Bollywood Confidential (4 page)

Raveena was standing in the first-class passenger line at the Pan-
Asian Airlines counter when she heard the horrible news.

The airline representative frowned at the computer and shook her head. “I'm sorry, but we don't have you on our first-class passenger list, Ms. Rai.”

Raveena's stomach flipped and then flopped.

How could this be? She had the fax from Griffin in her hand.

Thanks to her mother—packer extraordinaire—she'd been able to fit into two suitcases what mere mortals could only hope to fit in seven. It had taken the combined efforts of her father, Jai and herself to heft each bag onto the weigh-in counter. All around her, Indian families were doing the same thing, paying overweight baggage fees, lugging their suitcases like oxen with a plow.

Raveena briefly wondered how the plane could possibly take off with all that extra weight.

But now…

Had Randy forgotten to get her ticket? Had Griffin gotten the dates wrong? Would her father be able to lug the suitcases back to their car without having a stroke?

Speaking of Bob, Raveena rubbed her aching right arm where she'd been poked and prodded by needles in preparation for the onslaught on her immune system in India. Daddy Dearest—having put the fear of God and hepatitis B in her—had begun clipping out articles about various disease epidemics in India and then calling and reading said articles to his daughter before she went off to sleep.

This did not provide for pleasant dreams.

When he clipped out an article about a possible typhoid scare in a town hundreds of miles from Bombay, Raveena's mother had finally taken away his scissors and forbade him to cut out another newspaper article for at least a year.

To make matters more complicated, Raveena's condo was now occupied by Jai, who, desperate to move out of his parents' home in Pasadena, had already shifted his things into her place and promised to take care of her plants.

Was it all for naught?

She forced herself to calm down. “Please check again. I know I'm leaving on this flight.”

The clerk rubbed her chin and her fingers began flying over the keyboard. “Aha.” She smiled and nodded. “I see what happened. You're definitely on the flight, Ms. Rai. Sorry about the mix-up.”

Raveena relaxed and smiled back. “No problem. Once I'm in my seat with a glass of champagne in my hand, I'll forget this ever happened.”

The clerk tapped her nose. “Hmm, well, you see, that's
sort of the mix-up. You're booked on the flight, but not in first class.”

Raveena's mouth went dry. “What? Are you sure?”

The clerk tapped her nose again and nodded.

The woman really couldn't keep her hands off her face.

Raveena swallowed, and when she spoke, her voice was weak. “Business?”

The clerk frowned and shook her head no. “I'm sorry.”

“You don't mean…”

The woman pinched the space between her eyes. “Yes, I'm afraid it's true.”

Raveena's heart began pounding. A scream welled up in her throat.

The clerk gazed at her sympathetically. “You're booked in coach.”

Raveena held onto the counter as the room swayed and dipped around her. She struggled to take a deep breath. So she'd be spending the next twenty-three hours in economy class.

That wasn't so bad, right?

Who was she kidding?

She'd rather date Maza's gynecologist.

“Isn't there something called economy class syndrome?” Raveena whispered.

The clerk tugged on her lower lip. “Yeah, you might want to walk up and down the aisle and stretch your legs at least every hour. Prevents a blood clot from forming.”

She then pushed a button, printed out Raveena's boarding pass and handed it to her with a smile. “Enjoy your flight with Pan-Asian Airlines.”

 

Bob wouldn't stop crying.

They were standing near the security checkpoint and Raveena's parents and friends could go no further.

Her father continued to cry.

Frankly, Raveena was a bit surprised.

Sure, she'd seen her father tear up before. He'd bawled in the theater during
The Joy Luck Club
. He'd bawled when his internist had informed him he had irritable bowel syndrome and not heart disease. He'd bawled when they'd gone to see Yo-Yo Ma in concert at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

But he hadn't bawled when his parents had passed away. He didn't bawl—according to her mother—when Rahul and Raveena were born. And he'd never bawled during any of their family arguments, where Raveena struggled to act like an adult and usually ended up crying and losing all credibility.

But he was bawling now.

She hugged him. “It's okay, Dad. We'll be in touch. And I'm coming back.”

“We'll miss you,” he choked out between sobs.

Raveena looked over at her mother. Leela's eyes were bright but her lips were pressed in a straight line.

Her mother never wept.

Raveena pulled her mother into a hug.

Leela gently touched her daughter's hair. “Be safe,” she whispered.

Jai looked like he was close to tears while Maza, like Raveena's mother, remained stoic.

And women were supposed to be too emotional?

From his pocket, her father pulled a handkerchief, dark blue this time, and mopped his face.

Raveena decided to end the good-byes before this turned into a wake.

She hugged Jai, who promised to ensure the survival of her leafy friends, and then hugged Maza last. Maza wasn't much of a hugger. Raveena loved her dearly but was positive there were corpses more affectionate.

“Here,” Maza said and handed her a gift-wrapped present. “You'll need this in Bombay.”

It looked too small to be a water-filtration system. In fact, it looked very much like a book.

