ALTERNATIVE BEGINNING
Miraculously, several things happened the
very next day. One of my brokers called and said a new place had just opened up
on the market, and though it was in Santacruz West, not Bandra as I had wanted,
it was in my budget. He asked if I wanted to take a look. When I went and saw the
apartment, I knew instantly I wanted it. It was a small one-bedroom apartment
with off-white paint peeling off the walls but a decent bathroom and marble
kitchen in an old building that overlooked a large lawn. The location—slightly
away from the main road, but close enough for easy access—was perfect. I
decided to sign the lease right then.
I finally had a roof over my head.
Later that day, Aditi went through her
phone directory and found the number of a close friend of hers who used to work
as a producer but knew the entire media industry and could help me connect to
some people. It was a great idea. The more people I met, the better idea I
would get of the types of jobs out there for an art enthusiast.
His name was Scunjay Panjwani. The ‘c’
was silent; he was not. Scunjay was in his late forties, tall and trim with a
warm smile and a cloudy head. We met in his office—a dark dungeon with black
walls, a black marble desk, a grey executive’s chair for him, and a matched
pair of smaller chairs in a different shade of grey for visitors. He spoke nineteen
to a dozen and ended each sentence with ‘I don’t speak too much.’ When I asked
him how he knew Aditi, he told me his entire life history, detailing all his
achievements. And when I nodded in appreciation he would say, ‘That’s nothing.
That was like doing it with my left hand.’ After hearing descriptions of the
many things he had accomplished ‘with his left hand’, I began to wonder if he
was actually left handed!
He had a tiny Sony Vaio on which messages
popped up every now and then, much to his annoyance. He said to me, ‘I don’t
know how to shut this down. I can’t see this bloody screen!’
I nodded sympathetically and asked, ‘Are
you planning to change it?’
He shook his head vigorously and said,
‘Oh no! I just bought it. I think it’s very sleek.’ Then he snapped his fingers
and bellowed, ‘RT!’ Instantly, a little man—short, with hair that was slathered
with some strange-smelling oil, wearing dark horn-rimmed glasses, a checkered
full-sleeve shirt, trousers, and shiny shoes—entered and tapped on some keys on
the Vaio’s keypad and hurriedly walked away. This silent, swift, eighties
debonair man, as I later learnt, was Rakesh Thanki, a Gujarati who relished
dhoklas and was always in deep trouble with either his boss or his wife. One of
whom would leave him soon enough. And since he didn’t seem too concerned about
his marriage, it wasn’t hard to guess which.
‘So what can I do for you?’ Scunjay asked
after his hour-long dissertation on about himself.
I took a deep breath. I thought I
would start by introducing myself since he hadn’t asked a single question about
me and didn’t have a clue why I was there. ‘Well, I am an art teacher. I was living
in Barcelona the last two years. I…’
Scunjay interrupted. ‘You were living
where?’
‘Barcelona.’
‘Where is this? Near Pune?’
‘It’s in Europe, sir…not many people
have heard of it,’ I said stammering a bit to make it easier for him.
‘Aah. No wonder. Is it close to
Switzerland? Most of our Hindi films are shot there.’ He snapped his fingers
and bellowed, ‘RT! Look up Barcelona for me.’ RT entered, Googled it on
Scunjay’s Vaio and left. Scunjay waved his hand as if to indicate not to bother
with this tiny five-foot man coming in and going out so noiselessly, ‘I’ll read
about it later, you carry on.’
Since I quickly realized his attention
span was as short as a buzzing bee in a valley of flowers, I told him I had
taught art history at the university in Barcelona, and was wondering if he knew
of some job opportunity for me in Mumbai. He closed his eyes for about a minute
with his elbow resting on the desk and his fingers covering half his face
pondering deeply to what I hoped was a job opportunity for me but could might
as well have been how to tick RT off. Just then a woman knocked and entered his
office, bearing a box of `kaju barfis.’ At first he declined meagerly but then
he took five pieces and wolfed them down. She offered them to me but I politely
refused.
