Bollywood and the Beast (Bollywood Confidential) (2 page)

Some of her friends went to temples, others to church. Everybody played at least two sports and one instrument—field hockey, swim team and the piano for her—and she threw herself into theater from the minute it was humanly possible. She played the narrator in
Our Town
in ninth grade and Sarah in
Guys and Dolls
her junior year, and a major in theater was inevitable. She’d never really thought about movies. She’d never really thought about
Bollywood
movies. Until she got swept into a casting call for extras for some big-budget thing filming on Navy Pier and caught the eye of an assistant to an assistant to somebody. Everything after that had been a whirlwind of meetings and photo shoots and promises of stardom…and she’d gotten caught up. Who wouldn’t?

“What am I supposed to say, Sunita? That I love the spotlight and the free clothes and having my picture taken wherever I go? That I clap my hands with glee every time I get a role that a home-grown Indian actress could play?”

Her friends back home still couldn’t believe the life she led. Most of the time,
she
couldn’t believe the life she led. Sets, dressing rooms, press junkets and parties. Endless smiling. Shaking sweaty hands. Putting up with a thousand leers and a few ass-grabs. And being thought of as a total outsider. Everyone assumed she was just an empty-headed, half-
gori
bimbo who’d do kissing scenes when a born-and-bred
desi
girl wouldn’t. Her dad, luckily, had stepped in and drawn a couple of
very
hard lines:
no
kissing, no “exposing” as they called it, no skimpy clothes and no trashy item songs.

In exchange, she worked her
ass
off. She was always early for calls, even when the rest of the crew operated by Indian Standard Time. She practiced her Hindi diction with coaches so that even if she didn’t understand what she was saying, her mimicry was up to par. She even went to shady auditions on the bad side of town and walked the beat, like countless other girls who’d come to Mumbai with illusions and now lived on ramen noodles and hope…usually when her parents thought she was at the gym.

“The truth is, I’m in this to work,” she said simply. “I’m not playing Noor Jahan or Paro…or some sweet
gharwa
village girl. I only take roles I
know
I can play, that producers
trust
me to play.” Sunny’s eyes were sharp, her curiosity a giant warning sign, and Rocky barreled into it anyway. “No one says, ‘
Chee
! She can’t speak Tamil!’ when an actress goes south to do a picture and has to be dubbed. Or when someone reads Bengali off cards in the recording booth. Why am I a target, Sunny-
ji
? Because I’m American? Because my mom’s from Chicago? Because I’m fair without having to endorse a whitening cream? I won’t apologize for that. I
can’t
apologize for that. Because it means apologizing for coming to Mumbai in the first place.”

There was something like sympathy in her host’s voice as she uttered a weighty “I see” and the taping paused for commercial break. Rocky could imagine her dad in the green room, tearing out what was left of his hair. And once her mom caught wind of things, she’d have double the trouble. Not because Mom cared about what she said, but because it would undo all of the good PR they’d netted lately. She groaned, slumping on the sofa the moment the cameras were safely turned away.

“Shit, shit, shit,” she muttered into her hands. Thoroughly unladylike but warranted, given the circumstances. “I am so doomed.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Sunita offered comfortingly, the laser-sharp, prosecutor-style questioning turned off just like the cameras. “It was very honest,
na
?”

“Like anyone here wants honest? That works on a six-hankie Barbara Walters episode. Not here. Here, all they want is illusions and a tube of Fair & Lovely to solve all their problems.”

Sunny smothered a laugh, looking offstage to where the show’s producer stood. A tall, lean white guy dressed in khakis and a loose
kurta
, his expression was a mix of salacious delight and rueful consternation. He’d probably already gotten an earful from Dad. Pretty much the Hindu equivalent of an Easter-and-Christmas Christian, her father had suddenly become more conservative since they’d set foot on Indian soil, demanding she go out only dressed in
salwar kameez
, taking her to a temple once a month to pay her respects, sniffing every glass she held at a party for even the slightest trace of booze. A couple of sips of Jack and Coke might be bad for her soul, but this? This was going to blister her reputation for quite a while.

