss led on to other things, and then my questions never got answered. This was fun for a while until I began to think it odd that your affection for me always rose whenever I wanted an answer from you. So I started putting in odd things, outrageous things, into the middle of what I was saying but without any change of tone at all, and you never reacted to any of them. I’d talk about a sari I’d seen, or about this aunt of mine whose husband used to beat her, or about the latest things Salma said, and I’d casually add a phrase like “this was the time I was selling myself for a hundred rupees an hour” or “you know the aunt I mean, the one who was sleeping with your father,” and you wouldn’t bat one of your droopy eyelids, you’d just continue grunting at all the right places.

So then I realized that your mind was somewhere else entirely, once your body had spent itself in me, and that you weren’t listening to a word I was saying. All those precious, intimate little secrets and thoughts and anxieties and family events that mattered so intensely to me and that I wanted to pour out of myself to share with you, the things that I wanted to give you to make myself truly and completely yours, the private doors I was opening to let you into my world and not just into my body, none of these things had made the slightest dent in your consciousness. And you know something, Ashokji? It didn’t matter. I was so happy lying there with the hairs on your chest tickling my cheek and your arms around me caressing the hollow of my hip, that I chattered cheerfully on, knowing you weren’t listening and yet feeling the joy of saying all these things to you that were a more precious gift from me than the ones you valued. I thought, it doesn’t matter that he isn’t listening, maybe he too is enveloped by the soft intimacy of my voice, maybe the actual words don’t matter as much as the fact of my saying them, maybe the sound of my words is enough to tie me to him more securely than the fleeting union of our pelvises. Maybe — and maybe he just can’t be bothered. But I don’t want to know. I love him.

Can any woman have loved you more unselfishly, Ashokji? And yet, when you’d had enough, when you’d tried every position you wanted to try and got bored with the familiarity of me beside you, you just spurned me, Ashokji, you garlanded me at your temple and you let me go, you pretended not only that I didn’t exist but that I had never existed. And now I cannot even get you to say, for once, for the first and last time, that you loved me.

Oh, Ashokji, I so wanted to be cheerful, but how can I? See, I’m wiping a tear with the corner of my sari pallav — how you used to hate me doing that! But I can’t bear it just to look at you lying there. In a way it’s just like old times, isn’t it, with you lying there and me talking away into the void. Except that you don’t even grunt now.

You know what I think, I think you really got angry with me over that business of the Swiss money. Really, how was I to know it would be such a jhamela? You said, “Listen, Mehnaz, this brother of yours in the Gulf, can he help?” and I said, “If I ask him to, I’m sure he will.” And then you met him and the two of you worked it all out, why blame me? The whole thing was your idea anyway. I remember how it happened; see, even if you remember nothing that I ever said to you, I always remember every word that you spoke to me, even how you said it and what you were wearing, if anything, when you said it. On this occasion you were wearing only a wrist-watch, and it wasn’t Swiss — see, I made a joke — and you said how unhelpful Cyrus Sponerwalla had been about helping you stash away your black money. You did a perfect imitation of him squealing in horror, “Like, man, that’s illegal!” You did it so well I could practically imagine Sponerwalla’s chins quivering and eyes popping, even though I hadn’t met the man yet. And so I said, not even half seriously, “He should meet my smuggler brother from Dubai, Nadeem’ll really give him an education.” And you suddenly sat up, practically spraining my neck, and said, with that look in your eyes that means you really want something, “Are you serious? Can I meet Nadeem? What does he do? When is he next coming to India?” I sort of rubbed the side of my neck a bit and sat up too and said, “Of course I was half joking. He’s not really a smuggler — can you imagine? — but he does know about these things, he’s a businessman,” and you were so interested you didn’t even ask me how my neck was feeling. I told you, I remember everything.

So one thing led to another and when my brother came down to India you sat with him and asked earnest questions about Swiss bank accounts. At least so he told me, I wasn’t even there, but I don’t see why he would lie. So Nadeem said, “Sure I have a Swiss bank account, many of us in the trading business have to, and I can help you open one.” And he took a lot of trouble too, explaining how it could be in any name or number, and you thought of using your birth date as the number and Nadeem explained how easily that could be traced back to you, and finally you settled on Gypsy as a translation of Banjara. Remember how you forced poor Choubey to switch a whole sequence from Kashmir to Switzerland in that film, Himalay ke Peeche, so that you could tie this up in Geneva yourself?

