A Game of Gods: The End is Only the Beginning (The Anunnaki Chronicles Book 1) (3 page)

5

The luxurious room was aesthetically illuminated by candle lights and low power halogens which gave a classy feel of aristocracy to the place. However for the trio of Miah, Khalid and Rohan, the room was nothing but a dull place of tautness and grimace. Miah, who was recently voted by a fashion magazine as the most graceful diva in Bollywood, had lost all her grace at the moment. Her face carried negativity and soreness of confronting her worst fears.

‘Why did you give in so easily?’ asked a frustrated Miah.

‘Of all people, you are the best one to know the reason, Miah. You spend maximum time with him… on bed.’ Rohan jerked into a sarcastic tone.

‘You were no exception,
butthead
,’ an angry Khalid shouted at the superstar Rohan Kapoor, ‘you, like all those freaking flies, rode on me to get a shot in this industry,’ He leaned into the superstar’s face and warned, ‘Don’t forget that I created you out of
shit
. Do you understand that?’

‘Cool down
man
, you are literally spitting on me now!’ Rohan blurted.

‘You son of a
whore
...’ Khalid raised his hand to slap Rohan on his face, Miah instantly stopped him.

‘What are you trying to do here? We have to be there for each other at this time, and you are trying to rip off each other?’ she scolded her husband as if he was a six year old who was punished in classroom for picking on his classmate. She asked ‘Just tell us why did you let her in?’

Khalid got up, took a deep breath and then spoke ‘I believe she is right.’

‘People of her
kind
are pests who sell lies out to people who are foolish enough to buy them. All they want is a sensational story on the primetime slot for the news channel. She will put you on air, make a good name for her and get a boost in her career and will leave you with a
thank you Mr. Abdullah for joining us tonight
! Don’t you know how these journalists are?’ Miah cried.

‘I do not know about other journalists, but I am well aware of this particular journalist. She might lie, but she would not lie about Manav.’ Khalid assured.

‘How can you be so sure?’ Miah tried to confirm. Rohan Kapoor, though sitting there as if nothing really mattered, raised his eyebrow.

‘She knows Manav much better than all of us put together.’ He pulled down the string that controlled the curtain on the window with his right hand. The curtain pulled up and a fresh deal of bright light entered the dully illuminated room, ‘It is time to shine some light...’

6

Tarifa, Southern Spain

The rain was breezing down on the coastal town of Tarifa as a tint of hope and gloom hovered on the horizon of the blissful town to the south of Spain. The town located on the
Costa de la Luz
or
Coast of Light
is the gateway to the mystic lands of Morocco or Marruecos as the Spaniards would call it. The sun placed itself deep inside the chest of the horizon as the bright oil lamps sparkled into illumination around the Castle of Guzman, as the historic monument prepared itself to showcase the first ever annual Flamenco festival. Hundreds of professional Flamenco dancers had arrived to take part in the inaugural festival and the stage was set for the first performance of the evening. Flamenco, the traditional dance form of the region of Andalusia, has a deeper root in the Romani culture or the culture of the gypsies. A female dancer wearing the
traje de flamenco
moved her body gracefully on the brightly lit stage. The audience waved their attention with her moves, as the mystifying rhythm coming from the guitar and handclaps took the audience by a trance that never seemed to end. Her long dress adorned with ruffles was blood red in colour.

Meanwhile, Marquez pushed open the door to his room at the motel where he was staying with his wife who was performing that night. He rushed towards the neatly packed colt and threw the young girl he was carrying in his arms on the bed.  He unhooked the crispy trouser he was wearing and it sliced down his legs, he shook it off his feet and it fell on the floor. He pounced lustily on the teenager just like a hungry tiger pouncing on a tender deer. She was wearing a red satin gown only; Marquez slid his hand through the slit opening near her thigh and touched her navel from within.

‘
Yo te haré famosa, si tu me haces feliz.
’ He took a deep breath as he pressed his thumb into her navel sending a quick shiver across her tender body. He hissed in Spanish, ‘
Compromiso conmigo
.’

‘
Si
!’ the girl affirmed in Spanish.

‘There is nothing more satisfying than a fifteen year old virgin. It gives me the hell of a time in
heaven
…’ he laughed like an evil cobra. The girl didn’t understand a word he uttered for the poor creature didn’t know any other language than Spanish. There was a fear in the girl’s eyes for this was her first time, and such violent were his actions that she closed her brown eyes for
it
to get over real fast. He had promised to make her famous, if she made him happy, and she was trying to make him happy. She awaited the fame of her lifetime at the end of
it
. Marquez took his wrinkled hand out of her gown and then gently swivelled it over her face and ran it down softly over her nose, lips, neck and all of a sudden tore of the red satin gown from the collar and her pulpy breasts were exposed. Marquez threw away the cloth from the gown behind and bit the nipple on the left breast.

‘
Bastardo
!’ cursed a woman who was standing at the door which Marquez had left open.

Marquez recognized the voice immediately and got up from the bed in the greatest state of shock. He said bumbling ‘Eva… I thought you were p..p…performing tonight…’

‘I wish to talk to you… alone… outside…
por favor
!’ Eva said blankly, as if nothing had happened at all. Eva stepped out of the room quietly.