“We can’t retape, can we? Or cut that whole part of the segment?” Even as she suggested it, she knew it was futile.

Sure enough, Sunny frowned. “
Nahin
. We have to stay on schedule and on budget or Mr. Shaw over there…he’ll have my head.” Judging by how the Mr. Shaw in question was gazing back at Sunny with utter adoration, Rocky somehow doubted that. It was only
her
head on the line. Sunny reached across and squeezed her hand. “Don’t worry. Any buzz will blow over. It always does.”

It always does
. Not the most comforting words she’d ever heard…and far worse ones awaited her once she left the oasis of Sunita Khanna’s guest sofa.

“Rakhee Anne Varma! What were you thinking?” Her dad wasn’t a large man, but his anger made it seem like he took up the entire green room, floor to ceiling. His graying dark hair stood up in awkward tufts; his normally perfectly knotted tie was unraveled and askew. Shankar Varma, perpetually unruffled corporate shark, suddenly looked like he hadn’t slept in a week.

No matter what anyone said, he
hadn’t
bought her a career. No, instead he’d rearranged his to support her. He’d uprooted his life and his wife and returned to the country he’d left thirty years ago, all so she could pursue her dream. She couldn’t ask for a better cheerleader, even if he did make her dress more conservatively than most girls in Mumbai.

So she took a page from her mother’s Captain Obvious Handbook. “I…I wasn’t thinking. I was just kind of…talking. You know…like I do.”

“‘Just talking’?” The look he gave her was a mirror to her own classic scowl. “Confession does not help your cause. Why did I pay for media training lessons? For that girl who took you round for weeks when we moved to Mumbai?”

The girl in question had been half assistant, half dictator. Aside from learning the location of the nearest Starbucks and how to dial an Indian cell phone number, Rocky had spent most of those four weeks just trying to stay out of her way.

“Dad, I’m sorry. I should’ve known better. I just couldn’t help it.” She dragged her hands through her hair, undoing the hard work of the show’s stylists, who’d pulled it into a sleek, neat ponytail. “And if I can be even more honest, it felt really
good
to say all of that stuff. I mean, staying quiet and smiling like an idiot hasn’t made people stop talking about me, right? So what’s the big deal if I rant a little?”

“Do you really need me to answer that, Rocky?” Her dad’s eyebrows rose in disbelief, and she sighed, dropping into an overstuffed chair that almost immediately swallowed her up. It didn’t spit her out, though. That was going to be the
filmi
press…after they chewed her up.

He was living on borrowed time. Ashraf Khan had known that for years: that someday, somehow, someone would come to him and say, “This was all a great joke. Your career is finished now. You may go home.” He was strangely
anticipating
the prospect. Playing in front of a camera nonstop for six years, in bigger and bigger roles…it was a dream for some, but he was no junior artiste with cinema-star fantasies. The only roles that had ever truly mattered to him were those of son, grandson, brother. For all the good they had done.

He knew what part everyone would associate him with now. Boy toy. Arm candy. Characterless, desperate climber. Calculated partner or wide-eyed dupe, it didn’t matter. He’d literally made his bed when he threw in his lot with Nina Manjrekar.

So Ashraf was unsurprised when Nina’s former partner at Anandaloka Pictures—and former stepson—Rahul Anand, left him several messages and then rang him up to schedule drinks at a popular bistro in Colaba. It was only a matter of time, after all. Anand had dealt with Nina swiftly and efficiently, cutting her from his business and his personal life as though excising a tumor. Her associates could be equally cancerous, equally demanding of removal.

The windows faced the water, offering a better view than the producer’s shrewd, piercing gaze. Ashraf knew what Anand saw. He saw it himself every day in the mirror.

There was no condemnation in his tone, though. The man was too well-bred for that. “My stepmother was your godmother,” Anand said, almost as though he’d plucked the thought from the ether once the pleasantries and drink orders were dealt with. “It nearly makes us…brothers.”

Thinking of Nina Manjrekar as “his” anything made the blood in his veins ice over despite the heat. “Godmother.” What a silly play on industry godfathers. As though she’d waved a magic wand to make his
filmi
dreams come true. It had been weeks since she’d left the city, but she’d taken up permanent residence in his thoughts, like a parasite clinging to his brain stem.

