Menoka has hanged herself Page 3

  Most studio girls came into their ‘line’ holding the hand of some masi or other, or even with their own mothers, but how many became stars, like her, thought Raju proudly. Or that Menoka! But was it Menoka that she remembered from back then, or was it that other girl Molina? She couldn’t be sure…the one that she first saw doing the naked ‘acto’, before she got into it herself. Still, after getting over it the first two or three times those ones were easier done than the stunts…hanging from ropes… fights…then getting thrown about by those men double her size…

  She lifted her sari to feel her right hip, still sore from where she had fallen.

  ‘And I only got to do one day chutti, anyone else would have taken three days. But no. No shooting, but come and do rehearsal…as if that is not work…’

  Kamala came in with a plate full of hot luchis, begun and alu bhaja.

  ‘There’s kheer for after,’ she had honey in her voice. ‘Or, you want it now, with your luchi?’

  Raju nodded, she wanted everything together. That was one thing about Kamala Masi, she knew how to cook. Raju ate her evening meal with great relish, when she could have maach-bhat, fish and rice, or luchi like today, or sometimes Kamala’s dalpuris and kochuris. She had to eat lightly during the day, but she made up for it after she got back home from the studio. She would eat in silence, shutting her ears to Kamala’s chatter as she served her.

  As a little girl Raju had inhaled the perfumes of curries and gravies being prepared in the neighbourhood, but her own mother’s cooking had been bland and without character. Her early fondness for Kamala had grown out of her cravings and weakness for food, as Kamala Masi had come bearing packets of jhal chanachur, hot grams, or small earthen pots of ghugni from roadside vendors. Kamala knew Raju well, the way to her head lay through her stomach. She herself was a small eater, but she cooked well for Raju. Kamala knew now that she had to earn her keep.

  ‘You’re becoming so thin, day by day,’ she groaned as she watched Raju work through the luchis. ‘Starving you whole day, that memsahib of yours. Look at other girls your age, front side-backside all so nice…so full…’

  Kamala believed Raju’s going out of hand was all Lily Madam’s doing. That Anglo magi, that slut, had done some tuk-tak, black magic on the poor girl.

  ‘Tui bol, if you say, I can get maach-bhat to the studio at lunchtime from tomorrow? Should I?’ she leant forward eagerly.

  ‘And who the hell is going to do the stunts and dances after that lunch, tomar baap, your father?’ Raju’s yell almost made Kamala drop the rest of the kheer. ‘Haven’t I told you not to do bak-bak in my ear when I’m eating?’

  Kamala had a tear rolling down her face, as was often her fate. Raju was eating peacefully again. She had her count. Five of Kamala Masi’s luchis, four pieces of begun bhaja and seven pieces of the thick round alu bhajas. Kamala always served her more, and she would leave the rest on her plate. It was a matter of practice, as Lily Madam always said.

  ‘You can eat anything you like, as long as you don’t stuff yourself up. Remember, what is thik for me might be more for you. Don’t talk when you’re eating. Chew it well…’

  It had taken Raju months to master it, and now in her mind she knew the counts and amounts for everything she ate.

  ‘No bhat for lunch,’ was Lily’s diktat. So Raju made her mid-day meal of ripe bananas, for which Lily had nicknamed her ‘bandar’. And while other studio girls her age were often buxom and well-rounded, Raju looked slender but filled out in the right places.

  What a pity that Madam had become a little bit like Kamala Masi, she mused as she opened out her long plait and parted her hair, a signal that she wanted her head massaged. Kamala had cleared her plates and now started to rub coconut oil on her head. Raju shut her eyes as Kamala pressed her temples, and made gentle circles with her fingers, messing her hair. How good this felt… whatever would she do without Masi. If only she didn’t talk so much…if only Lily Madam didn’t do so much ‘Yeh karo, yeh mat karo’ these days…always ordering her around. Why they all wanted to tell her what to do… didn’t they all get what they wanted out of her?

  Even when it had come to that one picture she was now going to do with another studio, Madam had created so much jhamela.

