Bollywood Confidential (8 page)

Isn't it nice when a gorgeous guy dismisses you with one casual
glance?

Really does wonders for the self-esteem.

Of course, Raveena still wanted to jump on Siddharth and bite his neck, even if he didn't say one thing to her during the meal.

After a long lunch inside the air-conditioned studio spent gorging on South Indian cuisine—potato curry, coconut chutney,
dosas
stuffed with tomatoes, green chilies, coriander and onions and spicy lentil
sambar
—Randy had announced that the cast and crew were to report to the studio the next morning at nine a.m.

Raveena wasn't sure what exactly they would be doing the next day. Since there was no script, there wouldn't be the usual table read, and Randy had dismissed Veer's question about a storyboard.

She supposed she'd find out the next day.

While everyone jumped into their cars, Raveena hailed an auto-rickshaw to take her back to Uncle Heeru's.

 

Uncle Heeru wouldn't stop yelling.

The two plumbers he'd hired stood side by side and stared down at the ground.

“Cheaters! Duffers!” Uncle Heeru yelled.

Apparently, after the plumbers had shown up for work four hours late, Uncle Heeru had discovered them sprawled on the floor of the downstairs bathroom reading the newspaper instead of fixing the plumbing.

Eyes blazing, glasses hanging by one ear, Uncle Heeru turned to Raveena. “Does this happen in America? Indians have no work ethic! Bloody, lazy people!” He reached up, grabbed bunches of his hair and yelled. Then he turned and ran out of the room.

A few moments later he came running back—his arms filled with newspapers. He ran right past them and out the door.

Raveena moved to the window and watched as Uncle Heeru threw the papers to the ground and began stomping on them.

By the time her uncle returned inside, she informed him that the plumbers had left.

Uncle Heeru scowled. “Lazy useless duffers. I will watch them with an eagle eye tomorrow.”

“You didn't fire them?” Raveena asked astounded.

He stared back at her puzzled. “I have removed the newspapers, now they have no choice but to work.”

She guessed that was a solution of sorts.

 

Raveena spent the rest of the evening in her room reading
Hurray for Bollywood
—the book Maza had given her.

She was a quarter through the book when Nandini quietly entered to tell her she had a phone call.

Dressed in shorts and a tank top, Raveena followed her downstairs and to the hall extension. “Hello?”

“Raveena!”

“Mom!” she exclaimed happily. “What time is it there?”

“Ten in the morning. I thought your father would never leave for work. He's driving me crazy.”

This was an all-too-familiar rant.

“So how are you? How is Heeru?” her mother questioned.

Raveena was tempted to say “hot” to the first question and “crazy” to the second. “We're both fine,” she said instead.

Raveena then went on to inform her mother of the news of the day. “You'll never guess who my costar is on the film. I'm sure you've heard of him. Siddharth.”

Her mother dropped the phone.

Raveena shouted her name a few times before her mother came back on the phone and asked in a breathless voice. “Siddharth? He's the number one actor in India.”

“So I've heard.”

“They worship him there. He's like a demigod. Such a beautiful man.”

Thirteen thousand miles away, but Raveena swore she could feel her mother's sigh brushing against her cheek through the receiver.

“Well, I find him arrogant, Mom.”

“You'd be too if you had crazy females chasing you down wherever you went,” Leela snapped. “The poor boy can't even eat lunch in a restaurant. Women of all ages go mad for him. I read in
Filmfare
that while eating at China Garden
with his family, the manager had to pull an eighty-year-old widow off of him. Poor boy can't eat in peace.”

“That's no excuse for being arrogant,” Raveena argued.

Her mother sniffed. “Hmmph!”

Raveena decided to get off the subject of Siddharth, since it was obviously a sensitive area. “Mom, can you call Jai and Maza and tell them I'm okay? Uncle Heeru doesn't have a computer, and I haven't been able to make it to an Internet Café.”

Her mother agreed to do so, and they spoke of other things like family, friends and Bombay in general. Just as they were saying their good-byes, her mother brought up one last thing. “Do you know how much money Siddharth commands per picture?”

“No, Mom, but I'm dying to know.”

This time Raveena
was
being sarcastic.

“Twenty crore rupees!”

“Crore? How much is that? I'm still figuring out the rupee-dollar conversion.”

“Five million dollars!”

Okay, so it wasn't in the Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise range, but it was damn good for a Bollywood star. Siddharth probably lived like a maharajah.

Correction: a demi-god.

Meanwhile, the amount of money Raveena was getting paid rivaled that of the cast of
The Blair Witch Project
.

Her mother said good-bye, and Raveena walked over to the open window and leaned against the sill. She could smell jasmine and the sweet scent from the mango trees.

Once again, she needed to give herself a pep talk.

“Come on, Raveena,” she said aloud. “We're talking Bollywood. If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.”

As far as pep talks go…

Raveena thought that was pretty damn good.

The pain was so intense Raveena sat up in bed clutching her
stomach.

Pushing her hair out of her face she glanced at the small digital watch on the nightstand.

Three a.m.

The intense heat of the afternoon had barely abated, but she was racked with chills.

