THE HOUSE THAT BJ BUILT, page 18
He looks grim.
‘The best thing to do would be to get them out now,’ he admits. ‘Before the video is released. But they’re refusing to vacate unless they get ten lakh hits on YouTube in one day.’
‘But Mustaq might see the video!’ she gasps. ‘That’s idiotic.’
‘They want to be famous. Because the Fancy will laugh at them otherw—’
‘I know about the Fancy!’ she snaps. ‘But…’ Her expression grows sceptical. ‘Can you even do it? Isn’t ten lakh hits in twenty-four hours a lot?’
‘It is a lot,’ he admits. ‘But it’s doable. And we’ll give them sleek little pencil mustaches so they won’t be instantly recognizable.’
‘That’s not enough!’
‘Yeah, but I can’t disguise them entirely or no one will be able to tell it’s them. So it’s gonna be pencil mustaches—plus they’ll take lots of photos at the shoot while the make-up’s being done, and with Zee and Pree and all, in case the Fancy doesn’t believe them.’
‘This is idiotic,’ she repeats hopelessly.
‘Maybe,’ he admits. ‘But it can’t be helped. We’ll just have to take that punt.’
She stares at him in disbelief. ‘Take that punt? These are lives we’re talking about!’
‘Now who’s being filmi?’ Samar demands. ‘Mustaq isn’t the freaking Godfather. He’ll be taken by surprise—he won’t be able to rally his goons that fast. As long as we’ve got the getaway to the airport all planned, we should be fine.’
She looks torn. ‘Samar, we have to be very, very careful.’
He moves in closer. ‘We will be careful. I promise.’
‘I just want them to be safe,’ she says worriedly. ‘They think they’re so cunning, that they’ve maxed it. They sat on either side of me on the flight, so excited, and when the airhostess asked them Veg or Non-veg, they flipped open their trays and replied, Yes, please.’
‘Bones, they’re grown-ups,’ Samar tells her firmly. ‘You are not their mummy. The item number was their idea, after all, they came to me, and I’m gonna keep my side of the bargain. Why don’t you come for the shoot, by the way? It’ll be fun.’
She stares up at him, feeling vaguely manipulated, but not sure how to wrest back control. Perhaps she overreacted. And he’s right, there is no other plan, and the Trings are adults—she needn’t sheepdog them around.
And she’s never been to Bombay. Or to Mehboob Studio—which sounds seriously cool.
‘I don’t know,’ she says dubiously. ‘Maybe I’ll come.’
9
When Bonu emerges from the bathroom the next morning, she finds Pasta sprawled across the bed on her tummy, chin propped up in her hands.
‘Whatchu wearing to the shoot, Bonu didi?’
‘Uh, I hadn’t thought about it, actually,’ Bonu replies untruthfully.
Pasta gives a disbelieving little scream.
‘But you have to look good! Zeesh—I mean, everybody will be there! Besides,’ she changes gear, ‘Ma says it’s silly to dress up for other people but there’s nothing wrong with dressing up for yourself. It boosts your confidence.’
Bonu opens the door and jerks a stern thumb. ‘Git.’
Pasta gives an entreating wriggle and stays put. ‘Please Bonu didi!’
‘I’ll wear jeans,’ Bonu says. ‘And a plain t-shirt. And sneakers.’
Pasta pulls a face. ‘Then you’ll look like Samar bhaiyya with boobs.’
‘Okay, that’s it,’ Bonu says. ‘Leave. Now.’
But she comes down for breakfast looking pretty enough to draw a soft sigh of satisfaction from her young cousin—wearing fitted dark slacks, flat canvas shoes and one of BJ’s worn, loose-collared shirts for luck. It is thin and beige and semi-transparent, and with the sleeves rolled up, the top two buttons unbuttoned, and the laminated SONIX tag dangling down the front, Bonu hopes it is both flattering and sensible.
‘Ooh, boyfriend shirt. Nice,’ says Pasta approvingly, jumping up from the dining table. ‘But don’t leave your hair open, it’s covering all your bouncy bits. Make a messy French plait…here, I’ll do it…and lay it along one shoulder, the way my mum does. Your eyes need to be smokier, though, and the lipper a tad darker.’
She suits her actions to her words, then stands back and admires her handiwork.
‘How does she look, Dadda?’
Dylan looks up from his stack of about thirteen newspapers, some English, some Hindi, some Marathi. ‘Lovely,’ he says sincerely. ‘Like a gorgeous but practical chap. Sleeves rolled up and ready to work! You are a practical chap, aren’t you, Bonu Singh?’
