Authors: Shashi Tharoor
“What?!” Godambo's voice is raised in fury. The cheetah, its hairs standing on end, sits up on his lap. “You imbeciles have allowed my plane to fall into the hands of the police? Where is the agent who was on board?”
“He is dead, mighty Godambo,” the thinner man confesses. (The other man has no lines: it is cheaper that way.) “We believe that this is all the work of that CID inspector, Ashok. He has been on our trail for some time.”
“Fools! How dare you allow a mere CID inspector to come in the way of the plans of mighty Godambo!” The voice drops to a whisper, a gravelly one, but a whisper nonetheless. “We will deal with this Inspector Ashok,” he adds, each syllable dripping with menace. Pause. “You,” he commands the men, “may go now.”
Relief floods the pair's nervous faces. “Thank you, mighty Godambo,” the thinner one stutters.
They bow, turn to leave. Godambo's brocaded arm reaches out to a button on the armrest of his throne. He jabs his thumb on it, an eloquent gesture of dismissal.
Abruptly, the floor opens up in front of the departing men. They fall in with a short scream, quickly cut short by a glug.
The shark fin appears once more in the pool, circles, dives.
Godambo presses another button in a console beside him. A giant screen emerges: the two men are seen falling vertically into the water, their hair flowing upward, hands thrashing in despair. A dark shadow swims into the screen, lunges straight for them. Close-up: the thinner man's eyes and mouth widen in a silent scream. The shark attacks again. Godambo watches impassively, then switches off the screen.
The water on the surface of the pool turns red.
“Fools,” he says. “For Godambo, failure is betrayal. And the punishment for betrayal is?”
The Black Cheetahs standing at attention reply in a chorus: “Death!”
“Death.” Godambo nods approvingly. He continues stroking the cheetah on his lap.
Inspector Ashok comes home to his widowed mother. Amma is of average height, with a round, curiously unlined face and a round, curiously unlined figure. She is draped in the colorlessness of chronic bereavement: white sari, white long-sleeved blouse, white
pallav
covering most of the white hair on her head. Her expression is both kind and long-suffering: Amma has been the hero's widowed mother in so many films that she can no longer imagine herself in a colored sari. (Indeed, she can no longer imagine herself married, and so felt obliged to part from her inoffensive offscreen husband because it was too disorienting to come home to him after a day on the set.)
“Amma!” says Ashok. “Ashok!” says Amma. A heartfelt exchange of domestic pleasantries follows. Mother asks son to wash his mouth and hands quickly because she has made him carrot
halwa.
Son, obeying dutifully, inquires about mother's welfare. Mother responds with her quotidian expression of maternal anxiety about the risks taken by her
beta.
Tearfully she invokes the fate of the father (whose garlanded framed photograph on the peacock-green wall, focused upon in a lingering close-up, reveals him to have been a police officer as well, complete with pencil-line mustache). Ashok, stirred more by the photo than by his mother's entreaties, puts down his
gajar ka halwa
long enough to pledge to fulfill his father's incomplete mission in life: to bring evildoers to justice and to marry off his daughter.
Enter on cue Maya, the daughter in question. She is sixteen and pigtailed and winsomely carries a stack of schoolbooks. Ashok beams with fraternal pride and asks after her studies. More pleasantries are exchanged. To complete the picture of familial unity and bliss, the trio bursts into song:
(Refrain):
We're one small happy family,
We live and love together.
We're one small happy family,
In sunshine and bad weather.
THE MOTHER:
We're one small happy family,
Together we stand and fall.
We're one small happy family,
All for each and each for all.
(Refrain, sung by trio)
ASHOK:
We're one small happy family,
United, good and strong.
We're one small happy family,
So nothing can go wrong.
(Refrain, sung by trio)
MAYA:
We're one small happy family,
Looked after by our mother.
We're one small happy family,
Protected by my brother.
(Refrain, sung by trio)
(Adoring glances are cast at each person as each is mentioned. As they sing the refrain, they link hands and dance around a red plastic sofa. They are, it is clear, one small happy family.)
“Agent Abha. Agent Pranay.” The gravelly voice, the cheetah, the pool (its surface again clean): we are back in the headquarters of the evil Godambo.
“Yes, boss.” The two step forward.