He then looked at me and spoke about
Barcelona. ‘I don’t go to these places where they don’t speak English,’
Punjwani said with raised eyebrows and all seriousness. ‘Too tough to
understand what to order. What if they give me some dead animal to eat that I
haven’t heard of?’ He asked with a shocked expression. “You know I’m a
vegetarian on Tuesday. I only eat fish.”
Before he embarked on another story about
himself, I quickly butted in, ‘I know seven languages, sir. That why it’s easy
for me to understand them.’
He suddenly sat up and stared at me
with what I thought was respect, but would later realize was just food
poisoning. He closed his eyes and held his head in his hands once again.
I asked him gently, ‘What is it, sir?
Are you unwell?’
He shook his head slowly and pointed
to the ceiling. I didn’t know what to look at. So I asked, ‘Ceiling?’
He sighed and said, ‘Top lighting.’
I waited for further explanation.
Still holding his head in his hands,
Punjwani said, ‘Top lighting gives me a headache. I don’t know why they don’t
keep lamps in this goddamn room! RT!’ The moment RT entered, he hollered at
him, ‘Tell them to keep lamps in this room and get rid of these above type of
lights. Bloody fools!’
I didn’t know what to say so I just
cleared my throat, smiled and nodded.
‘Can you speak Russian?’ he asked me
unexpectedly.
I nodded, ‘Yes.’
Scunjay leapt out of his chair and
shouted, ‘RT!’ and the tiny man was inside the cabin a second later as if he had
been waiting right outside.
‘RT, I think I’ve found our answer,’
Scunjay said as he sat back down, completely ignoring me. ‘She can help us with
Bela.’
‘Bela?’ I asked, unsure if he was actually
offering me a job.
‘Bela Bandhan. She’s half Russian and
half Kashmiri. But she knows no Hindi. And she’s the next top actress of
Bollywood,’ Rakesh explained, while his employer stood by, looking as if he was
going to faint.
‘It’s all settled then. RT, take care of
it,’ Scunjay said feebly, clutching his head once again.
I began to get worried. Was this man
having a heart attack? ‘Sir,’ I asked with concern, ‘are you feeling okay?’
His eyes closed against the glare from
the ‘top light’, he nodded and said meekly, ‘It’s the kaju barfi. Tell her, RT.’
RT leaned towards me and whispered, ‘They
make him sleepy.’
‘Sleepy? As in drowsy?’ I asked
incredulously. I had never seen that happen with a man. But RT nodded in all
seriousness and led me away. But hadn’t he taken the sweets himself? And if he
knew this was the effect why would he do it to himself? RT answered with
straight face as if he had read my thoughts, “Kaju barfis are his weakness.” The
last image I had of Scunjay Punjwani was his head down on a table muttering away
how people were determined to poison him.
Once outside Punjwani’s office, Rakesh
explained what the ‘job’ for me was. He said that they had been searching for a
translator for Bela who could travel with her and translate her scripts from
Hindi to Russian so she could understand them and help her learn Hindi so she
could learn her lines. I would be paid handsomely for my tuition, translation,
and would be given extra if I were travelling out of Mumbai with her since I
would have to be with her all the time. By the time shooting ended on her current
film, they wanted her to know Hindi fluently. So far they had shot only one
schedule which was some ten days of shooting in Mumbai and they weren’t
planning to use most of the shots. Therefore, I would have plenty of time
before the film released to have her speak Hindi without an accent. Rakesh
added that not only would I be with her for the entire length of this movie,
but, if need be, future films as well. And with my talents and the industry
importing these foreign ‘actresses’ who neither spoke nor understood Hindi, I
would be a permanent employee with them.
I was thrilled. I could finally visit
my parents, now that I’d sorted out my life. Perhaps even do up my apartment
and invite them over for a short visit. The only problem was that it took me
very far away from art, which was my core skill and passion. But it would bring a host of new experiences. God
doesn't give you everything you want, but he does give you exactly what you
need at the right time.
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New Delhi: As a 23-year-old brutalised and gangraped victim fights for her life in the capital, novelist, columnist and award-winning documentary filmmaker Madhuri Banerjee ascribes the rise in gender crime in India to the bias against the girl child and says "gender decorum" and respect for women should be inculcated in boys at the school level.