‘Yes,’ she nods. ‘I’m logical and practical. There isn’t a single creative bone in my body!’
Dylan’s eyes twinkle behind his reading glasses. ‘Practical people and creative people usually make a very effective team. They balance each other out nicely.’
She looks up at him sharply, but the smile he meets her with is very bland. Bonu decides it is safer to just take her leave.
The drive across the Bandra Sea Link is exhilarating and soon she is pulling up outside the gates of Mehboob Studio. It is a major studio, the driver assures her, reeling off names of films that have been shot here. Bonu nods dazedly, steps out of the cab, and walks down the drive, past the straggly front lawn, to Floor No. 3, a huge, warehouse-like building with towering wooden doors. There is a smaller door built into the massive one, guarded by several intimidating men dressed in black. Bonu Singh surveys them doubtfully. Should she just walk in?
Vanity vans are parked in the quadrangle outside, marked with mysterious abbreviations. There are racks of clothes, several sewing machines, ironing boards, and a table loaded down with biscuits and coffee. A scrum of busy-looking people hangs around the area, working and talking.
Bonu can’t help going up to the clothes and examining them. They are ghagras in rich jewel-like colours, exquisitely stitched, paired with tiny knotted bralettes.
‘Arrey, AKji is so humble that we call his vanity van a humility van,’ she overhears a man in a bad wig tell a pimply boy with rippling muscles and blond-streaks. ‘While your boss is such a harami his make-up van is called a make-out van.’
The boy grins lazily. ‘Of course he’s a humble!’ he snickers. ‘For every ten scenes Zeeshan Khan has in this movie, AK has one. Has-been, saala. Actor bhi, actor ka dresser bhi.’
The man in the bad wig curses and lunges for the boy, who takes a hasty step backward and bumps into Bonu and the clothes rack.
She staggers, and a hand comes up from behind to steady her.
‘Whoa, watch it, Wilson,’ says a deep voice and Bonu turns to see Samar, dressed in his usual scruffy clothes, a sheaf of papers tucked under one arm, and a walkie in his hand. He is clearly in shoot mode, all bright-eyed and stubbled, and radiating energy. ‘Ah, Bonita,’ he grins, his eyes lighting up when he realizes it’s her. ‘I should’ve known by the chhamchhamming sound effects. Come!’
And grabbing her hand in a strong grip, he whisks her into the van marked ‘PRIMARY CAST’.
Namgay Tring and Biren Tring are inside, pencil mustaches in place, looking remarkably exotic with kohled eyes, wearing white safari hunter outfits vaguely reminiscent of the Raj.
‘Wow,’ says Bonu, and she means it. ‘You guys look great!’’
The Trings grin, flashing a newly installed gold tooth each. Then, very stylishly, they draw a pair of golden-handled pistols and point them at Bonu.
She claps, delighted.
Their grins grow wider. Namgay Tring shows her a knotted leather whip. For the panther, he explains.
‘There’s a panther?’ Bonu gasps.
‘Yeah,’ Samar grins. ‘And peacocks and a tiger and snakes and, as you can see, guns. We’ve gone all out. This qawwali is right in the beginning of the film. Zeeshan, playing the young Thakur, is having a decadent bachelor’s party in the haveli the night before his arranged marriage to his simple village wife.’
‘It’s an Aur Jee,’ Biren Tring explains to her kindly. ‘An Aur Jee is a very big, sexy party, in case you didn’t knew. The main punch of the quwaali is…’
He trails off, looking expectantly at the fat, south Bombay 3rd AD, who screws up his eyes and reads out, in a slightly pained voice:
Upar waale ne diya hai sab kuch, magar
Dil maangta hai thoda aur jee!
Aur jee, aur jee, aur jee, aur jee!
Aur jee, aur jee, aur jee, aur jee!
‘How…how nice,’ breathes Bonu, rendered practically speechless.
‘And we are the main,’ the Tring says triumphantly. ‘The main singers! We will sing, and forty exotic dancers will dance around us!’
Bonu’s eyes slide to Samar’s in apologetic gratitude. She’d been worried he’d make them look like fools—clearly he had no such intention. But Samar is too busy showing Namgay how to wield the whip to either notice or respond.
‘Your father’s Fancy will die of jealousy!’ she tells the Trings.
