Turbulence (3 page)

“Uzma Abidi?” a dishevelled assistant director calls, entering the lobby. “Come in, please.”

Uzma is ushered through the door. It shuts, and the large Warhol-style portrait of the leering henchman from Bollywood’s most famous epic resumes its gap-toothed observation of the assembled ladies. A disgruntled murmur fills the lobby.

A tiny model-type in a tinier dress taps Saheli on the shoulder and voices everyone’s concern: “Who
is
that?”

“Her name’s Uzma. She’s new in town,” Saheli says, wondering exactly when she had signed up to play a supporting character in Uzma’s biopic. That Uzma is in Mumbai now, looking to become the next Aishwarya Rai, is mostly Saheli’s fault.

Uzma had been exposed to Bollywood a little while growing up in England, mainly videos of blockbusters from the seventies and eighties, a time when Indian men had hairy chests and unrepentant paunches, wore cravats and bell-bottoms and were social chameleons equally at ease in tribal villages surrounded by feather-duster-sporting dancers and in underground lairs full of metal drums, collapsible henchmen and chained virgins.

Saheli had introduced her to the New Bollywood, the in-your-face, slick, Armani-enabled imperial-ambitions, global Bollywood, the dream machine that had spawned hundreds of enterprises like Daku Samba Entertainment. Told her stories of hip, edgy companies with producers flaunting designer eyewear and customised iPhones, swanky offices with intentionally ironic decor and voluptuous receptionists with call-centre New York accents. Of a new generation of actors who had come from nowhere and were currently staring back at the world through giant screens and YouTube windows everywhere, talking about how they would only shed their clothes if the role demanded it. Of girls from Mexico and Germany, and everywhere else, gathering in Mumbai like tinsel-tinged salmon. Of young, ambitious, world-cinema-educated, genre-blending, fast-talking, next-big-thing directors actually interested in making good films. Uzma had fallen hard, and decided that Bollywood was a bandwagon she had to be on top of, making suggestive hip movements with men twice her age.

“She’s fresh, no? And not bad looking,” Tiny Model says, trying to add to her air of casually detached interest by pretending to be absorbed in a tabloid whose front page proudly proclaims: M
AN-TIGER MONSTER SIGHTED IN
K
ASHMIR:
I
S THIS THE NEXT
M
ONKEY
-M
AN
? “Does she have, like, connections?”

“No,” Saheli replies, surprised to find how proud she sounds. But, yes, in the face of all logic, she’s thrilled to bits by what Uzma has achieved in two weeks in Bollywood.

Day One: Uzma arrives from Lucknow, where she has spent two weeks with her great-aunt, who had stayed in India when her sister, Uzma’s grandmother, had moved with her husband’s family to Lahore in 1947. Unfortunately Uzma’s great-aunt’s sense of connection with the outside world had also been packed into one of those large aluminium trunks all those years ago, so Uzma is glad to have escaped.

Mumbai takes one quick look at Uzma and clasps her to its sweaty bosom. On their journey from the airport to the nearest local train station, the auto-rickshaw driver bursts into song in Uzma’s honour and insists that, as a token of India’s
generosity, her ride with him costs nothing. He does take half the fare from Saheli, though. On the long three-stage journey to Saheli’s home, a flat in Navi Mumbai, Uzma is dismayed to find that the fortress from which she intends to launch her assault on Bollywood is at least two hours’ journey away. But her mood is considerably improved when Saheli’s parents — who had spent three long years clucking uncomfortably about the clothes they’d seen Uzma wearing in Saheli’s photos — see her and fall in love. Saheli is too flabbergasted at the miracle she has recently witnessed — a woman in the crowded ladies’ compartment on their local train actually getting up to offer Uzma her seat — to notice that she has been cast as Uzma’s sidekick in her own home.

Day Two: Uzma ventures forth to conquer the big, bad world of Bollywood. Her first stop: a coffee shop where she meets Chrisann, a film-journalist friend of Saheli’s. Within ten minutes Chrisann, widely known as the snootiest woman in the greater Mumbai area, offers Uzma her complete list of film-people phone numbers and an invitation to the premiere of the new blockbuster
Khatra: Luv In The Time of The Dangerrr
where she will have the opportunity to meet “industry insiders”. An hour into this five-minute meeting Chrisann’s brother Bruno, a TV producer, turns up, is instantly smitten and asks Uzma if she’s interested in becoming a cricket presenter — one of a fast-growing breed of glamorous young women called upon to provide in-depth cricket analysis in skimpy clothing for India’s never-ending slew of cricket shows.

