And Then One Day: A Memoir (24 page)

I
hadn’t ever heard of Hansa Wadkar who was in her prime i n the forties. The only Maharashtrian actors I knew were those who had worked in Hindi cinema as well. Shyam, greatly obsessed with the idea of filming Wadkar’s life, often talked of it as his dream project. His reputation as an auteur whose films also made money was now firm, and
Manthan,
when finally released commercially, further consolidated his standing as one of India’s most exciting film-makers so he had no trouble at all raising funds for this somewhat ambitious and not really ‘saleable’ project set in the film world of the forties.

A superstition still exists in the film industry that films about films do not run, just as there was the equally absurd notion that films on cricket do not run, though until
Lagaan
no one who knew anything about the game had bothered to make a film about it. Films about films still do not run. I will leave you to ponder the question why. What was particularly admired about Shyam was his handling of actors, so the project even in its nascent stage aroused great curiosity in the acting fraternity; and the question of who would play the tour-deforce central part must surely have created many swirls of anxiety, even though Shyam had long since decided upon Smita. I was to play a film-maker who seduces and abandons the lady, a brief part requiring just a week’s work, and I would be paid more than I had ever been paid before!

Bhumika
was produced by Blaze, the company that had made big profits and an even bigger reputation backing Shyam’s first two films, so this time round he was not as strapped as he used to be, and to compensate for the small payments we’d received on
Manthan
was extremely generous. All the stalwarts of Shyam’s stable were to be there: Amrish, Kulbhushan, Mohan Agashe, Anant Nag, along with prize catch Amol Palekar who had graduated to stardom much before any of the others. It was a heavyweight cast, and for trivia-lovers the film also features Om Puri under heavy make-up in a tiny part, his very first in cinema. Happy as I was at the prospect of more work and more earning, I was not overly thrilled about this film. I don’t think there’s been a single film made on Indian movies which rings true. They are all either determinedly arcane or thickly sugar-coated, and most of them end up pandering to the industry’s own self-congratulatory image of itself. If a truthful, cutting-edge film were to be made about the Indian film industry it would out-Fellini Fellini. But I daresay it is futile hoping for that to happen.

Shyam’s office in Jyoti Studios at Grant Road was a place I had by now visited several times. It was the very studio where the first Indian talkie
Alam Ara
was filmed, though the Shooting Lot was now decrepit and almost never used. Half its compound housed a car-repair garage but the place was redolent with history. I loved it. Actors I had seen in fleeting parts would drift by, there was evidence everywhere of an age long gone; the chairs had accommodated a thousand bums, the equipment looked like it should be in a museum, the architecture of the place, the decor, the banisters, the worn wooden steps, had been neither maintained nor replaced. A myriad ghosts hid in the nooks and crannies of the editing rooms. If I remember right the first scene of
Bhumika
was shot in this studio, at least my first scene was. Smita and I, having just been mutually smitten in a Holi celebration, go roaring out of the studio, doubling as a studio, in an antique Bugatti Thunderbird.

Shyam’s only instruction to me for this part was that I should ‘look dapper and cool’ so to that end I had neatly trimmed my beard, which he approved of, then added a pair of rimless glasses and a crisp kurta-pyjama outfit. The effect was not un-dapper except that my driving skills not being the best I looked anything but cool as we zigzagged off in a cloud of dust, leaving the Parsi owner of the car in real life looking mighty worried. Luckily my expression of terror at the prospect of totaling an obviously very expensive antique car does not quite register. Except for a couple of steamy scenes with the gorgeous Smita and the perk of having Shyam take Kulbhushan and myself along for the schedule in Goa even though neither of us was required, I didn’t enjoy acting in this film too much. And soon enough something, apart from having to be rescued by Rekha Sabnis from an air mattress that had drifted too far into the sea at the deserted Anjuna Beach, was to happen that would further mess up my head.

I had finally been able to afford a room to myself just across the road from Martinville in an apartment owned by a Mrs Remedios, a large and formidable-looking lady until you noticed the merry look in her eyes. She too initially laid down the no-girlfriends rule, then met Ratna, got bowled over and the rule was amended to ‘okay, but no locking the door hunh?’ Jaspal, Paddy, Tika and Om were still staying at Martinville.