Walking onto the set a few minutes later, she enters a whole new world. A starry night sky forms the backdrop to a massive, gothic sandstone haveli, with stained glass windows that gleam like angry jewels. It’s placed in the middle of an inky pond dotted with pink lotuses, seemingly squatting above its own perfect reflection. Forty incredibly beautiful women of every skin tone—black, brown, dazzlingly fair—their Benarasi silk ghagras tied scandalously low on their slender waists, are lounging about in the verandahs while their attendants sprinkle gold dust on their swelling bosoms, most of which are on display encased in tiny bralettes. And seated before the monitor, wearing nothing but blue striped pyjama bottoms and a thin moustache, is the hottest young star in the country, Zeeshan Khan. One of the wispy little bralettes the item girls are wearing is flung rakishly around his neck like a trophy. The pimply young boy, Wilson, is daubing at his golden, sculpted chest with a white malmal cloth.
‘Super-hit track!’ Zeeshan beams, his kohl-rimmed eyes sparkling manically. ‘Dad loves it!’
‘How reassuring,’ Samar bares his teeth in a not-so-pleasant smile. ‘Zee, this is Bonita.’
‘Bonita!’ echoes Zeeshan. ‘Err…I love your work. Huge fan.’
‘She’s my cousin,’ Samar says dryly.
‘Oh! Bonita,’ Zeeshan’s eyebrows snap together, and his smile grows significantly wider. ‘Hel-lo.’
‘Hi,’ Bonu replies rather breathlessly, reeling in the face of so much masculine beauty. Because Zeeshan really is perfect. From his carefully-careless highlighted hair, to his shapely eyebrows, to his super-white teeth, to the rippling lines of muscle across his abdomen, he’s so highly maintained that Bonu feels exhausted just looking at him.
Zeeshan continues to drink her in with his kohl-rimmed eyes, beaming from ear to ear.
‘Thank God!’ he declares finally, which Bonu thinks is a little random. ‘Please sit, have a drink, have a fruit, have something!’
‘I’m fine,’ she smiles at him. ‘I love what you’re, uh, not wearing. Looks great.’
‘Not showing too much body na?’ he asks anxiously. ‘I’m never too sure, you know, one doesn’t want to come across as desperate.’
‘It’s an item number, Zee,’ Samar, sprawled in the director’s chair with his long legs stretched out before him, says without looking up from his shot breakdown. ‘You wanted it, you’ve got it. Now don’t go all convent school girl on me.’
But Zeeshan continues to look worried. Bonu, not knowing quite what to do, accepts a glass of coconut water from a hovering spot-boy and sips from it.
‘Don’t fret, Zee, you’re the Goldilocks of item boys!’ an exquisitely pitched voice declares gaily, and Bonu turns to see designer Susan Adams striding up towards them. Dressed for work in a casual tee and tights, and sporting a soft leather tote bag, she still manages to exude an effortless sense of style. Bonu’s heart sinks. The woman is an absolute fashionplate.
Susan continues, still pursuing her Goldilocks theme, ‘You’re revealing not-too-much and not-too-little. You’re just right!’
But Zeeshan doesn’t look convinced. If anything, he looks even gloomier.
‘So you’re back,’ he says with a remarkable lack of enthusiasm. ‘And you’ve brought the beast with you.’
He nods at the large, sloppily-dressed man who has waddled in alongside Susan.
‘Too expensive, too expensive,’ rues this new entrant, looking like he’s suffering from a painful bout of indigestion. ‘This set is fuckin’ obscene! Is that a Phantom? And why d’you need a motion control rig, for fuck’s sake? And a goddamn helicam drone? Are those 24k par can HMIs? Samar baby, you’re supposed to nanga karo Zee for this song—why are you nanga-karoing me?’
‘It’s money well spent, Cougar,’ Samar pats his producer’s beefy shoulder reassuringly, and quickly strolls off to stand with his DOP, closer to the shoot-setup.
‘Smooth bastard,’ wheezes Cougar feelingly. Then he turns his jaundiced eye on the dancers, sashaying around in their ridiculously ornate ghagras. ‘And apparently the ghagra material cost five thousand rupees a metre! Each ghagra is thirty metres and there are forty dancers. Just do the frikkin math!’
‘Haha! That’s funny!’ says Bonu, feeling it is high time she say something and prove she has a tongue.
Everybody turns to look at her.
Susan arches a thin, haughty eyebrow. ‘Excuse me?’
And Zeeshan, instead of introducing Bonu, sits back in his chair and lets the scene unfold, with the pleasurable anticipation of somebody watching a Wimbledon final from the best seats, complete with a punnet of strawberries and cream.
