| Published on 17-03-2008 In General | | Viewed 1420 times | | Written by
T. S. V. Hari | 
Whereas
"I really do not want to do this film," Akshita, the starlet told writer, producer, director JK.
Jayant Karlekar, a Maharashtrian born in what was Poona once upon a time, was a rage in Bollywood. Virtually nobody knew him by his full name. He was simply JK. It suited him. The abbreviation also stood for a giant Indian corporation. Just as it bought them fame, it placed the movie man in the limelight.
Akshita had wandered into big, bad, Bombay all the way from Karol Bagh, New Delhi four years ago. After doing a few low budget television soaps that had got her nowhere except into the beds of smelly Rasputins of the small screen back home, Akshita decided that doing something different in the sin city, despite the vagaries of the casting couch, would be interesting.
It was.
After having been featured in various medium budget movies, playing the mothers of several men twice her age, Akshita, who was a traffic stopper in normal attire, decided to look her age and play roles that ought to have come to her in the first place. So she decided to part finance a movie that would feature her as a heroine – with a new hairstyle, different make up, and a new name. She called herself Ramya Ramabhadran, a completely southern name. Actually it was the name of her schoolmate from kindergarten days. Ramya and her parents had been Akshita's neighbours who had moved away.
To suit her new avatar, Akshita had got a nose and chin job done. When she had looked at herself in the mirror, she saw a much younger and a more beautiful woman's reflection. She had close to Rs.30 lakhs in her kitty apart from her modest flat in Chembur in northeast Bombay. It was just about possible to make a good, quick movie with that money.
Akshita had begun hearing scripts and was appalled at what she heard.
There were simply too many dumbkopfs in Bombay.
Then she had bumped into JK.
JK had no compunction in stealing from Hollywood or elsewhere. He was a member of innumerable film societies that screened films as exotic as Iranian and Venezuelan.
It was a Spanish film that had 'inspired' his new script.
Narration of a story (always called a subject in movie parlance) in the film industry needs the delivery of a powerful single sentence synopsis.
JK had come well prepared with precisely that.
"It is a powerful idea involving two generations of women loving the same man," JK said as an opening gambit.
Interested, Akshita had called JK for a discussion.
When a director asks a prospective starlet for a discussion, it usually takes place in a hotel with a double bed. But in Akshita's case, it was different.
Akshita heard JK at her digs.
"It is a very unusual subject," was JK's opening gambit.
"Save the rubbish for crap printing gossip mags, JK," Akshita said curtly when the director's gaze began wandering below her neckline. Those days television channels were unheard of.
"A widowed woman, due to her possessiveness over her daughter decides to 'test' a man interested in the offspring. It ends in an affair. And when the daughter finds out, it is too late. The conclusion is tragic. As you are a slightly known face, you could play both the roles – the mother and daughter," JK offered looking at the actress in the eye.
When he saw doubts, he moved in for the kill.
"It would create a controversy here. Everybody would hate it and demand that it be banned. It will set the cash registers ringing. We will be in clover. Plus, your new identity as Ramya will take off!"
"Where did you steal it?"
"I was inspired by a Spanish film. It even had songs in it, some of them very catchy and eminently worth copying."
"Was it a hit in Spanish?" Akshita had asked in her husky voice.
"Honestly, I do not know. Saw it in one of those film society screenings," JK said.
"I have a bad feeling about this film, JK!"
"Why?"
"The only fight that shouldn't take place between mother and daughter is one about an affair with the same man. If I do this film, I cannot live with myself!"
Now
When the man introduced himself as 'Mohit' on the phone, thanks to his baritone voice, Akshita wanted to know more.
"What do you do, Mohit?"
Like a machine gun spewing bullets, the man spoke a variety of Tamil she had never heard.
Akshita had managed to learn Tamil before adopting her new screen name publicly and requested every south Indian journalist to speak to her in English by saying sweetly in their mother tongue that she had lived too long in the north to speak the language fluently. Everybody had nodded sympathetically and switched the lingua franca of Mumbai – Hinglish – the mixture of Hindi and English.
However, during conversations with south Indian journalists, Akshita would slip in a few Tamil words and that would be that.
With time, she had practised Tamil for more than a decade and become fluent in it.
Akshita went into her spiel of having been in the north too long.
"I know," the man said. "I have seen the Kothi in Karol Bagh where you lived and know who the real Ramya was, Akshita."
"What do you mean? Who are you?"
"My name is Mohit, as I already told you. I used to be the real Ramya's husband. These days, I work for an obscure newspaper in Jamaica."
"Used to be? What happened to Ramya?"
"She is dead."
Akshita looked at her mobile carefully. It had no caller id.
"Where are you calling from?"
"I am in the 13th Road in Juhu."
This area in the financial capital of India houses many top film personalities. Akshita now had a bungalow there.
"To be precise, I am outside your house," she heard the man say.
Akshita was surprised.
"You can come in after two minutes. The watchman will let you in."
Mohit looked like an African, was thin, short, dark and nearly bald. And he wore spectacles that seemed to be an inch thick. He was dressed in jeans and a real crocodile brand 'T' shirt.
Akshita waved him to a comfortably upholstered settee. A cigar was smouldering from his gloved hand.
It had a rich aroma.
Mohit retrieved a packet of Harvills from his trouser pocket using his left hand, which was also gloved.
"I know you smoke, Akshita. Try one of these. These are designer cigars made in Jamaica. They call it 'passion rum flavour.' Actually it is dipped in rum when made, dried and packed. It is a long way off from your Marlboro Lights. Here, have one."
Akshita lit up. It tasted like Gauloises but it was stronger. She liked it.
"You wear gloves like a hired killer in a seventies' movie, look like a West Indian, have a north Indian name, smoke a strange brand of cigar, claim to live in Jamaica, say that you were married to Ramya, and speak Tamil in an accent I have never heard.