Abha is petite, pretty; she is in a designer version of the black commando outfit, with black suede boots and a gold lame chemise over her polo-neck top. But even the talents of the costumier cannot detract from her principal feature: she is built like an hourglass, but an Arab hourglass, perhaps, made by a timekeeper with sand to spare. Pranay is bigger, more strongly built, altogether more proportionate. But even the villagers in the twenty-five-paisa seats can see that he is dissolute; his narrow eyes are flecked with red, as is his narrow mouth, which is busily engaged in chewing
paan.
He sports a thick drooping black mustache, and for no apparent reason carries a whip in his right hand, with which he periodically and arhythmically smacks his left palm.
“I want you to get this Inspector Ashok for me. Agent Abha, you will seek him out. I want you first to find out how much Ashok knows about our operation. Then bring him to me, alive. I want to talk to him.” Godambo laughs gutturally, as if the gravel in his throat had been scattered by a passing vehicle. The cheetah, startled, raises its head. Godambo strokes its back. “Pranay, I want you to help Abha. You know what to do.”
Pranay chews some more and strikes his palm with the whip, wincing involuntarily. “Yes, boss.”
“Good,” says Godambo and laughs again. “I want to meet this Ashok. I want to see who is this inspector who dares to thwart the plans of mighty Godambo.”
“We will take care of it, Godambo,” says Abha.
“Good. And what is the penalty for those who dare to thwart Godambo's plans?”
The commandos answer in chorus: “Death.”
Godambo laughs. “Death,” he echoes approvingly. The cheetah blinks.
Scene: a nightclub, of the kind found only in Hindi films. A large stage, bedecked with gilt and a dazzling mosaic of multicolored mirrors, faces a valley of white-clothed tables. Seated at these, their expressions bedecked with guilt, is an indeterminate collection of diners, also white-clothed, none of whom look as if they can afford a place like this. (Indeed, they can't; they are all extras, or “Junior Artistes” as the trade prefers they be called, roped in at seventy rupees a day.) They seem remarkably uninterested in the food before them; that is because they are under strict instructions from the executive producer not to consume it. (Their own, somewhat more frugal, repast awaits them in the studio canteen after the shift.) Along one bottle-lined wall is a bar, also surprisingly untenanted: not even a bartender is visible. The reason will soon be apparent â the bar is meant only to serve as a backdrop for our hero, who will lean against it but not drink (one can never be too sure about how well alcohol will go down with our rural moralists). The lights dim; a single spotlight appears on the stage, illuminating a man with a narrow, red-stained mouth and a drooping mustache. Yes, it is none other than Pranay, except that his whip has been replaced by a pair of drumsticks. He is the percussionist of the evening, and apparently the master of ceremonies as well.
“Laddies and genurrmen,” he slurs into the mike before him, “the one and only â Abha!”
A roll of drums. The spotlight moves away from him, casting rainbow patterns on the mirror mosaic. As the music builds, red and gold rectangles of stage glass part to admit the star. Hips swiveling in a sheathlike gown slit at the calves, fake diamonds sparkling at her throat and wrists, wireless mike in exquisite hand, Abha twists onto the stage. She smiles at the audience just as Ashok walks in. He is in a tuxedo, complete with black bow tie; not the standard off-duty garb of your average police officer, but the cinema-loving villagers don't know that. (Nor, for that matter, will they ask what on earth an honest middle-class cop is doing in a place like this. The Indian film industry is built on their ignorance and on their willing suspension of disbelief.)
Our hero looks at the girl on the stage, the girl on the stage looks at him, the camera looks at her looking at him, the camera looks at him, too. He leans against the bar, his face framed by a fuzzy background of bottles. The girl swings into song:
Baby don't leave me â
You've got to believe me,
I love you!
Baby don't leave me â
Tell me you believe me,
That I love you â¦
Her hips twist improbably; her mikeless hand, five fingers spread, traces a vivid diagonal across her torso from thigh upward, stopping only at the natural obstruction above. She tosses shoulder-length hair and croons:
I'm the kind of woman who takes a lot of loving,
And to get it I may do some shoving,
I know I've been bad
But it makes me sad
To think you don't want me anymore.
Pranay joins her in the chorus:
Baby don't leave me â
You've got to believe me,
I love you!
Baby don't leave me â
Tell me you believe me,
That I love you â¦
Ashok smiles impassively. The girl is looking at him as she continues:
You're the kind of man I want to cling to,
You're the only man I want to sing to,
I'll put all my charms
Into your arms
Don't tell me you don't want me anymore.