  ‘Why you want to work outside, idhar kya nahi milta hai, what don’t you get here? Humko bolo…you tell me.’ As if telling her would do any good. As if she would even understand. That she wanted to get away. From Unique Pictures, Lily Madam and Mishtu Da who thought they had made her…Made her—that was what they thought! Could they pick another girl and make another Rajbala?

  We all live by our own fates…Kamala Masi was used to saying. ‘And it was my fate to be a star,’ Raju smirked silently as Kamala rolled her hair into a loose knot. Mishtu Da said her contract was for two more years… two more years…but they had allowed her one outside picture, that too after so much jhagra. She hadn’t given in…hmm, now even she knew how to get her way in this line. What did they think that she would never learn the tricks? That they would have their say, always?

  But which studio, she had to make up her mind quickly now. New Talkies wanted her for their new adventure romance…Bharatmata…they would enter action if she went with them. She had to wait until she saw him again…she didn’t want to go wrong. But that was still another two days.

  Ramola

  ‘Take those old ones out of the trunk,’ Ramola scolded Bibhu, Shankar’s attendant. ‘I told you not to pack saab’s old gloves, get them out.’

  His old ones were a bit worn, they had been laid away for too long. She had ordered him a pair from Hogg Sahib’s market. They still had four, no five days, if she counted the day that he was to leave. She had stayed home that morning to look through Shankar’s trunks which Bibhu had packed on her instructions.

  She was wearing a costume from Mirabai, a pale yellow sari, with her head covered and her hair left loose. The blouse had long sleeves, not the short ones that were her favourite. She had started the fashion of wearing short sari blouses and women everywhere wore them now. Would the Mira style sari blouse also become a fad, she wondered, as she leisurely walked across the hallway from Shankar’s dressing room where the trunks lay opened out.

  She sat down at her own dressing table in the bedroom and studied herself. It was something she did once in a while—go about the house in the costumes from the pictures. ‘Helps me be the character,’ she would say.

  The servants were accustomed to it, and Bibhu had not batted an eyelid when madam had emerged dressed like a sanyasin.

  ‘They must sometimes think I’m quite mad,’ Ramola thought as she adjusted the pleats of her sari which had got tousled. She had planned to not use safety-pins, to just let it be. The Mira costumes were simple, almost austere. Even the scenes that were set in the royal palace were going to be muted performances. Ramola felt a certain graveness, at times even removed from the things around her when she was thinking her way through Mira.

  ‘This one is so unlike my other characters,’ she pondered as she hummed one of Mira’s songs. Those had all been a mix of serious and playful—like the good wife who could also sing a song and match it with a few nimble steps, but not this one. It was going to be difficult, no frills of love and romance here.

  She felt in the skin of the character. After several years of her practiced playing of the model woman, she had wanted it to be a little bit more. And even as it got closer to Shankar’s departure, she wanted to almost embrace this new role of hers—this character of a lovelorn woman. She had times of feeling restless and then settling down again, but today she simply couldn’t stay calm, no matter how hard she tried. She wished again that they were going away together, that work was not quite so pressing and that she could be less worried about Shankar.

  She looked at the watch on her dressing table, almost eleven. Shankar was going to be seeing Miracle Pictures’ India head in their Chowringhee office. Avinash Mukherjee, who ran Miracle’s business in Indi
a was a reserved, almost shy man, who seemed to her to be of an altogether different stock from those in their line. Shankar had gotten along very well with him, but then he got along with most people. The two men had met frequently over the past months to plan the collaboration on Mirabai.

  Avinash had met Shankar at a luncheon in one of the Chowringhee hotels. They were remarkably different people, Shankar assertive and outgoing, Avinash careful and observant, but they had the same ideas about movies and movie-making. Avinash admired the way Shankar had given up a Hollywood career and had returned to the country to set up Bharat Talkies. He had taken to visiting the Bharat Talkies studio, and was awed by Shankar’s leadership and his untiring energies.

  Ramola herself was not part of this friendship between the two men, though she had frequently met Avinash at the studio. With her he was awkward and aloof, mumbling ‘Good morning, ma’am’ or ‘Thank you, ma’am’, and she had not given him very much thought, before Shankar had considered collaborating with him on their big-budget production.