Just who are you?"
"I am a Tamil from northern Sri Lanka – a place we lovingly call Eelam. I was an enforcer for one of the groups. Those days, I looked different. I had a different nose, chin and skin colour. I shuttled between India and Eelam."
"I am not interested in your personal history. Tell me how Ramya died."
"All in good time, Akshita," the man said patiently. "The leader of the group to which I belonged had looted several banks back home. I helped him stash the money abroad. I was the only one to know where it was. Thanks to India's involvement with us, I was in New Delhi and came in contact with Ramya. She wanted to migrate to London. I helped her. Those days it was easy. A decent bank balance alone was enough to get a British visa. My group had this thing against marriage. I was terribly in love with Ramya. After she travelled to London, I suddenly dropped out of sight. Went to Assam and changed my appearance – from my facial colour to the shape of my nose and chin. Then I flew to an obscure clinic in Goa and got a set of contact lenses made to create an impairment to my vision, wore them and got a pair of spectacles to correct it. Then I got my leader bumped off in Eelam, and disappeared. My affair with Ramya was a secret. I transferred the money from Switzerland to Channel Islands, got a passport made for me in Britain, with a real Indian visa stamped on it and flew to London. Ramya and I got married in a civil ceremony in Britain and we moved to a place called Shard's End, just outside Birmingham. I must admit it was difficult for Ramya. There were no temples in the neighbourhood. I got her a car and she got herself a driving license and learnt to drive in a disciplined fashion in that part of the world. I looked like a Jamaican, while Ramya looked like herself but couldn't sport a vermilion mark on her forehead because I was supposed to be a Rastafarian from the West Indies."
"What is a Rastafarian?"
"It is an obscure religion that has its origins in Ethiopia. One of the specialties of this religion is smoking. It took me sometime to copy a Jamaican accent, but I did it. We lived without friends and kept to ourselves. Then our daughter Kay was born."
"Kay?"
"We named her Krishna, but for the purposes of record, called her Kay. And we never spoke in Tamil at home from the time she was six months old, in her presence."
"Frankly this is boring me. What happened to Ramya?"
The man who called himself Mohit sighed.
"Ramya committed suicide."
Akshita suddenly drew on the cigar deeply. Too much smoke got in and she coughed.
"Shit! Why did she do that?"
"That is what loneliness does to people. I used to spend most of my time away – hiding the money, investing it in currency markets, doing arms deals in Montenegro – in general, making more money than Ramya and my daughter could ever spend. Krishna grew up into a lovely young teenager. Ramya got bored and began making plays for white trash in the pubs in Birmingham. As money was no problem, she purchased a pied a terre in the centre of the city and had some white wastrel for company. One thing led to another. Kay used the rendezvous for her trysts too. After sometime, both realized that they were seeing the same man and to make it worse, both were impregnated."
"Oh my God!"
"Unable to hide her shame, Ramya committed suicide, thinking that she was making way for her daughter. Elsewhere in the town, a sick feeling of guilt triggered Kay. She did an OD of drugs and was found dead. I quietly cremated them and moved to Jamaica, the last place a Sri Lankan would inhabit. The money I had stashed away came in handy. During all these years, I had trained to become a journalist. I had acquired a degree in that trade. It was useful."
"Why are you confessing to me?"
Akshita was clearly exasperated.
"Perhaps, I have a weakness for women from New Delhi. My wife and daughter saw your movie 'Is this love' on the cable network in Shard's End. Perhaps the theme of the movie appealed to them. I found out later that they willingly did it, because they were bored with all the money I was giving them."
"So?"
"My enquiries revealed to me that you didn't want to do the movie. Your journey to reach this pinnacle must have been thorny. You are back doing elder sister roles in movies. Isn't it time you settled down? I am giving you an easy way out. You can agree to be my girlfriend, keep your money and start a Hollywood career in crossover films. My money will supplement and compliment it. Sex and other things that go with it are the last items on my agenda."
"What if I don't agree?"
"I might expose your true story. This is your chance to make amends for making my life a misery. And if I change my mind, I might really turn mad, choose not to expose you but will kill you instead. I am good at these kinds of things. Do you want to die?"
Akshita drew more deeply into the cigar.
"I must admit that you have presented a good deal. I do happen to have a doubting mind. Can you explain to me as to how much I would be worth, if I decide to live in sin with you?"
"Your share would be the better part of US$600 million."
"I really like your cigar. Mind if I have one more?"
"It is my pleasure and to privilege to offer you more."
Mohit extracted another cigar from his box and helped the middle aged lady from Delhi light it.
Akshita drew on it deeply, relishing the smoke.
"I will be back in the evening with all my papers. You can study them carefully. After all, adopting a new career isn't an easy thing. See you in three hours."
Akshita accompanied him to the gate and saw Mohit getting into a Mercedes Benz parked a few feet away. He waved to her as his driver gunned the engine and drove off. Whistling an old Hindi film song under her breath, she climbed the flight of stairs to reach her bedroom, deeply drawing on the cigar. It tasted of very rich tobacco and very rare rum. Akshita thoroughly enjoyed it.
Suddenly she felt a constriction in her chest. Her throat was on fire. For the next three seconds, she knew she was dying.
And she did.
An hour later, when a nondescript smiling Jamaican with curly, woolly hair walked into the Santa Cruz airport restaurant's smoking section on the first floor in the company of a white haired man, ordered two espressos and lit up a Marlboro Lights with a match box, no one took notice. The waiter Reggie D'sa who served the hot liquid in bone china cups felt that the duo looked happy. The two were animatedly discussing a movie script. The white haired man was somebody known to Reggie. He was the famous movie director JK.
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