Bollywood Confidential (16 page)

Damn it to hell!

How long was the Awards show anyway?

Three hours into it, her ears ringing with Bollywood hits, Raveena tried to ignore the stiffness in her legs.

Musical performance after musical performance went on with stars lip-synching and dancing to their most popular songs.

Siddharth won for best actor.

Raveena felt a pull in her heart when he walked up on stage. He looked less than enthusiastic and merely thanked the crew and his fans for the Award. He then practically ran off stage.

She longed to go after him.

Was she? Could she be? Bat shit crazy?

Raveena was well-acquainted with bat shit, as the baby fruit bat had left behind a little present in her hair.

And then the host asked Randy Kapoor to please come on stage.

She clenched her teeth as Randy swaggered on stage in
typical asshole fashion. He was chewing gum, which Raveena found utterly tasteless.

The nominees for best actress were read out.

“And now,” said the host, a good-looking metrosexual man with a British accent and handsome face. Raveena recognized him as an up-and-comer from Page Three. “Will Mr. Randy Kapoor please read out the winner for best actress?”

Chomping gum, Randy made a big show of opening the envelope.

“Rani Mukherjee!” he crowed.

Raveena liked Rani. The woman was exceptionally talented and spoke with an attractive smoky voice.

Rani graciously accepted her award and exited the stage.

Randy was about to step off too when Raveena lunged and grabbed him.

She pulled out a knife.

Granted, it was a small, dull butter knife from Uncle Heeru's kitchen, but no one could tell from that distance. And Randy was such a coward he wouldn't care.

Raveena turned to the host. “Leave,” she ordered.

The young man turned and ran off.

With the butter knife to his throat, Raveena dragged Randy to the podium.

The lights were intense and bright, but she could make out some of the audience. No one seemed to care about what was happening.

“It's an ad break,” the host called out from off stage.

So Raveena waited until the break was over and the music started up again.

“Help me!” Randy screamed into the microphone.

There were startled gasps from the audience as people turned their attention back to the show.

Raveena decided to hurry and speak before security rushed the stage.

She pushed Randy down and stepped on his stomach. “If you move, I'll shoot you,” she whispered. Obviously it would prove rather difficult to shoot the man with a butter knife, but Randy whimpered like a baby.

“Bollywood,” she said into the microphone, “is a disgrace. I know that many of you don't care for the term Bollywood. You feel it demeans the industry. Well, you know what really demeans your industry? The way you rip off Hollywood films!”

The audience was silent.

Security hadn't arrived so Raveena decided to elaborate.

“You guys love to hold yourselves up as virtuous and moral, but I've seen the seamy side of Bollywood. Your heroes and heroines go to the temple, respect their elders and never kiss on screen…but what about all the breast shaking and hip thrusting in the songs? You're all hypocrites! And what about the Mafia? How many films do they really finance?”

Raveena quickly decided to lay off the Mafia because she didn't want to get murdered.

“Where's the originality in your industry? One romantic comedy becomes a hit, and suddenly that's all you guys make. One underworld drama becomes a blockbuster, and all the other directors follow suit. So what if you have a billion fans around the world. I'm embarrassed by Bollywood films. I don't want to show them to my friends.

“Look at the way you portray Indians who live abroad.
The girls are westernized and have no morals, while the girls brought up in India are virtuous ladies. That is such bullshit! And you know who the worst offender is? Randy Kapoor. Every single one of his films is a Hollywood rip-off. Frame by frame! I came to Bollywood, and I took a chance. And you know what? Bollywood let me down. How can you people even call yourselves moviemakers?”

From the corner of her eye, Raveena saw security rushing towards her.

“Bollywood sucks!” she screamed and took off.

Apparently, the security guards were out of shape, because minutes later she was running out the back exit of the sports complex.

The enormity of what she had done shook her. She was crying and hyperventilating at the same time. She didn't know where to go.

She plunged down a darkened street.

In the distance, she heard sirens.

Too late, she realized she was heading into the slums.

But there was no turning back.

She ran past crying babies, lethargic mothers, barking dogs and bored men. Stumbling in the darkness, she made her way through the streets, the only light coming from the distance and the small cooking fires burning around her.

Raveena searched for an empty space.

And finally at the end of a row of slum dwellings, she found one.

Hours later, Raveena was still huddled on the dirt floor of the
Bombay slum.

She moved from crouching to a curled-up fetal position. The heavy night air caused trickles of sweat and grime to run down her face.

The sound of voices erupted from outside.

Loud male voices.

The police had found her.

Desperately, she looked around for a place to hide. The only furniture in the room was a shabby straw mat.

She began wriggling her way under the covering just as the door burst open.

Uniformed men with flashlights filled the room and yanked off her hiding place.

She placed a weak hand in front of her eyes to shield them from the glare of the lights.

This was the end.

Raveena didn't know whether to faint or throw up.

“Raveena!”

She heard his voice.

It couldn't be.

She removed her hand and blinked into the light. A tall man stood in front of her, his broad shoulders filling the small space.

“Siddharth?” she whispered.

And for the second time, Raveena burst into tears in front of him.

Raveena awoke in a cool air-conditioned room in a bed with
silken sheets.

The events of the night before washed over her, and she buried her face in the pillow, overcome with embarrassment.

Siddharth had brought her to his home.

Poonam had taken charge, giving Raveena a nightie to change into, fixing her a glass of brandy and hot tea and then sitting with her until she fell asleep.

The bedroom door opened and Siddharth entered.

“Hi,” he said shyly.

Raveena sat up and tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear. “Hi…I feel like an idiot.”

“Don't,” Siddharth said. “The papers didn't even cover it.”

“What?”

“Well around the same time you took Randy hostage on stage—”

Raveena winced.

