Slumdog Millionaire: A Novel (4 page)

The opening credits begin to roll. Salim knows everyone in this film. He knows who is the wardrobe man, who is the hair stylist, who is the make-up man. He knows the names of the

production manager, the finance controller, the sound recordist and all the assistants. He doesn't speak English very well, but he can read names, even the ones in really small print. He has watched this film eight times already and every time he memorizes a new name. But if you were to see the concentration on his face right now, you would think he was watching the First Day First Show with black-market tickets.

Within two minutes, Armaan Ali makes his grand entrance by jumping down from a blue and

white helicopter. Salim's eyes light up. I see the same innocent excitement on his face as when he first saw Armaan, a year ago. In person.

Salim comes running through the door and collapses face-down on the bed.

I am alarmed. 'Salim! . . . Salim!' I shout. 'What's happened to you? How come you are back so early?' I turn him on his back. He is laughing.

'The most amazing thing has happened today. This is the happiest day of my life,' he declares.

'What is it? Have you won a lottery?'

'No. Something even better than winning a lottery. I have seen Armaan Ali.'

Bit by breathless bit, the whole story comes out. How Salim caught a glimpse of Armaan Ali while doing his daily round in Ghatkopar. The star was alighting from his Mercedes Benz to enter a five-star hotel. Salim was travelling on a bus to deliver his last tiffin box to a customer.

The moment he spotted Armaan, he jumped down from the speeding vehicle, narrowly missing

being run down by a Maruti car, and ran towards the actor, who was passing through the hotel's revolving door. He was stopped by the tall, strapping uniformed guard at the entrance and prevented from entering the hotel. 'Armaan!' Salim called, trying desperately to catch the star's attention. Armaan heard the cry, stopped in his tracks and turned around. His eyes made contact with Salim's. He gave a faint smile, an imperceptible nod of acknowledgement and continued walking into the lobby. Salim forgot all about the tiffin and came racing home to give me the news of his dream having come true. A customer of Gawli Tiffin Carriers went hungry that

afternoon.

'Does Armaan look different from the way he appears on screen?' I ask.

'No. He is even better in real life,' says Salim. 'He is taller and more handsome. My ambition in life is to shake his hand, at least once. I probably won't wash it for a month after that.'

I reflect on how good it is to have simple, uncomplicated ambitions, like shaking a film star's hand.

Meanwhile, on screen, that hand is holding a gun and pointing it at a group of three policemen.

Armaan plays a gangster in this movie. A gangster with a heart. He loots the rich and distributes money to the poor. In between he falls in love with the heroine, Priya Kapoor, an up-and-coming actress, sings six songs and fulfils his beloved mother's wish by taking her on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Vaishno Devi. At least, that's the story till the interval.

Priya Kapoor's entry in the film is greeted with catcalls from the stalls. She is a tall, good-looking actress who won the Miss World title a few years ago. Her body is sculpted like that of a classical beauty, with heavy breasts and a slim waist. She is my favourite actress these days. She pouts a lot in the film, and keeps on saying 'Shut up' to the comedian. We laugh.

'Your ambition is to shake Armaan's hand,' I say to Salim. 'But what do you think is Armaan's ambition in life? He seems to have it all – face, fame and fortune.'

'You are wrong,' Salim replies solemnly. 'He does not have Urvashi.'

* * *

The papers are full of the Armaan–Urvash i break-up, after a whirlwind romance lasting nine

months. There is speculation that Armaan is completely heartbroken. That he has stopped eating and drinking. That he might be suicidal. Urvashi Randhawa has returned to her modelling career.

I see Salim crying. His eyes are red and wet with tears. He has not eaten all day. The heart-shaped glass frame containing a picture of Armaan and Urvashi, on which he had spent almost half his meagre salary, lies on the ground, shattered into a hundred pieces.

'Look, Salim, you are being childish. There is nothing you can do about it,' I tell him.

'If only I could meet Armaan. I want to comfort him. To hold his hand and let him cry on my shoulder. They say crying makes the heart lighter.'

'And what good will that do? Urvashi will not come back to Armaan.'

Suddenly Salim looks up. 'Do you think I could speak to her? Maybe I could persuade her to come back to Armaan. Tell her that it was all a mistake. Tell her how sad and contrite he is.'