Bonu looks confused. ‘What you said about the price of Benarasi. That was a joke, right? I mean, which Benarasi costs five thousand rupees a metre?’
Susan continues to stare at Bonu like she is a strange object.
‘Genuine Benarasi,’ she says, speaking slowly, as if to an idiot.
Bonu looks back at her, even more confused, and feeling suddenly, extremely gauche.
The fat man sighs gustily. ‘I wish it was a joke, but it isn’t.’
‘But why would you use genuine Benarasi anyway?’ Bonu continues, somewhat defensively. ‘I mean, one can only tell real Benarasi brocade from faux by flipping it over and looking at the reverse side, so why bother with real for a movie?
Zeeshan smothers a cough. Susan’s eyes narrow.
‘Perhaps you don’t realize, but the Phantom shoots a thousand frames a second,’ she says in freezing tones. ‘Intricate detailing is visible at the speed. We can’t get away with fakes.’
‘Ya, but why shoot with a Phantom in the first place?’ Cougar says plaintively. ‘This is self-indulgence begetting self-indulgence.’
‘Using real Benarasi helps the weavers preserve their traditional craft,’ Susan continues witheringly.
‘I see,’ Bonu looks doubtful, then continues with more confidence, ‘but you know, the fake Benarasi looks and falls really well, too. And you don’t need to buy it by the metre, you can buy it by the thaan in Tank Road—a roll of one hundred metres priced at twenty thou. You do the math.’
‘Oh my God…’ Susan mutters.
Zeeshan smothers a smile.
‘It’s worth every penny of the money we spend,’ Susan says passionately. ‘When you know you’re wearing real Benarasi, woven with genuine gold thread on genuine silk, lined with pure satin, there’s an arrogance to the way you carry yourself. Your entire body language changes. You move differently, sinuously, voluptuously. We need that khandaani regality in this film.’
‘I’m an actor, darling,’ Zeeshan drawls. ‘I don’t need props to feel the part.’
Susan flushes.
‘Besides, even the best real Benarasi costs only about eight—’ Bonu rushes on to say, but she stops short. The look Susan is giving her is so glitteringly basilisk-like, that it paralyzes Bonu’s speech. She shuts up, grateful she hasn’t turned to stone.
But the fat man’s eyes gleam with interest. ‘I’m Kuber Malhotra,’ he says, extending a meaty hand to Bonu. ‘Very nice to meet you. Er, where is Tank Road?’
‘Behind Karol Bagh,’ she smiles.
‘Oh, you are from Dilli? And your name is…?’
‘I’m Bonu Singh.’
‘Bonita,’ corrects Zeeshan, eyes twinkling with enjoyment as he gives the name its Spanish pronunciation, softening it down to a light caress. ‘She’s Samar’s cousin.’
‘Step,’ Bonu corrects him automatically. ‘We’re not related by blood.’
Samar, walking back at this exact moment to sit down in the director’s chair, overhears and flashes her a lazy, intimate grin. Bonu blushes bright red. Why had she felt the need to make that stupid, unnecessary clarification?
‘But you told me Bonu Singh was a man!’ Susan blurts out, upset.
The backs of Samar’s ears turn a tell-tale red. ‘Did I?’
‘Yes, you did!’
‘Whoops,’ he says lightly. ‘Maybe you misunderstood.’
‘And she’s not even your real cousin!’
Samar’s lips tighten. He doesn’t reply. Instead, he reaches for his mic and switches it on.
‘Right, let’s do this. Positions, everyone.’
His voice booms out, deep and easy and perfectly relaxed, and the unit responds to it at once. The assistant directors put down their walkies, the choreographer whistles to his dancers, who stop chattering and straighten up, adjusting their cleavages, the camera glides soundlessly and comes to a halt at the end of the trolley track. The floor goes quiet.
Susan gets to her feet and stalks away.
‘We’ll try one rehearsal,’ Samar says. ‘Travel Namgay Tringji and Biren Tringji please, I need to brief them.’
A pause follows, during which the ADs speak frantically into their walkies. Namgay Tring and Biren Tring have gone AWOL. Samar shoots Bonu a dirty look, and totally intimidated by his director persona, she forgets to argue and leaps to her feet to hunt for them. They are discovered at the back of the set, giggling and clicking pictures of each other against the impressive bosoms of the exotic dancers.
‘Come here, you two!’ she hisses and they stump towards her, grinning widely, not at all cowed. At the monitor, they look Zeeshan up and down with frank enjoyment, then turn to Samar.