I didn’t mind, because it meant boating on the Lake of Geneva with you, the Alps rising white and majestic behind like the cover on a box of chocolates, and letting the spray from the Jet d’Eau blow onto our new parkas as we laughed at the absurdity of the Swiss manufacturing a tourist attraction in the midst of all this natural splendor. And how you chased me into St. Pierre’s Cathedral, saying you wanted to make love to me in a confessional, and the look on your face when you discovered it was a Protestant church and they either didn’t sin or wouldn’t confess to it! And your shock on discovering that the casino wouldn’t permit bets above ten francs and that a box of chocolates cost twice that much. And the Piaget watch you bought me, even though I told you I never wanted to know the time, never wanted to see it passing when I was with you. And how I dragged you off to the hotel where Professor Calculus had stayed in my favourite Tintin adventure, and you said stuffily, “Is that all you read, comic books?” but you still photographed me near that life-size cutout of Tintin they had in the hotel lobby. Are you amazed at how much I remember? But what I remember most of all about that visit to Geneva was how disbelieving you were that you could walk anywhere without being instantly mobbed and asked for autographs — and the tone of regret in which you said, “It must be this parka, I could be any cold tourist.” Oh, Ashokji, how much I loved you then, and how much I love you now.

My Guru says I must stop looking back. The past is always there with me anyway, he says; what I am is the result of the past as it shapes itself into the future, which in turn immediately becomes the past. The present, he says, is an illusion: each moment has either already happened or has not yet happened, it is either past or future. The problem with Westerners, he says, is their obsession with the present, which means they are living for something that does not exist. Does that make any sense to you? It didn’t entirely to me, but the Guru is obviously a great man and I cannot always expect to understand everything he says.

I’ll tell you something that he should have said to you when you were getting mixed up in all those Swiss bank accounts. It’s something he said to me when he was explaining why I should renounce my worldly goods to his ashram. “In our legends and our shastras,” he explained, “there has always been a conflict between Lakshmi and Sarasvati, that is, between the goddess of wealth and the goddess of the arts. In other words, my dear, wealth and art are not compatible: one constantly destroys the other. It is better, in the natural order of things, for the wealthy to have no taste, and for the artistic to have no wealth.” If you had only realized that, Ashokji, you wouldn’t have got into that whole mess.

But you didn’t really do too badly, did you? I mean, considering. After all, you’re not in jail or anything. How you got it so screwed up I don’t know. It was a simple enough arrangement. Whenever my brother and his associates needed money here, they got it from you, and Swiss francs went into your account — for your family holidays abroad and Maya’s selfish little shopping trips to Harrod’s. No one asked any questions and no one need have, if you hadn’t gone and got mixed up in politics. Now who asked you to do that? That dried-up little minx of yours wanted to be a minister’s wife, I bet. I mean, what else could she be after Dil Ek Qila, hanh? I wouldn’t have been able to show my face to a producer after that disaster, let alone to a camera. But she gave you more guilt by “sacrificing” her career again, as if she had any career left to sacrifice. Great comeback that was. More a go-away than a come-back, if you ask me.

I was very angry with you then, Ashokji, and with the way you just stopped seeing me. But Guruji counseled me again, quoting Manu this time — you know, the ancient lawgiver. From time immemorial women have had different roles at different times. The same woman who is treated as a chattel in domestic matters is an essential and equal partner in rituals, religious sacrifices, the offering of homage to ancestors. An Indian woman’s consolation, the Guru said, is that she knows where she is irreplaceable, in what she is indispensable, and when she is irrelevant. And that applies not just to me, but to that minx Maya as well.

Who’s that? What…?

Oh, it’s you. Hello. What do you mean what am I doing here? I’m visiting our husband.

OK, baba, don’t scream, I’m going now. All right, all right, there’s no need to make a fuss. I was going anyway. Oh, and I suppose you should know, for the doctor, that I didn’t get a peep out of him. But then I couldn’t see the part of him that usually responds to my presence.

Have a nice day, Mrs. Banjara.