I shake my head. I don't want Salim tramping all over Mumbai looking for Urvashi Randhawa.

'It's not a good idea to poke your nose into other people's affairs, or make other people's troubles your own, Salim. Armaan Ali is a mature man. He will deal with his troubles in his own way.'

'At least I will send him a gift,' says Salim.

He goes and buys a large bottle of Fevicol glue and sets about sticking the shattered pieces of the heart-shaped frame back together again. It takes him a week, but finally the heart is whole, a grid of criss-crossing black streaks the only reminder of the fault lines on which it broke.

'I will now send it to Armaan,' he says. 'It is a symbol that even a broken heart can be put together again.'

'With Fevicol?' I ask.

'No. With love and care.'

Salim wraps it up in cloth and sends it to Armaan Ali's home address. I don't know whether it reached Armaan or not. Whether it was broken by the postal department, smashed by the security guards or trashed by Armaan's secretary. The important thing is that Salim believes it reached his hero and helped to heal his wound. It made Armaan whole again, and enabled him to resume

giving blockbusters, such as this one. Which I am seeing for the first time and Salim for the ninth.

* * *

A devotional song is playing on the screen. Armaan and his mother are climbing towards the

shrine of Vaishno Devi.

'They say if you ask Mata Vaishno Devi sincerely for anything, she grants your wish. Tell me, what would you ask?' I say to Salim.

'What would you ask?' he counters.

'I guess I would ask for money,' I say.

'I would ask for Armaan to be reunited with Urvashi,' he says without thinking even for a second.

The screen says INTERVAL in bold red letters.

* * *

Salim and I stand up and stretch our arms and legs. We buy two soggy samosas from the food vendor. The boy selling soft drinks looks at the empty seats mournfully. He will not make a good profit today. We decide to go to the toilet. It has nice white tiles, banks of urinals and clean washbasins. We both have our designated stalls. Salim always goes to the one on the extreme right, and I always take the sole urinal on the left side wall. I empty my bladder and read the graffiti on the Wall. FUCK ME . . . TINU PISSED HERE . . . SHEENA IS A WHORE . . . I

LOVE PRIYANKA.

Priyanka? I rail against the graffiti artist who has defaced the last inscription. I spit into my hand and try to remove the extra letters, but they have been written with permanent black marker and refuse to budge. Eventually I use my nails to scratch them off the wall and succeed in restoring the graffiti to its original state, just as I had inscribed it four months ago: I LOVE PRIYA.

* * *

The second bell sounds. The interval is over. The film is about to resume. Salim has already briefed me on the remaining plot. Armaan and Priya will now sing a song in Switzerland, before Priya is murdered by a rival gang. Then Armaan will kill hundreds of bad guys in revenge, expose corrupt politicians and police officers, and finally die a hero's death.

We return to A21 and A22. The hall goes dark again. Suddenly, a tall man enters through the balcony door and takes the seat next to Salim. A20. He has two hundred seats to choose from, but he selects A20. It is impossible to see his face, but I can make out that he is an old man with a long, flowing beard. He is wearing what appears to be a pathan suit.

I am curious about this man. Why is he joining the film halfway through? Did he pay half price for his ticket? Salim is not bothered. He is craning forward in anticipation of the love scene between Armaan and Priya which is about to begin.

Armaan has come to Switzerland, ostensibly to locate a contact, but actually to romance Priya and sing a song, in which he is joined by twenty white female dancers wearing traditional costumes that are rather skimpy for a cold mountainous country. The song and dance over, he is now sitting in his hotel room, where a crackling fire burns in the fireplace.

Priya is taking a bath. We hear the sound of running water and Priya humming a tune, and then we see her in the bath. She applies soap to her legs and back. She raises a leg covered in bubbles and uses the shower-head to wash it clean. We hope she will also use it on her ample chest and make all the bubbles disappear, but she disappoints us.