And then Raveena was through the line and waving good-bye. Rahul had called the night before to wish her bon voyage.

Six months.

Raveena was starting to get
vaclempt
. Clutching the gift to her chest, she hoisted her shoulder bag and went through the security line. By the time she reached the end, her loved ones were no longer in view.

Taking a deep breath, Raveena headed for her boarding gate.

Halfway through dinner, Randy Kapoor fired his screenwriter.

The man was in his mid-fifties with graying hair. He clutched the bound script to his chest and looked aghast.

“But I need this job. No one hires writers my age anymore.”

“That's your problem,” Randy said, as his mother entered the room and took a seat next to her son.

“Is the food to your liking?” his mother asked with a doting look, ignoring the older gentleman who continued to stand there with a helpless expression.

Randy pouted. “It's become cold.”

His mother frowned. “Munnu! Come out here at once!”

Munnu, the household servant, appeared in the doorway. “Yes, memsahib.”

“I told you Randy likes his food piping hot. Now, refill his plate and heat it up again.”

Munnu stomped in, grabbed the plate and stomped back out.

“I don't like him, Mama,” Randy fussed. “Munnu has a very bad attitude.”

“Mr. Kapoor—” the screenwriter began with a beseeching look.

“Why are you still here?” Randy demanded.

Randy's mother stroked her son's arm soothingly, while shooting the screenwriter a dirty look. “You're aggravating my son during his dinner hour. It will give him indigestion.” She turned back to Randy. “Don't worry about anything, my sweet. You're a growing boy. I'll tell Munnu to add another serving to your plate.”

The fact was, Randy was a thirty-year-old man and had consumed half a pizza prior to dinner. In the last year, his waist size had expanded to a forty-two.

The screenwriter softly cleared his throat after Mrs. Kapoor had left the room. “But your father loved the script. He approved it. He thought the romance between the tour guide and the girl—”

“Daddy is not the director. I am,” Randy informed him. “Your script was all about feelings and relationships. Boring. No fight scenes. No action. No explosions or skimpy costumes.”

Munnu placed a plate laden with food in front of Randy.

“Munnu,” Randy said, “show the man out.”

Munnu dragged his feet over to the screenwriter and began urging him towards the door.

Happily, Randy dug into his food. He would write the script himself. How hard could it be?

A moment later his scream echoed throughout the house.

Mrs. Kapoor came running into the room, her massive bosom heaving underneath her sari blouse. “What is it, my sweet? What's wrong?”

“My food is too hot,” Randy cried.

 

The driver quickly opened the back door of the green BMW. Randy slid into the leather seat and lit a cigarette. “Take me to Rain,” he ordered the driver.

Rain was one of the hottest nightclubs in the city. Randy had just left a private party but wasn't in the mood to go home just yet.

The driver gazed at him in the rearview mirror. “But sahib, it's almost three
A.M
. Couldn't we head to the airport?”

Randy flicked the ash out the window and frowned. “Airport? Why would we go there?”

“Earlier you told me a woman would be arriving—”

“Stop making up stories,” Randy said crossly through a haze of smoke. “Just drive.”

There was more drinking to be done.

Four
A.M
. outside Bombay's Sahar Airport.

The humidity was so thick you could hack it to pieces with a machete. Raveena waited for the promised car and driver to take her to the hotel.

And waited.

And waited some more.

And—just because it was so much fun—she kept on waiting.

It was twenty-three hours later, her eyes were gritty with lack of sleep, her stomach sour with airplane food, and her back hurt from the stiff seat—the middle seat, mind you—in a five-seat row.

Immediately after takeoff from LAX, the cute guy to her left had given her a cursory look, then turned to the petite blonde next to him and began chatting. Halfway into the flight they were making out like horny men in a Turkish prison. Raveena's polite “excuse me” was ignored.

The woman to her right had immediately taken half a
bottle of sleeping pills, followed by a double whiskey chaser, and conked out. This meant Raveena had to climb over her and the equally zonked Chinese gentleman in the aisle seat whenever she wanted to use the restroom.

Without a doubt, the airplane lavatory probably reeked worse than one of the port-a-potties at Woodstock 2, and Raveena thought of just holding it until the layover.

But her bladder had a mind of its own.

To make matters worse, during the four-hour layover in Singapore, she'd been cornered by a group of teenage Asian girls with matching backpacks shouting “Vagitsu! Vagitsu!” Disheveled as Raveena was, she'd agreed to pose in photographs and sign autographs.

“Ow!”

Raveena screeched as an Indian woman trod heavily on her foot.

The woman was unapologetic.

With her two enormously heavy suitcases beside her—honestly, it was as though she'd packed a sumo wrestler in each of them—her carry-on bag slowly cutting off the circulation of blood to her shoulder, her purse clutched to her chest in a death grip—Auntie Kiran had said India was filled with thieves and rapists—Raveena was jostled and pushed by the flood of humanity exiting Arrivals.