Another sharp spasm of pain twisted her insides. She felt as though she'd swallowed a miraculously sharp set of Ginsu knives.

Shivering, Raveena got out of bed and turned on the light. Stumbling across the room, she opened the wardrobe and searched through her belongings until she found the bottle of Tums.

She shoved a few in her mouth, but her throat was so dry she could barely chew.

Without bothering with a robe, Raveena slipped out of her room, went down the stairs and headed towards the kitchen for a glass of water.

She was making her way through the darkened dining room when she tripped over something and fell to the floor.

She gasped when she saw what it was.

Ahuman hand!

Raveena gasped twice more and the hand twitched.

Finally, her eyes adjusted to the dark and she could see what was in front of her.

Uncle Heeru was curled up under the dining table fast asleep.

Before Raveena could take in the scene completely, another wave of cramps gripped her stomach and bile filled her mouth.

She scrambled to her knees and ran to the nearest bathroom.

There wasn't time to wonder whether the plumbers had fixed the toilet or not.

Leaning over the seat she vomited for the next thirty minutes.

Since no one came to investigate, she assumed Uncle Heeru still snoozed underneath the table.

At that moment she couldn't care less.

Stomach finally empty, feeling about as frail as a skeleton with osteoporosis, Raveena curled up on the cool tile of the bathroom floor.

Then she came to two conclusions.

One, she had some sort of wicked food poisoning.

And two, she actually cared very much why her uncle preferred to snooze under furniture as opposed to on top of it.

 

“Amebic dysentery,” the doctor said with finality.

Raveena looked up at him from under several layers of blankets.

“But,” she protested. “I've been good. Nothing but filtered water. I haven't eaten anything off the street.”

“What did you consume prior to disgorging?” the doctor asked.

“I had scrambled eggs here and
dosas
at the studio.”

“Lavinia drinks too much Indian cola. Terrible stuff,” Uncle Heeru said from where he hovered in the doorway. “She's killing herself.”

The doctor ignored him. “No, it wasn't the cola. What was in the
dosa
?”

Raveena told him and added, “We all ate the same thing. I was about to call the director and see if anyone else is sick.”

The doctor shook his head. “I doubt it is the
dosa
. Tell me about the condiments.”

“Coconut chutney. And this jar of chili and vinegar.”

“Ah,” the doctor nodded. “How many chilies did you have?”

Just thinking about food made her want to hurl. “Well, I like spicy food. I had quite a bit.”

The doctor fixed her with a stern look. “The chili juice was most likely made with contaminated water. A common problem.”

“There was vinegar in it,” Raveena objected. “Doesn't that kill germs?”

The doctor frowned. “Who told you that?”

“Nobody,” she mumbled, feeling chastised.

The doctor wrote down a prescription for several items and turned towards Uncle Heeru. “Raveena needs to take—”

Uncle Heeru's expression suddenly became panicked. He threw up his hands and ran out of the room.

Annoyed, the doctor stared at Heeru's departing back, and then turned to Nandini who stood silently in the corner. “Take this to the chemist. Raveena must have two doses a day of each medicine for one week.”

Nandini took the prescription and smiled. “Yes, doctor.”

The doctor's annoyed expression relaxed, and he gently laid a hand on Nandini's head.

When he faced Raveena, his expression was once again stern. “Don't you know you can't eat everything in India? This is not America. You must be careful.”

And on that note, he packed up his bag and took his leave.

 

Randy was perfectly fine with Raveena's not making an appearance at the studio.

“We have a group of journalists here who are interviewing Siddharth. It's fantastic publicity,” he said.

“Will they want to speak to me as well? I'm pretty sick right now, but later—”

“No, no, there's no need for that,” Randy assured. “They only want to talk to the
star
.”

Raveena's dislike towards Siddharth grew stronger.

Raveena's dislike for Randy went without saying.

Raveena's dislike for food, at the moment, overwhelmed everything else.

“I have to vomit,” she said.

The last thing Raveena heard before she flung away the phone and darted to the bathroom was Randy saying:

“Vomit? Are you ill?”

The good thing about picking up an ameba or two is that you lose
weight.

In Raveena's case, eight pounds.

It was seven days later, and she was ready to work.

Upon learning of her illness—Uncle Heeru phoned Leela to say Raveena was dying—her mother had called twice a day, and so had Auntie Kiran. Auntie Kiran had insisted Raveena send a stool sample via DHL so an American doctor could examine it. “Those Indian doctors are all quacks,” she'd said firmly.

Needless to say, Raveena didn't listen to her aunt. The Indian doctor had spent almost an hour with her. The most she ever got out of her managed care physician back home was ten minutes.

Anyway, the proof was in the pudding, or in this case, the stool.

Raveena was ameba-free.

Nine a.m. sharp, Raveena had arrived at Sahara Studios after haggling with the auto-rickshaw driver over the fare.
Raveena was becoming quite adept at getting herself around, and she knew that it cost twelve rupees to go from her uncle's house to the studio. So when the driver demanded twenty, she argued like a local.

Granted, it was a matter of sixteen cents, but it was the principle of the thing.

Walking around, Raveena came to realize the studio was deserted, save for the old caretaker sweeping the drive.