The girl on the bed looked more worried than scared now and questioned with her eyes if she should stay or leave.

‘
Más tarde!
’ Marquez whispered into the girl’s ear as he gathered his trouser and wore it quickly. He tried to catch up with Eva who was already on her way downstairs. He took longer strides. ‘Eva, you know I love you so much!’ he tried to make up an explanation.

‘Shhhh…’ Eva said, ‘You don’t have to explain anything to me, dear. Just follow me quietly. We’ll talk there.’

‘Where?’ He enquired.

‘Do you trust me?’ She asked unjadedly.

‘Yes of course! I do, completely.’

‘Then don’t say anything more. Just come with me.’ She said and walked out of the door and into the street. Rain had started to drizzle down gently. The woman walked gently in her white
traje de flamenco
and the man followed her in the greatest confusion and a temporary guilt developed out of the shock of getting caught with a virgin by his wife.

7

Taj Palace, Mumbai

The phone inside the luxury suite rang and an impatient Miah answered it unwillingly.

‘Good evening Mam, there is a visitor for Mr. Abdullah at the reception, may I send her in?’ the receptionist asked politely in her sweet female voice.

Miah held the receiver away from her mouth and turned towards Khalid and informed him ‘The pest is here!’

Khalid nodded and Miah spoke into the receiver ‘Let her in!’

‘Of course mam, have a very good evening.’ She greeted and placed the receiver back on the console. She looked at Pakhi Dutta who was standing in front of the receptionist’s desk. She was dusky in complexion and her skin glowed under the chandelier’s simmering light. Her eyes were black and sharp at the edges, pitching in a very attractive face that no man could turn down. The receptionist was fair and beautiful herself, yet she felt a wave of envy run through her spine at the sight of this Bengali beauty.

‘You may see him now. Third room on the Fourth floor.’  The receptionist told her.

‘Oh Thank you very much.’ Pakhi passed a grateful smile and helped herself towards the elevator.

Pakhi was tense, but she knew only one thing could save her when she was purchasing something at the cost of nothing, and that was her sheer confidence.

She entered the elevator, ‘Third floor.’ She told the service boy inside the elevator who immediately pressed the needed button on the elevator’s wall. Within a minute she was out of the elevator and was heading towards the room where Khalid Abdullah was putting up that evening. The richest producer in the Indian film industry, perhaps the man with most coveted head among those in the city’s bad ass
underworld
. This was the second time she was going to see the man who had produced all Manav Gandhi films, the last time she had met him at a party where Manav introduced the two. That was a good meeting, but not this one. The tables had turned and the moods had swung around, Pakhi prayed for the best while taking deeper breaths as she stood in front of the door that led to the room where Khalid Abdullah was supposed to be. She pressed the door bell and waited.

8

Miah opened the door for the reporter to come in. Pakhi had never missed Miah on television or cinema, her graceful moves, long nose, thin lips, fish like eyes and skin as smooth as silk had been an inspiration for the naive reporter since the first time she had seen Miah dancing to a folksong on top of a train in a south Indian movie way back when Pakhi six. A smile sprang on her face instantly, but the seasoned diva hardly bothered to smile back, for her the reporter was not a fan but a bug she would rather crush under her toe. Miah turned around and went inside leaving the door open for
the pest
to come inside.

‘Shut the door when you come in.’ the diva commanded as she walked past her husband who was sitting on the bed.

Pakhi stepped inside the room, saw the other two big personalities seated on the bed and a chair respectively, one of whom she had met earlier. The same person she was here to interview. She greeted the two with a pleasant smile. The superstar Kapoor responded with his signature smirk which had robbed the hearts of an entire generation of girls, while Khalid Abdullah ignored the gesture like his wife. Miah went and sat in front of the mirror on the dressing table and feigned getting ready for the evening. Pakhi gently pushed the door behind her making sure that the sound of door hitting the latch did not get any close to a disturbing
thud
. Khalid showed her the couch, Pakhi sat on it.

‘Good evening Mr. Abdullah,’ she said trying to adjust to the hostile circumstance that was thrown at her by the hosts, ‘We have met earlier at the party org...’

‘...come to the point girl, I do not have the whole evening.’ Khalid interrupted nonchalantly ‘the questions please!’

‘Of course, I have prepared few questions for you. Twenty to be precise.’

‘You have fifteen minutes!’ Khalid looked at his wife and made his excuse, ‘we have to get to an inauguration at Bandra.’

Pakhi quickly took out her notepad and ran through the questions she had prepared while she was in the car with Narendra. She knew the important ones that dealt with his relation with Manav Gandhi. She cleared her throat to ask her first question.

‘How long have you associated with Manav Gandhi?’ she asked as she punched in the record button on her voice recording device.

‘About twelve years now. I met him during the launch of his second novel at a mall in New Delhi.’ Khalid replied in an adroit manner.