Finally, she emerges from the bath with just a pink towel around her body. Her jet-black hair hangs loose behind her shoulders, glistening with moisture. Her long legs are smooth and

hairless. Armaan takes her in his arms and smothers her face with kisses. His lips move down to the hollow of her neck. Soft romantic music begins to play. Priya undoes the buttons on his shirt and Armaan slips out of it languidly, exposing his manly chest. The glow of the fire envelops the two lovers in a golden tint. Priya makes soft moaning noises. She arches her back and allows Armaan to caress her throat. His hand snakes to her back and tugs at her towel. The pink fabric loosens and falls at her feet. There is a tantalizing glimpse of thigh and back, but no shot of breasts. Salim believes this is where the censors inserted a cut. And why he envies Mrs Kane.

Armaan has now locked Priya in his embrace. We are shown the swell of her breasts, her heavy breathing, the perspiration forming on her forehead. There are catcalls and whistles from the stalls. The old man sitting next to Salim shifts uncomfortably in his seat, crossing his legs. I am not sure, but I think his hand is massaging his crotch.

'The oldie next to you is getting frisky,' I whisper to Salim. But he is oblivious to the old man and me. He is gaping at the intertwined bodies thrusting in synchronized rhythm to the music in the background. The camera pans over Armaan's heaving back and zooms in on the fireplace, where golden-yellow flames are licking the logs with increasing abandon. Fade to black.

* * *

There is a fire of similar proportions in our kitchen when I enter the chawl, but instead of logs, Salim is using paper. 'Bastards! . . . Dogs!' he mutters while tearing a thick sheaf of glossy paper into pieces.

'What are you doing, Salim?' I ask in alarm.

'I am taking revenge on the bastards who have maligned Armaan,' he says as he tosses more sheets of paper on to the pyre.

I notice that Salim is tearing pages from a magazine.

'Which magazine is this? It looks new.'

'It is the latest issue of
Starburst.
I will destroy as many copies as I can lay my hands on. I could only buy ten from the news-stand.'

I grab a copy that has not yet been mangled. It has Armaan Ali on the cover, with a screaming headline:

'THE NAKED TRUTH ABOUT THIS MAN'.

'But it has your idol on the cover. Why are you destroying it?' I cry.

'Because of what they say inside about Armaan.'

'But you can't read.'

'I read enough and I can hear. I overheard Mrs Barve and Mrs Shirke discussing the scurrilous accusations made against Armaan in this issue.'

'Like what?'

'That Urvashi left him because he could not satisfy her. That he is gay.'

'So?'

'You think they can abuse my hero in this fashion and get away with it? I know this report is a load of nonsense. Armaan's rivals in the industry are jealous of his success. They have hatched this plot to destroy his reputation. I will not allow them to succeed. I will go to the
Starburst
office and set fire to it.'

Salim's anger is white hot. ,And I know why. He hates gays. To tarnish his idol with the brush of homosexuality is the ultimate insult in his book.

I, too, know of perverts and what they do to unsuspecting boys. In dark halls. In public toilets. In municipal gardens. In juvenile homes.

Luckily,
Starburst
retract their allegation in the next issue. And save a
dabbawallah
from becoming an arsonist.

* * *

Meanwhile, things are hotting up off screen, in seat A20. The old man slides closer to Salim. His leg casually brushes against Salim's. The first time, Salim thinks it is his own fault. The second time, he thinks it is an accident. The third time, he is convinced it is deliberate.

'Mohammad,' he whispers to me, 'I am going to give a tight kick to the bastard sitting next to me if he doesn't stop his wandering leg.'

'Look how old he is, Salim. It's probably just tremors in his leg,' I counsel.

The fight sequence has started and Salim is busy watching the action. Armaan has entered the villain's den and all hell is breaking loose. The hero uses all manner of feints and tackles –

boxing, karate, kung fu – to give his opponents a licking.

The old man's hands are also getting into action. He presses his elbow against the common armrest and lets his arm slide next to Salim's, touching it ever so lightly. Salim hardly notices this. He is engrossed in the film, which is reaching its climax.

The most famous scene of the movie is about to happen. The one in which Armaan Ali dies after killing all the bad guys. His vest is soaked in blood. There are bullet wounds all over his body.

His trousers are coated with dust and grime. He drags himself along the ground towards his mother, who has just arrived on the scene.

Salim is in tears. He leans forward and says poignantly, 'Mother, I hope I have been a good son.

Don't cry for me. Remember, dying an honourable death is better than living a coward's life.'