Uzma, whose interest in cricket is nonexistent, turns this offer down, but accepts a lift to Bandra for a small, intimate evening at Toto’s which turns, in several stages, into a pool party at a B-list Bollywood star’s house, several phone numbers and one inebriated proposal of marriage from a society photographer. Uzma stumbles into Saheli’s house at four in the morning smelling of Mumbai, and Saheli’s parents laugh nervously but fondly as they let her in.

Days Three to Eight: Saheli and her parents mope forlornly around the house, missing Uzma desperately. Uzma’s memories of these days are blurred at best, but from extensive reconstruction Saheli has deduced the following: Uzma drifts from party to meeting to launch to premiere to party, making friends, influencing people. Before she has faced the camera even once, she is featured in two human-interest pieces about the most promising newcomers in the film industry, and in three tabloids as the secret new girlfriend of three separate stars. Seven industry big-wigs “discover” her at various nightspots. She is offered dozens of reality shows and contests, most of which involve singing or speaking in Hindi, neither of which Uzma is really capable of.

She runs out of money on Day Four, and graciously begins to accept film offers. She finds out soon, though, that the enthusiasm that producers, directors and actors feel when they meet her at parties doesn’t extend as far as their chequebooks. Using the acumen genetically acquired from her mother, a leading corporate lawyer in London, she soon figures out that the contracts she is being asked to sign involve her a) never working for anyone else and b) sitting and waiting for films that, thanks to the global economic recession, might never be made. She signs up for a few ad shoots instead, becomes the first outsider in the history of the Mumbai entertainment industry to turn a profit within their first week, and spends all
her newly acquired riches getting a Sapna Bhavnani haircut.

She makes exciting new friends: Capoeira dancers from Brazil who have come to Bollywood to be instructors, Zen Buddhist monks who moonlight as DJs, Formula One glamour girls from Australia. An A-list star invites her over to his sea-view flat to give her advice, gives her advice all night, and his wife returns from a bag-buying trip to Mauritius and gives her Ethiopian coffee in the morning.

Day Nine: A bleary Uzma returns to Navi Mumbai to take stock. Saheli listens, gaping, as Uzma trots out Bollywood-insider stories about treadmills for dogs and secret liaisons among rival domestic help cliques in Pali Hill. Saheli feels a terrible pang of sorrow when Uzma announces her intention of leaving at the end of the week she’d invited herself for. Saheli’s parents are even more stricken: Uzma is the daughter they’ve always wanted, they tell her. Uzma spends her evening with Saheli’s family, turning off her constantly ringing phone after an hour. Saheli’s father gives her Instructions Essential for Single Girls in the City. Uzma is surprised when he warns her not to tell any prospective landlords that her parents are from Pakistan.

At midnight, Uzma’s parents call from London. They are worried: a few plainclothes policemen have come to their house and asked several questions about Uzma. On being assured that the only danger Uzma faces currently is the prospect of exploding from all the food Saheli’s mother is force-feeding her, everyone laughs heartily.

Days Ten to Twelve: Saheli calls in sick and plays trusty sidekick. The dynamic duo’s mission: to find Uzma a place to live. They wander up and down Mumbai and find that all available housing is a) too expensive b) too small c) too remote
d) simply not available because Uzma is female, Uzma is Muslim, Uzma is single, Uzma is foreign, Uzma is alone, Uzma is an actress, and you know what they say about struggling actresses. Uzma is dismayed, all the more so because it seems to cause each prospective landlord genuine pain to turn her away. They all assure her of their undying sorrow and regret. They promise to help her find any place but theirs. There are three or four places where they don’t run into categories a) to d) but another problem rises, like Godzilla from an iceberg, in each of these places e) it just doesn’t feel right.

Day Thirteen: Uzma gets on the phone and makes appointments. She travels all over south and central Mumbai, squired by an enthusiastic army of new friends, and as she passes the city stares and sighs in appreciation. She gets several offers, mostly second or third leads in star-studded “musical romantic action comedy thrillers”. Or leads in clearly third-rate movies with leery co-stars and directors.