  Avinash had confided in Shankar, ‘Shankar Da, I want to do more…something creative…something that is not only about making money. The bosses will allow it now, I think…’

  His bosses in America had learnt to trust him, and he now had more leverage than before. And Shankar had wanted to come back with his own picture, but not just any picture. It had to be something big, something that would make their world sit up and take notice. Shankar wasn’t thinking about a single hit picture. He wanted his new picture to be remembered.

  Avinash had urged him on, ‘It has to be an international collaboration, Shankar Da,’ and they had worked overtime to lobby the studio bosses in America.

  The all-India market was growing every day and the talkies were a rage. ‘But we lack a world audience,’ Shankar would often say. A partnership like Miracle could change that. Still, a lot of groundwork had to be done. Miracle had their doubts about the way things worked in India, more informally and less by the books. Shankar’s Hollywood background had helped, and Avinash had done everything in his power to push for the collaboration.

  ‘How can I explain, dada…’ he had been almost overcome when they had finally gotten the go-ahead, and as the two men had sat together late in the evening.

  ‘This is my chance to get involved in movie-making… perhaps we can make history together…’

  It was going to be a big picture. If only they could make it a success. Miracle Pictures wanted him to steer it for them. A team of technicians would come in from America to work with Shankar, but he would be their man on the ground.

  Like Ramola, Avinash too was restless. He sat in his office idly flipping through some magazines, after what had been their last meeting before Shankar would leave for America. He had not been asked to accompany Shankar, as he had very much hoped. His bosses had not thought it necessary, and he had not liked to press the point. Mirabai was on his mind now, but even as he looked at his notes and thought back to his morning’s conversation, he knew that he would have to take his mind off it, until Shankar’s return, when they could get back to work. But that meant he would stray back to Ramola.

  Avinash

  Avinash loathed admitting, even to himself, his almost obsessive love for Ramola. When he first met her he was intrigued. She was modern and accomplished no doubt, and decorous, yet sometimes almost uncharacteristically child-like. And eager and sincere in her work, as if she was a school girl and not the great star that she was. She had none of the typical airs of stars, and she carried her stardom with an ease that he found quite remarkable. She was older than he was, he had gathered, but the years had been kind on her. On days that she was not going before the camera, she wore no make-up, often no other jewellery except her diamond earrings, and she looked so youthful and untouched that he had had to struggle to keep himself from staring at her. She was such a curious mix of opposites, often quiet yet impatient, high-class but down-to-earth, alive yet somehow solitary.

  That she was a big star was the least of her charms, in Avinash’s eyes. Rather he tried to imagine her bereft of her stardom, what if she had not been so unattainable in every way. Funnily enough, that same distance between them had drawn him more to her, even as he had fumbled and become overly formal in her presence. A few times, she had caught him staring, but then, she was used to people looking like that. She had gently smiled back, as if trying to make him feel at ease, and he had looked the other way swallowing back a swell of emotions, infuriated at himself for staring.

  At thirty-one, the only reason Avinash was still unmarried was that being a hopeless romantic he had not countenanced the thought of an arranged marriage, though proposals had not been few. Secretly vain about his good looks, he was youthful like a boy, with a lithe body and a sensitive face. In love with the idea of being in love, he had in his mind set such exacting standards for a possible mate that the years had gone by and he had stayed unattached. He had never spoken even in his most intimate circles about his closeness with Shankar or about Ramola, fearing he might give away his most secret thoughts, and how he felt about her.

  Nor indeed were his desires mystical and psychic as he would have liked to tell himself. She was a small woman, with small breasts, slender arms, a tiny waist, delicate hips and firm buttocks, not really what was the liking in ‘the line’ for women with more meat on their bodies. But for Avinash, that same fragility created a longing for closeness and belonging. In his most unguarded moments he had imagined Ramola with Shankar, man and wife, feeling the bile rise in him, and feelings of rivalry that had shamed him almost the next minute. At such times, he would force his thoughts back to the new picture, to his newly formed alliance with Shankar and their grand plans together.