Or, at least, it looked like the old man was sweeping.

Wielding a typical Indian hand broom made of twigs, he seemed to be sweeping the exact same bunch of fallen leaves back and forth. He wasn't making any progress.

However, Raveena wasn't about to lecture the man on his lack of a Puritan work ethic. Instead, she took a seat under the same coconut tree and waited for the rest of the crew to show up.

And waited.

Really, this waiting thing was getting old.

By ten the coolness of the morning had given way to wilting heat, and still no one had shown up.

The caretaker ambled towards her. “Why are you sitting here?” he asked.

“We're shooting today. I was told to be here by nine.”

The old man smiled. He was missing several of his teeth. “No one will be here before eleven.”

“But why did the director tell me nine?”

His smile widened. “Because that is the time to be here. Nonetheless, no one will arrive before eleven.”

“Come,” he beckoned.

Raveena followed him into the studio common area
where she'd overindulged in chilies and vinegar the week before.

He began flipping switches, turning on lights, and before long she heard the hum of the air-conditioner start up.

He disappeared for about ten minutes and returned with two steaming cups. “Chai,” he said, setting one cup before Raveena with another of his gap-toothed smiles.

It was blistering and the air-conditioner hadn't fully kicked in yet.

Still, what else was there to do but drink hot chai?

Raveena raised her glass in toast and settled down for chai and conversation with the caretaker.

Maybe he could teach her a few choice Hindi swear words?

The ones her parents whispered, but she could never fully catch.

 

“Thrust! Thrust! Thrust!” Lollipop shouted above the music.

For Shiva's sake! Raveena was thrusting to the best of her ability.

Lollipop clapped his hands. “Cut!” The music was turned off.

Raveena was learning a lot on her first day at the studio. Violence in a Bollywood film is acceptable, but kissing isn't. Sex is taboo, but the suggestive hip rolls and pelvic thrusts she was performing in her dance routine were fine. Abrupt changes of location during songs are common—Scotland, Switzerland and New Zealand were favorite backdrops.

Randy had explained earlier to a disappointed Lollipop that he didn't have the budget for a foreign song shoot.

Panting, her hands on her hips, Raveena waited as Lollipop approached. It was hours later, and the rest of the crew had finally arrived. “The dance move is like this,” Lollipop said and began to demonstrate.

He thrust out his hips, shimmied to the right, then left, executed a few classical Indian moves with his arms, and ended by looking over his shoulder, his eyes smoldering.

Raveena almost clapped. The man could move.

Since there still wasn't a script, Raveena spent the day rehearsing her first musical number.

In the song sequence, Mumtaz Mahal disguises herself as a provocative gypsy and sneaks into Shah Jahan's palace with her group of soldiers—also disguised as gypsies—and performs a seductive dance number in front of the Emperor and his men. The goal is to gain entrance into the palace so Mumtaz can murder Shah Jahan in his sleep.

Hence, Lollipop's smoldering look.

“You must be sexy,” Lollipop instructed, lowering his eyelids demurely and slightly pursing his lips, “but at the same time the audience must see a hint of your contempt and anger towards the Emperor.” Lollipop raised his eyes and flashed her with a burning gaze.

Honestly, Raveena was still trying to get her right hip to stay down while bouncing the left.

Nonetheless, she nodded. “Okay, got it.”

The music started up again.

Getting the dance number down was important. Songs from Bollywood films were released prior to the film opening and their pre-release success was an indicator of potential box office returns.

Randy had hired the top music director in the country.
B. R. Hassan. Raveena heard Randy had to shell out a pretty penny for Hassan's services. No wonder she'd seen Daddy mopping his forehead more than usual.

But he was worth it. The soundtrack was sensational. Bass guitar, tabla and drums flowed together in something tribal, making her blood pound.

“From the top!” Lollipop shouted.

After spending the entire afternoon with the choreographer, Raveena had developed an immense respect for the man—and now managed not to giggle when she said his name or heard his high-pitched voice. After all, his job involved much more than choreography. He directed complex camera movements, set changes, costume design and anything and everything related to the musical numbers.

The fifty male background dancers behind Raveena began effortlessly mimicking Lollipop's instructions.

Raveena moved to the music, lip-synching to the singer's voice and trying to do the temptress-warrior thing when Siddharth entered the studio.

Staying in her line of vision, he leaned against the wall, folded his arms and watched.

The sight of Siddharth cool, composed and drop-dead delicious while she gyrated sweaty and flushed in her tank top and jeans—and still suffering the latent effects of dysentery—pushed Raveena's anger to the surface.

Glaring at him, Raveena whirled, spun, thrust, kicked and executed the Bollywood dance moves—mentally blessing her mother for forcing her into classical Indian dance lessons as a kid—and ended in the required pose, seething over her shoulder at the Emperor.

Lollipop bounced up and down. “Brilliant! Sexy and
filled with contempt!” He bounced over and wrapped her in a hug.

Raveena returned the bubbly choreographer's embrace. In the background, Siddharth raised an eyebrow, performed a mock bow in her direction and left the studio.

See.

All she'd needed was the right motivation.