“Sorry,” Siddharth said. “Well around that time, a major fight broke out between Tiger Patel and Shekhar Suri.”

“The actors?”

“They're big-time rivals, and of course Tiger and Shekhar were both drunk as hell. All the reporters were there covering it. So was half the audience. The other half first thought you and Randy were enacting a skit. Then security rushed the stage, you ran off, security rushed back to where Tiger was braining Shekhar, and, well, that was the talk of the night.”

“Thank god,” Raveena said relieved.

“Your mother called.”

“Oh no.”

“She called your uncle's place after seeing the show. Apparently she woke up around five a.m. to watch it.”

Raveena rolled her eyes.

“When I called your uncle to tell him where you were—by the way, did you know that he thought you were sleeping in your bed?”

“Doesn't surprise me.”

“Well, your uncle gave me your mother's number, and I called her.”

Raveena watched as Siddharth's golden cheeks turned a rosy red. “What?” she asked.

“Well,” he said, “she, ah, got rather excited when she heard my voice.”

Raveena took a deep breath. “Listen, Siddharth, I'm so sorry about the police thing. It was my fault for making you stop at the Bandstand. I hope…” she had to choke this out, “I hope what happened between us didn't affect your relationship with Bani. Tell her it was pre-wedding jitters or something.”

Siddharth frowned. “Bani? Bloody hell, I forgot about
Javed's crazy plan. Listen Raveena, Bani and I were never really engaged. My manager was afraid the police incident would interfere with my chances for the stupid award, so he concocted a story that would get more press than anything. I was going to tell you after the show…”

He paused.

“I was stupid for not telling you sooner. It's just, I was so embarrassed about the police thing. I should have handled it better. And then there was the story with Bani and…I'm sorry.”

Raveena hadn't paid attention to anything he had said beyond, “Bani and I aren't engaged.”

Instead, she smiled and nodded. “So you and Bani aren't together,” she repeated.

“We never were.”

“I was never with Randy.”

“I know, Raveena.”

Before she could do a jig, Raveena remembered something. “Is Randy going to press charges? I didn't really hurt him. It was just…he fired me, you know. After I told him I wouldn't sleep with him.”

Siddharth curled his lip. “Bani threw a fit when I reminded her the engagement was just a publicity ploy. I'm afraid she was partly responsible for encouraging Randy to finally go ahead and proposition you.”

“And pressing charges?” Raveena asked. “Randy will, won't he?”

Looked like she'd be ending up in front of the Bombay High Court after all.

“I placed a call to Daddy,” Siddharth said. “He's flying in tonight. We're going to straighten this mess out.”

Slowly, he placed a tentative hand next to hers.

Raveena laid her hand over his.

She really wanted to pull Siddharth down beside her on the bed but decided there would be time for that later.

Daddy indeed straightened everything out.

He threatened to cut Randy off financially if he even breathed the word “sue.” Daddy then pulled funding from
Taj Mahal 3000
:
Unleashed
and forced his son to look into film schools if he wanted to keep on directing.

Over the next couple of weeks, Daddy rehired the screenwriter who'd come up with the original idea—the one about the Indo-American girl who goes to India to search for her father.

But best of all, Daddy hired a wonderful director, Dharamveer “Veer” Sandhu to direct it.

Veer asked Raveena and Siddharth to play the leads.

Siddharth came on as associate producer and convinced Raveena to stay and give Bollywood another shot.

Raveena really didn't need much convincing.

Daddy called Griffin in LA and a new contract was drafted.

This time Raveena would be making a significantly higher amount of money.

Not enough to live like a demigoddess, but pretty damn good.

Poonam wanted Raveena to move out of Heeru's and stay with them, but she and Siddharth were taking it slow. Sure, there was still a lot of tongue twisting and lip locking between the two of them, but no one was drawing up baby names…

Yet.

So Raveena moved to the Regent Hotel overlooking the water on Bandra's Bandstand. Uncle Heeru had offered his bungalow, but Raveena could not resist the lure of air-conditioning.

Besides, this way she could have Siddharth up for a nightcap.

She did, for some odd reason, find herself missing Uncle Heeru at times, and on those occasions, she'd hop into a rickshaw and motor over to his place. There they'd feed the pigeons together and Uncle Heeru would tell her more stories.

Like the time the stone-pelting swami showed up at his bungalow door and demanded that Heeru buy him a microwave.

“But the man lives in a cave,” Raveena pointed out. “Where would he plug it in?”

In May, Maza, Ian and Jai flew to Bombay to visit. When Jai met Siddharth, he fainted.

Raveena liked Ian. Around him, Maza did what no one had ever been able to convince her to do.

She lightened up.

In September, Veer announced “It's a wrap.”

The film was titled
Cute Curry
.

Early buzz predicted the movie would be the next
Monsoon Wedding
.

Raveena and Siddharth flew to LA to meet her parents and attend Maza and Ian's reception bash in Santa Barbara.

When Raveena's mother met Siddharth she didn't faint, but she did show him off at her kitty party.

Auntie Kiran took one look at Siddharth and announced that maybe India wasn't such a dirty stinking place after all.

And neither was Bollywood.

Kimberly Whalen: my fabulous agent, who could give any hip-thrusting Bollywood heroine a run for her money.

 

Lyssa Keusch: my wonderful editor, who surely must have been Indian in her past life, because the woman has curry running through her veins.

 

Many thanks to the stellar team at Avon Trade: Carrie Feron, May Chen, Pamela Spengler-Jaffee, Rachel Fershleiser and Jamie Beckman. You guys rock!

 

And to the original Stressed-out Sadhu:

 

Ram Uncle, you've provided me with more inspiration than you can ever imagine. Bombay would never have been the same without you.