  Today, he pretended to not notice as Shankho brought a hand to rest on his knee. Shankho was a mild distraction, from the seething in his mind. Shankho loved him, like he loved Ramola, a kind of impossible love, where the lover knew that he would never attain the object of his desire. That perhaps was also the thrill of this kind of love. Shankho acted in bioscope films, and sometimes in plays. His pictures, where he had been cast as the hero had passed unnoticed, but he made a dependable character actor.

  ‘You should have been the hero in those pictures, not me,’ he would tell Avinash, eyes locked on him. On days like this one, when he had no rehearsals, shows or shooting, he would arrive at Avinash’s office or even his home near Jadu Babu’s Bazar.

  ‘Cholo na, come on, let’s get out a little bit early and go to Europa for drinks,’ he had coaxed that afternoon.

  His head buried in some papers, Avinash hadn’t replied. He liked to keep Shankho guessing.

  ‘Ki? Won’t you come?’ Shankho had asked again, his pleasant face dimming.

  ‘Hmmm, bhabchi, thinking…’ Avinash had paused for a few seconds to remove his glasses, blow into them and wipe them with his fingers, then had promptly busied himself in a flurry of activity, opening drawers, pulling out some papers, then darting out of his chair and into the inner office, apparently with some significant objective.

  All the while Shankho’s eyes had followed him. Avinash had plucked a dusting cloth hanging on a hook and started to wipe the wooden cabinet, letting the minutes pass as Shankho waited in the next room. No dust here, Keshta the office boy was doing his job. After a suitable passing of time, he had called out to Shankho, as if he had suddenly remembered.

  ‘I…was thinking…maybe the six o’clock show… Lighthouse? What are they showing? Today’s paper…’

  Shankho had jumped, grabbed the newspaper lying on Avinash’s marble-topped wooden desk and rushed into the room.

  ‘Here, here…let me check the shows…Ei to, here it is…Lighthouse six o’clock…Prince and the Pauper. And Ruby has…Hindi boi…with Ranibala…which one, you decide.’

  He had looked up from the page that he was scouring so intently to find that Avinash had slipped away. He was at his desk again, in the next room, feet up now on the marble top
of the table. ‘I think,’ he had declared as Shankho reappeared, ‘that we’ll go to Europa after all…’

  Avinash paid for their drinks at Europa Bar.

  ‘He deserves it,’ he thought looking at Shankho. Shankho had ordered a gin and tonic, Avinash coffee as always. Shankho was looking jubilant, Avinash was laughing loudly at his jokes. The truth was he sometimes laughed so loudly to mask tedium. Or, as at this time, his exasperation, at the insubordination of his own body and mind.

  A Bharat Talkies poster had captured his view from his seat by the window on the second floor of Europa. And there she was, smiling ever so sweetly. Wasn’t there the last time that he had come. Why ever does she appear in every which place. He felt irritable. Yet he had seated himself in that rather odd angle, turned half away from Shankho, and towards the open window. His back upright, legs a little bit parted, his breaths quick.

  Seated next to him, Shankho did not notice. He was chatting, he could be speaking to himself. He didn’t care really if he did not elicit many responses from Avinash. And then, Avinash was laughing mirthfully… couldn’t really have found it so very amusing, what he was saying. Maybe just how he had said it…though he shouldn’t think it too funny himself, just his report of some backstage mishaps, regular stuff, really.

  Shankho laughed along, his gladness was real, like when he would be drunk. Though really, on such days he would manage to not drink too much, like he would if left to himself. He was used to Avinash’s silences and elusiveness. Avinash rarely laughed like today, though he sometimes would make a joke at his expense, which fairly delighted Shankho.

  Avinash smirked quietly. Shankho looked like he was ready to fly. It was why he would bear with Shankho, more so of late, when had he needed to fight his feelings of inadequacy, and Shankho’s naivety had restored his sense of superiority. He smiled indulgently, even as Shankho did something that he had never dared before. He laid his hand on Avinash’s leg, as if to touch him was nothing. Avinash looked out of the window again at Ramola’s face etched against the sky. ‘I’m going to have to put him back in his place next time,’ he thought as he drained his cup.