‘You partly funded his first film and then went on to produce his later films,’ she closed in on the producer and looked sharply into his eyes and interrogated, ‘
why?
’

‘I saw the storyteller in him, he was no ordinary author. His stories had a divine touch that had the power to move the masses as well as the class audience. I read his novels, liked them very much. My manager rang up the publisher and scheduled a meeting with the author, we met again after the book signing and this time I offered to buy the film rights of his first novel...’ Khalid paused losing himself in the sands of time.

‘...and?’ Pakhi asked.

‘And it turned out that he himself was a struggling filmmaker. He was willing to give away the rights to me on the condition that I would help him finish his earlier feature film that was shelved in between due to lack of funds. The film was in Marathi. I agreed and he finished the film in three weeks and later when the film released it generated a below average opening owing to lack of any known faces in the cast or crew.  But at the end of the weekend, it picked up pace, and the collections rose by a miraculous 90% in Maharashtra. Within a week, I recovered all my costs, and another couple of days, the film started making profit. It went on to become the first blockbuster of that year and ran for over a hundred and fifty days in the region. The dubbed versions also became super hits in the Southern states.  Manav Gandhi had made his impact and I knew I had my hand on the man with the Golden touch.’

‘You produced his novel adaptation?’ she tried to maintain the continuity.

‘Manav is a man of his word. We met a year later at my Juhu bungalow to talk about handing over the film rights of his first novel. However I had a different idea by then, I asked him if he could prepare a screenplay for his novel. He returned a month later with the boundscript, and after listening to his narration I told him that he would be directing his first Bollywood movie in three months.’

‘Was not there any other
formalities
between the two of you?’ her question clearly trying to unmask the ugly face of the big guns at the industry. Rohan Kapoor felt a little uncomfortable as he shifted on his chair. Pakhi ignored and gazed sharply into Khalid Abdullah’s eyes. Surprisingly Khalid did not seem to be affected by the gaze at all.

‘I might have not spared many beautiful faces,’ he gave a short glance at Rohan and then turned towards the reporter who was waiting for the big revelation, ‘but for once in my life I surrendered to talent. The
Almighty
had his hand on this man’s aura and I would have been a fool to have not seen that. I had bowed unto Manav’s capability as a storyteller and that is the truth which the both of us know.’

‘In the past twelve years, has there been any incident where the two of you have been shown the card?’ She asked.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Ever got into any arguments or quarrels?’ she eased her question for the producer to understand.

‘He was not the kind of person who would get into any arguments...’

‘...but he was known to lose his temper frequently on the sets, was not he?’ she interrupted with the most common rumour she had heard about Manav.

‘He was very particular about his shots. When he is directing, he is in command of the ship, he would not even let the producer or the lead actor make suggestions, no matter how much big their status were. He would lose his temper when his instructions were ignored or misinterpreted by the crew or cast. However, he never carried any personal grudges against anyone at all! He is a strict director but a very calm and simple human being.’

‘Ever had an experience of being rejected by Manav on the set, embarrassing you in front of everyone?’

‘Of course, though he did not embarrass me.’

‘Any recent ones?’ she punched.

‘None!’  He rejected.

Pakhi moved backwards on the couch, glanced at the notepad. She bit her lips as she skipped another couple of questions before reaching an important question. She raised an eyebrow. She looked at the top shot producer and asked ‘Is Manav having any illness that you are aware of?’

‘None that I am aware of. No, he never talked about anything serious apart from dust allergy.’ Khalid replied to a question that he himself wished to resolve.

‘There were rumors that he had schizophrenia.’

‘Bullshit!’

Pakhi looked at the time on her watch, she had been there for almost fifteen minutes and she would be shooed off the room any moment from now therefore, she decided to put through the most important question she had on her list ‘Do you believe... err... I am sorry... Do you know if he was threatened by the
underworld
?’

‘Ha ha ha...What? How would I know that?’ Khalid tried to fake a chuckle. He looked at the superstar beside him who tried to join in.

‘Everybody in the industry knows for a fact that Mr. Khalid Abdullah is the glittering face of the underworld that lies beneath the starry skies of Bollywood. Rumours say that the money you put into movies is actually money from the underworld, virtually reducing you to a mere line producer acting for the bad guys below.’ She stated boldly.

‘If tomorrow
rumours say
that a reporter named Pakhi Dutta once slept with Manav Gandhi for some reason, would that make it true?’ retorted Khalid Abdullah in the most commanding of tones he had ever put up.

The reporter recoiled on her chair; a pearl of sweat appeared on her forehead and poured down her face. Her eyes had filled up.

‘Your time is up. Please find your way out.’ Khalid concluded pointing towards the door, ‘
And you are welcome.
’

Pakhi jammed the notepad and recorder into her bag and collected herself out of the room. The last statement by Khalid had not just embarrassed her but shattered the blanket of rocks that she had covered her deeper emotions with. She left a piece of paper on the couch she was seated on and then exited the room with tears building up in her eyes.

Miah stood up from the dressing table and laid herself on the bed.

‘What was that? She came and asked questions. She leaves crying and no address! And you have met this cry-baby before?’

Khalid rose from his place and moved towards the couch, he picked up the piece of paper left by the reporter. She had written the address on the paper. He was not surprised to see the address. He turned towards his wife and pronounced ‘We are going to Matheran!’