About a hundred metres from the front ofKhar West station was a little place called Sindh Punjab Dhaba where all of us often ate dinner. It was a reasonably priced eatery where dal was served free if you ordered another dish, usually vegetarian, and chapattis. A totally satisfying meal in Sindh Punjab cost about four rupees, a sumptuous one cost a little more and the taste of the food belied the ridiculously low pricing.

While the
Bhumika
shooting was on, Om and I were in the middle of dinner when Jaspal, whom I had kept well away from for some time now, also entered and greeted Om. We ignored each other but, eyes fixed on me, he passed to sit at another table behind me, so I thought. I was by now accustomed to this menacing attitude and muttered threats every time I was anywhere around and continued eating. After a while I was reminded of his presence by what felt like a short sharp punch in the middle of my back. I started to rise, wearily preparing myself for another free-for-all. Before I could move, Om, with a strangled cry, lunged at something behind me. I turned to see Jaspal holding a small knife, its point dripping blood, his hand raised to strike again, and Om and two others grappling to subdue him. The strength suddenly seemed to leave my legs but a desperate attempt to get out of range caused me to lurch forward, upsetting the table, sending plates and their contents flying. On the floor I was aware of feet running past, shouting, and sounds of violence behind. Someone was helping me to my feet as I heard the manager of the place telephonically informing the police that there had been a fight and one man had been stabbed. Om returned to inform me that Jaspal had been taken to the kitchen and was being given the treatment. He wanted to take me to a doctor, but was thwarted by the restaurant staff refusing to let us move till the police arrived. A sizeable crowd had collected by now, the muscles in my back were beginning to go into spasm, blood was soaking my shirt-back and had begun its progress down my trouser seat. I was breathless and desperately thirsty, I wanted to lie down but Om didn’t think that a good idea, and the gaping crowd had gotten thicker.

Two constables on a bicycle stopped and after making some off-hand enquiries one of them escorted Jaspal away in a taxi. I wonder if that cabbie ever got paid. These cops in any case had gotten unwittingly co-opted—they were not responding to the phone call, they seemed to just be passing by, and pretty soon a Black Maria carrying a whole posse with its siren at full blast came screeching around the corner, making the crowd disappear like smoke. The constabulary swarming out of the van hungry for action, nightsticks at the ready, were somewhat deflated when pointed in my direction: one injured guy sitting there looking pretty helpless. Before anyone could explain anything to them I was hauled up by my scruff, a hard hand or two landing on the back of my head along with admonitions about fighting in the street; the morals of my sister and mother were questioned and I was not exactly kicked into the van but just about. Om made the cardinal error of climbing in as well without permission and managed to rile the boss-man there by asking the cops to be gentle with me. He was ordered to get off and after considerable pleading with the goon in charge was allowed to stay. Neither of us had any idea where we were headed but I prayed it was not to the police station. The bleeding hadn’t ceased, the pain was getting intense and these cops obviously hadn’t quite understood the situation. After a few cursory questions to us and some garbled transmissions over the radio in Marathi, we arrived at Cooper Hospital in Juhu, by which time all those present had been apprised of what had happened and I was not unsympathetically helped by the cops to alight, finally laid on a stretcher and taken in to be stitched up. It has taken years for my visceral hatred of the khaki uniform to subside.

I was supposed to shoot in the morning so obviously Shyam had to be the first to be informed. It was almost midnight and I didn’t know if it was possible for Om to take the liberty of calling his residence at that time, so Govind Nihalani who lived nearby was asked to tell Shyam the news and also to lend me a shirt. Sunil Shanbag informed Ratna and the whole lot turned up early next morning, with Shyam deciding I should shift to Jaslok Hospital at his expense. The shoot naturally was suspended for a while.

While recuperating I learnt that Jaspal, after spending two nights in custody, had been bailed out by Saeed Mirza in whose film
Arvind Desai
he had replaced me when I was unable to find the time for it. Saeed had always been hugely biased towards Jaspal since our FTII days and was now sheltering him in his own home; I hoped he knew what he was doing. After a luxurious three days, my first stay in a five- star hospital, Nira and Shyam took me to their home, where I was tended to by these foster parents.