“Your wife was briefly my heroine. That nearly makes us rivals.” Ashraf had to make the joke. To push Nina away and pull the pretty,
safe
image of Priya Roy Anand forward.

“I’ve no rivalry with you, Khan.” The assurance was just on the border of gentle, not cloying enough to be patronizing. “We are not enemies. I honor my company’s commitments, and any deals Nina made with you for projects will stand.”

Deals. Oh, he’d made a great many
deals
,
nahin
? This time, he could not hide his flinch, though he tried to chase it away with a healthy swallow of whiskey. Anand didn’t bat an eye at his forbidden indulgence. For hadn’t Ashraf done
so
much more that was
haram
besides have a drink or two or ten? The entire industry thought him no better than a whore, earning twelve pictures on his back. On his knees. In every conceivable position.

As if he could see right through to Ashraf’s corroded soul, Anand shook his head. “I won’t ask for anything you are not willing to give. All you owe to me is your time and your hundred percent devotion to our films.
No one
at Anandaloka will ever again exploit someone on my watch.”

Exploitation
. It was a word for village girls sold into the sex trade. For children forced to do unspeakable things. Ashraf had gone to bed with his eyes wide open, of his own accord. How could he possibly claim victimhood?
Nahin
, he’d earned every sin, every whisper and every condemnation. If Nina Manjrekar had set fire to every bridge she’d built in Mumbai, he was guilty by association. By
so much
association.

His eyes welled with acidic damp, and he knocked back another gulp of alcohol before setting his jaw and nodding. “Don’t worry, Anand-
saab
. If I am still on the slate for
Be-Izzati
in three months’ time, then my dates and my devotion
are
yours.”

For that was what he’d feared upon receiving the first voicemail,
na
? That Anand would drop him from the picture like so much baggage now that his stepmother had been pushed from the company and sent packing.

“You’re still on the slate. You’re still the star. I’ve seen the test shots, Khan, and I know your work. You’re a very fine actor. More than the press gives you credit for. I’d be sorry I took the role in
Khoon
from you…except it brought me back my Priya. I can’t apologize for that. All I can do is give you
Be-Izzati
and my confidence.”

There, of course, was the rub. Rahul Anand hadn’t given him
Be-Izzati
. Ashraf had embraced disrespect wholeheartedly, all on his own.

Chapter Four

As she’d expected, her episode of
Sunny Days, Bollywood Nights
didn’t even have to air before shit started hitting the fan. A few loose-lipped PAs and a leaked sound bite or two after the taping, and Rocky was suddenly having the week from hell. The flame-y center of it being the emergency meeting with the honchos from her next film.

“I don’t want her at the guesthouses with the rest of the cast and crew!”
2 Love in Delhi
’s director, Arijit Chatterjee, barked as his face turned an ugly shade of purple. “It’ll be madness. She’s caused enough drama.”

Oh, like she was some American starlet in a spiral of booze and drugs? Rocky rolled her eyes. All she’d done was give one ill-advised interview. The quotes getting pulled out of context and spread all over the Bollywood blogs to paint her in an even worse light…that wasn’t her fault! She raised her voice to defend herself, only to be drowned out by two of the backers and her father. She’d hoped to have
some
female support in the room, but her mother had begged off the production meeting, claiming an appointment at the spa. For the year and a half they’d been in Mumbai, Mom seemed to have spent the bulk of it at the spa.

“I want her safe!” Dad bellowed in the meantime. “That is my priority. No paparazzi, no funny business. No men on the street harassing her. Delhi is not safe generally, and now…? It’ll be even worse for her.”

She tried to suppress a shudder and evidently failed, because her leading man—a surprise addition to the powwow—spoke up from the other end of the lounge.

She didn’t know Ashraf Khan very well—only by reputation, which wasn’t all that great. But he was nice, polite when he wasn’t being sarcastic, and they’d vibed really well while going over some preliminary scene work. He was good-looking in a brooding, bad-boy sort of way, with straight hair that flopped into his face and a jaw perpetually shaded with stubble.