Pranay looks at her, looks at Ashok, then smashes the cymbals attached to his drum set as he joins in:
Baby don't leave me â
You've got to believe me,
I love you!
Baby don't leave me â
Tell me you believe me, That
I love you â¦
Ashok is nodding to the music now, his smile as anodyne as the indeterminable contents of the blurred bottles behind him. Abha, knees bent and leaning backward, vigorously shakes her twin assets, like a camel removing extra drops of water after a dip in an oasis. She sings on:
For you I'll do just anything,
I want to hold you and wear your ring,
I need to kiss you
Can't bear to miss you
Don't say you don't want me anymore.
Pranay, looking at her, smashes his drumstick into the palm of his hand out of sheer force of habit. His pain is drowned in the chorus:
Baby don't leave me â
You've got to believe me,
I love you!
Baby don't leave me â
Tell me you believe me, That
I love you â¦
The Junior Artistes, plates comprehensively neglected, break into thunderous and synchronized applause.
Exterior: later that night. Ashok steps out of the nightclub. He stands on the stoop, pulls out a cigarette, places it in his mouth. (Smoking does not trouble the rural moralists.) A match flares: his manly profile is lit up as he bends to light the weed.
Suddenly he hears sounds. A woman's voice, raised: “Let me go!” His head cocked, he listens. Then he shakes out the match and steps determinedly into the shadows.
Abha is trying to pull herself away from Pranay, who is tugging at her arm. “Let me go!” she snaps-pleads, outraged virtue combining with panic in her voice. “No,” he snarls, and the audience can almost smell the whiskey on his breath. “You're coming with me tonight.”
Ashok emerges from the shadows. “Let the lady go,” he says, his voice calm, strong, tough (after three attempts in the dubbing studio).
“Huh?” Pranay turns bloodshot eyes on the intruder. “And who the hell are you to tell me what to do?” He pulls a grimacing Abha closer.
“Never mind who I am,” replies Ashok in the same tone of voice. “I don't like repeating myself. Let the lady go.”
Pranay scowls. “Try and make me,” he says, spitting to one side. He has Abha in his clutches now, leaving only one hand free. Abha struggles (but not too hard).
“As you like.” Ashok resignedly slips off his tuxedo jacket, hangs it on the broken branch of a convenient tree. Then, while Pranay is still regarding this process in surprise, he moves forward in a quicksilver maneuver, socks the villain in the solar plexus, wrenches one arm around and liberates Abha. Before Pranay can recover, Ashok has gently moved Abha out of harm's way. The villain's fist comes flying at him; Ashok steps deftly aside, catches Pranay's wrist, and brings him crashing to the ground. The villain shakes his head, staggers to his feet, charges our hero. But without his whip Pranay is not half the man we have seen at Godambo's. Ashok administers a swift lesson in elementary fisticuffs, and Pranay bites the dust. Quite literally: some of the dust gets into his mouth, and he lies there, coughing.
“Get lost,” Ashok amiably tells the sprawled villain, as an anxious Abha cowers and hovers behind him. “Or I might
really
get angry.” Pranay takes the advice and, with one backward glance, stumbles away into the night, still coughing.
“Oh, thank you,” breathes a grateful Abha. “You saved my life.”
“It was nothing,” Ashok responds modestly. “Let me take you home.”
“Thank you,” she agrees huskily. “It's only a short walk from here, but I'd feel so much safer with you.”
They walk. He tells her she sang very well. She tells him he fought very well. He asks her how she became a singer.
“Majboori”
she says, a catch in her voice: compulsion. She had no choice. She had wanted nothing more than to finish her studies and lead a normal life, marry someone chosen by her parents, start a family. But her father fell into the hands of bad men. He drank, he gambled, he ran up debts. Her mother wept and told him there was no money for their daughter's school fees, but he would not listen. One day the bad men came and asked for the money. Her father had nothing to give. The men ransacked the house, opened drawers, smashed mirrors, overturned tables, beat her father. But they found nothing of value. “What about your daughter?” asked their leader, an evil man with a narrow red-stained mouth and a drooping mustache. “We hear she can sing. Well, she can sing for the money.” Despite her mothers tearful protests, her father agreed. They dragged her away. This was several months ago. She had been singing for them ever since.