I wasn’t famous enough for the news to make it to the papers and there was no relentless TV coverage of every fart, burp and nose-pick by actors, so Baba who I think quite enjoyed having more things to worry about, didn’t get wind of the incident and he and Ammi were spared this time. It was a day after I moved back to my pad in New Light building on SV Road that the full impact of what had occurred began to sink in. The sonofabitch had tried to kill me and I suppose I should thank my guardian angel yet again that Om had been there and that Jaspal didn’t know a thing about handling a knife. If he had, he would have gone for my throat from behind; as it happened the knife entered an inch into what are probably the most resilient muscles in the back, and the X-rays showed it had missed my spine by a whisker.

I was dozing one afternoon when the doorbell rang. Opening the door to find Jaspal standing there with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes I froze, too scared to do or say anything. He entered, stretched out his hand to shake, helped himself to a cigarette and made himself comfortable as I stood there gaping. He didn’t enquire after my well-being, nor did he make an apologetic sound. Instead, with a slightly hysterical chuckle he explained that what had happened was ‘nothing personal’ (he had earlier been deeply affected by Al Pacino’s
Godfather
performance), ‘it’s a class war, Saeed has explained it all to me’. Saeed Mirza had always been the high priest of Marxism at FTII; ‘Marx-Pravachans’ as they were cynically called regularly took place in his room there, and though I was not actually surprised at Saeed holding this opinion, it could easily have been an invention of Jaspal’s fevered brain as well. An extremely tense five or ten minutes followed, during which I kept standing at the ready in case he went for me again, though I would have been far from able to defend myself. Eventually, when I asked him to leave, he seemed genuinely astonished but didn’t protest and got up mumbling something about ‘no need to still be angry yaar, I haven’t been well’, before I shut the door in his face and continued to hear him calling out from the window for a while before he left. A week or so later we met again at the petty-crimes court, I did not press charges and the judge declared the matter closed as Jaspal stood grinning in the dock.

The shooting of
Bhumika
was barely done when Girish Karnad turned up in town, invited Om and me to breakfast at the Sun ‘n’ Sand Hotel and told us he was casting us both in a film he was planning to make in Bangalore. Based on the celebrated novel
Tabbaliyu Neenade Magane
by S. L. Bhyrappa, it was to be in both Kannada and Hindi, with the two of us in the Hindi version. I was to play a pedantic Brahmin priest and Girish asked if for the part I would shave my head to which I instantly agreed, and if I could put on a bit of a paunch which proved an utter impossibility. Bajju bhai too was to be closely involved in the Hindi version as an adviser.

Manthan
was about to be released and Ratna and I were seeing each other daily. She had been around all the time I was recuperating from the stab, and her parents started getting seriously worried that things were getting out of hand. It was time for them to take action and make her lose this drug- addled mongrel she was becoming increasingly fond of and for whom, on the odd occasion, she had even defied them. A plan was hatched to send her to London, ostensibly as reward for having successfully graduated from university but actually to get her out of my clutches and in the hope that she might develop some interest in a good Wembley-based Gujarati boy. Turned out her visit to London was to coincide exactly with my shoot in Bangalore, so off she went to England’s freezing winter while I made my way, now with complete assurance by air, to Bangalore and thence to Mahimapura, a village just off the Mysore highway, to act in my fourth film. After spending two days in a hotel in Bangalore (the encounter with the three fearsome snorers together occurred here) and having my head shaved, we were driving to the location when Girish informed me that the actor playing the priest in the Kannada version had suddenly made himself unavailable and would I do the Kannada version as well? Not knowing a word of the language I baulked but was reassured by the promise of extra payment, and this time I stayed awake many a night not because of Kulbhushan’s snoring but in trying with Bajju bhai’s help to memorize my Kannada dialogue. The Hindi version of this film
Godhuli
seems to have vanished without a trace but the Kannada version still exists. My pathetic pronunciation in it, however, necessitated my voice being dubbed by a Kannada- speaking actor.