Saheli expects Uzma to take one of these offers, and is surprised when in the evening she finds Uzma, having spent a certain amount of time thinking intensely, has decided that she doesn’t want any role that she hasn’t earned. She has not come to Bollywood to be an Item Girl; she wants to be an Actress. Uzma wants to work in Meaningful Cinema, Edgy Multiplex Films — at least until she gets to play the lead opposite Shahrukh Khan. And while she has enjoyed the attention and casual offers, she knows she wants to work with Serious Artists. Therefore Uzma has decided to use her contacts to find auditions, not eye-candy roles. Her first port of call: a new, cutting-edge company named Daku Samba, currently auditioning for the female lead in an Indian reworking of
The Tempest,
a magic-realist noir
piece set during the Mumbai floods of 2005.

Day Fourteen:

“Wake up, love. We’re done.”

Saheli shakes herself awake. Uzma towers above her, looking amused.

“How was it?”

The whole lobby leans forward as Uzma’s face clouds over.

“Terrible.”

“You’re not a very good actress. You’re clearly lying.”

Uzma smiles, the sun bursts out of the clouds, and all the other actresses are stunned to find they’re actually happy for this girl.

The Daku Samba door opens, and Anurag Kashyap, Dark Lord of new-age Bollywood, steps out. Uzma’s competitors gasp, quiver in excitement and slip into poses that would fit into Kashyap films, their faces flitting through Moody, Angsty, Tormented, Post-Coital and Wearily Amused, their eyes moist and intense. Kashyap looks at them, shudders imperceptibly and turns to Uzma.

“Well done,” he says. “I’m really looking forward to working with you.”

Uzma and Saheli float out of the building into the streets of Juhu on a pink cloud of excitement.

As they step out, auto-rickshaws queue up for the privilege of taking the new Queen of Bollywood wherever she wants to go.

Saheli’s phone rings. She takes the call, and as she listens the smile slowly fades from her face. When she disconnects and turns to Uzma, she looks worried.

“Your great-aunt called from Lucknow,” she says. “The police were over, looking for you.”

“That’s weird,” Uzma says. “It happened when I was there as well.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. They probably check on foreigners all the time. When I was there, a couple of policemen took me to the station one day and asked me all sorts of stuff.”

“What are you saying? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Mostly because I forgot all about it. There was no trouble, they were very sweet. They just asked me whether anything out of the ordinary had happened to me. One of them said they needed to run some physical tests on me, but I told them I’d rather not, I was completely knackered, and my great-aunt would be worried if I wasn’t home soon. The inspector in charge told me not to worry, they’d make up the test results — they were looking for some terrorist who was on my flight from London, but I clearly wasn’t their man. Then he dropped me home on this old noisy bike. He was really fit.”

“Well, they’re looking for you again. Your great-aunt told my mother she gave them a big scolding and told them you’d gone back to England.”

“They’re lucky she didn’t shoot them — there’s an ancient gun in the house. Par-nani’s a crazy old bird, and she’s not scared of anyone. And she’s hated the police since the 1940s. Should I be worried?”

“I don’t know. Is there anything you’ve done that you want to tell me about?”

Uzma’s phone rings. Smiling an apology at Saheli, she takes the call.

“Uzma Abidi?” a young male voice asks.

“Yeah? Who is this?”

“My name is Aman Sen. I’ve heard you’re facing certain difficulties. I believe I have a solution.”

Saheli and the auto driver wait patiently for several minutes as Uzma alternates between the words “Oh?”, “Really?”, “Yeah?” and “Brilliant!” When Uzma hangs up, she’s grinning widely. Silencing with an elegant palm the auto driver’s attempts at introducing himself and his soon-to-take-off career as a stunt driver, Uzma turns to Saheli.

“There’s a place in Versova. Yari Road. Slightly crazy owner just called. Says he’s inherited a big house and doesn’t know what to do with it, so he’s letting people stay there. He’s heard I’m a brilliant actress and wants to help me out, so he’s all right with me paying whatever I can afford.”

“Sounds like a mass murderer to me,” Saheli says.

“Shut up. Yari Road’s a good place to live, right?”

“Most of the entertainment industry stays there. You’ll be neck-deep in parties.”

The auto sputters forth, weaving snake-like through traffic. Uzma leans back in the seat and looks at the garish stickers of actresses on the auto’s sides.

“Do you think there’ll be some of me one day?”