The buzzing sodium lights outside the airport bathed her skin in a strange orange hue and irritated her eyes. Beggars of all shapes and sizes, some with missing limbs, some with extra limbs—one man kept showing Raveena the third nostril on his nose—clamored for attention, their hands outstretched, their voices pleading. Hawkers battled with the
beggars, waving worn and used-looking maps of Bombay, suspicious-looking bottled water and dented Bollywood film magazines.

The noise was intense and grating. She'd never experienced anything like it.

Taxi drivers cued up at the curb, competing with each other for passengers. Several of them kept opening their doors and trying to tempt her in.

And then there were the loafers. Auntie Kiran had warned Raveena about them.

The loafers were men who didn't seem to have any purpose but to lean against the wall and stare at each and every woman who crossed their field of vision. Since Raveena was the only unaccompanied female standing there, she was the sole object of their gaze.

Dressed in threadbare cotton clothing, they stared at her with bloodshot eyes, their feet bare, black hair oily. A few of them made smooching noises, which she wisely did not return.

And Raveena kept on waiting.

She had the fax from Griffin, which listed the name of the hotel, as well as Randy Kapoor's number, but she didn't have a cell phone on her, and the pay phones were on the opposite end of the crowded walkway. No way would she be able to lug her suitcases that far, and no way in hell was she leaving them unattended. The coolie who had carried her bags outside had long since disappeared into the night.

Besides, she'd passed by several pay phones after emerging from customs and they looked more complicated than
The Da Vinci Code.

And she didn't have any Indian coins.

As five a.m. approached, having grown weary of the beggars, hawkers and loafers around her, Raveena finally grabbed a tall, gray-haired Indian gentleman who had just finished making a call on his cell phone. “Please, can you dial a number for me? My ride hasn't shown up.”

He nodded and dialed the number she gave him. After a moment he handed it over. “It's ringing.”

Raveena pressed the receiver to her ear as the phone rang and rang. Finally a sleepy and sullen male voice answered rudely in Hindi. “What.”

She asked for Randy Kapoor.

The voice grew even more sullen. “Who?”

“Randy Kapoor.”

“Kapoor sahib isn't here.”

Damn. “Where is he? He was supposed to send the driver. I'm at the airport.”

The man, whom she cleverly deduced to be the servant, repeated himself. “Kapoor Sahib isn't here.”

She tried again. “Can you give me his cell number?”

The servant said something distinctly rude and untranslatable before hanging up.

“He's not there,” Raveena said as she handed the phone back. Her mouth was suddenly dry and her palms sweaty. She was entering panic mode.

“Do you have his address?”

She dug the fax out of her bag and showed it to him. “No, but I have the hotel name.”

The gentleman nodded and gestured for one of the taxi drivers to come over. In rapid Hindi he gave the man the hotel address and issued a stern warning to see Raveena
there safely and promptly. The man nodded and went to pick up the suitcases.

Raveena turned to the gentleman, the sheer feeling of gratefulness nearly overwhelming her. “I can't thank you enough.”

Her guardian angel smiled. “I have a daughter your age. I hope someone would do the same for her if she were stranded in a foreign city.”

The taxi driver started the car; the gentleman held open the door and Raveena slid into the backseat.

Feeling like Blanche Dubois, she waved to her kind stranger as the car pulled away from the curb and plunged into the darkened bumpy streets of Bombay.

 

Twenty minutes later they pulled up in front of a sagging two-story building right on Juhu beach. A tarnished and rusted sign read:

 

Officer's Club

 

The taxi driver jumped out and began removing the suitcases from the car and dragging them to the entrance. Raveena stared at the forlorn empty drive covered with weeds. The windows on either side of the main door were cracked.

Maybe she was being a snob, but in her opinion, five-star accommodations did not mean a decrepit old building that had obviously seen its heyday during the British Empire.

Stunned, she stepped out and faced the driver. “My hotel?”

He smiled and nodded. “Yes, madam.”

Still in a daze, she paid him, walked up to the Officer's
Club door and opened it. A middle-aged man was asleep at the front desk.

“Excuse me,” Raveena said loudly.

The night porter opened his eyes, blinked and rubbed his face.

“Do you have a reservation for Raveena Rai?”

He came over and handed her a large brass key, with a tag attached. “Room fifteen,” he said. And then pointed at the stairs. “Up.”

After that he went back to the front desk and was soon snoring away.

She stood there for a moment in the hall, as if in a trance.

Then she went back for her suitcases and managed to push them both inside, and then, alternately pushing and pulling one, struggled to get them upstairs.

Finally, soaked in sweat and nearly falling with exhaustion, she unlocked the door to number fifteen and stepped inside.

One small room. One thin cot. One solitary bulb in the ceiling.

She opened the bathroom door. A cracked, rusting porcelain toilet. The showerhead hung from the middle of the ceiling. There was a small drain in the floor.

The Ritz it wasn't.

Raveena closed and locked the room door, stumbled over to the cot and threw herself across it.

And there, in her small smelly quarters, mosquitoes hovering in wait, she cried herself to sleep.