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STARRY NIGHTS Shobhaa Dé’s eighteen books include the bestsellers Socialite Evenings, Starry Nights, Spouse  and  Superstar India. Her latest book is Sethji. A widely read columnist in leading publications, she is known for her outspoken views, making her one of India’s most respected opinion shapers. Dé lives in Mumbai with her family.

Also by the author Fiction Sisters Socialite Evenings Strange Obsession Sultry Days Snapshots Second Thoughts

Non-fiction Speedpost Surviving Men Selective Memory Spouse Superstar India

SHOBHAA DÉ S TA R R Y N I G H T S

PENGUIN BOOKS USA | Canada | UK | Ireland | Australia New Zealand | India | South Africa | China Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com Published by Penguin Random House India Pvt. Ltd 4th Floor, Capital Tower 1, MG Road, Gurugram 122 002, Haryana, India

First published by Penguin Books India 1992 This edition published 2013 Copyright © Shobhaa Dé 1992 All rights reserved 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. ISBN 9780143421313 Typeset in Sabon by CyberMedia Services Ltd, Gurgaon

Printed at Repro India Limited

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. www.penguin.co.in

Contents Part I Kishenbhai Aasha Rani Akshay Arora Shethji Amma Linda Abhijit Mehra Aasha Rani

1 20 44 70 90 100 124 135

Part II Aasha Rani Jamie (Jay) Phillips Sudha Rani Appa Jojo Gopalakrishnan Shonali Sasha

151 169 188 212 234 262 277 300

Waqt ne kiya kya haseen situm, tum rahe na tum, hum rahe na hum. (Ah the exquisite cruelty of Time, you are no longer yourself, and I’m no longer I.) Kaifi Azmi in Kaagaz Ke Phool

PART  ONE

Kishenbhai

L

ights off! Kishenbhai registered the harsh command of the studio lackey with disdain. How many times in the past two decades had he heard those words? A thousand? Ten thousand? As darkness descended in the shabby, suburban preview theatre, he eased his feet out of his white Rexine chappals, reached for his Pan Parag dabba, belched discreetly and touched the panchmukhi rudraksha around his neck. A reflex action. Or it was most times, anyway. Tonight’s film was special. He had more than just his money at stake. Kishenbhai wanted Tera Mera Pyaar Aisa to be a box-office hit. Not so much for himself. But for Aasha Rani. His Aasha. She was no longer his, of course, he corrected himself swiftly. But she had been. And her rise to fame had begun in this very theatre. It was an event he would never forget. His first film. And hers. His premier hit. And hers. His first love. And hers? The man in the bucket seat next to him had already begun to fidget. Kishenbhai cursed under his breath. This two-bit bhangi in a synthetic electric-blue kurta-pyjama was Gopalji this evening. Gopalji my foot, he’d silently snorted. He was no Gopalji. He was a scavenger from the gutters of Bombay. And today this same son-of-a-bitch was a producer. A big-time, big1

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bucks producer. Bastard! Seven years ago he’d been a servile unit hand in Kishenbhai’s production company. Oh yes, he’d had his own production company then. A banner of his own. K.B. Productions. At that time Gopal had been nothing but a fucking bhadwa who fetched paan for the director and whores for the hero. Kishenbhai remembered him well. ‘Abey saale!’ he’d call out to the shifty-eyed sidey, ‘Get me my beedi packet.’ Fetch, he’d say and off Gopal would scamper to bring him his Dunhills from the car. He was useful and resourceful. He could iron the heroine’s taffeta petticoat without burning holes into it. He knew where to get camels at a day’s notice for a song picturization. Why, the bloody bugger even pancaked faces when the make-up man fell ill. Gopal had made himself indispensable. And detestable. Kishenbhai recalled the day he’d sacked him. That was nasty. But inevitable. Gopal had overstepped. He had made a pass at Aasha Rani. Kishenbhai didn’t want to think about it. He forced himself back to the present. Deafening music while the credits rolled. Why do all Hindi films (even the arty ones) insist on raucous ear-splitting noise during the all-important opening sequences? Was it to shock the audiences to attention or to numb and deaden good sense? Jaaney do... he was beyond caring. This is what the bastards wanted. And this is what they got. Aasha Rani hadn’t bothered to show up for the preview. She wasn’t expected to. In any case, she now had a small theatre attached to her swanky Bandra bungalow. Plus a dubbing studio. Good business sense, Kishenbhai mused. Who was her guru? Whoever it was had got her to part with her precious money. Kishenbhai laughed silently at the image his mind suddenly conjured up: ‘Aasha Rani, darling, part your legs, you can part with the money later.’ She deserved whoever it was. She deserved what he was doing to her. Scheming bitch! Chalo chhodo, all 2

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women are the same. All filmi women, at least. No exceptions. Not one. When Kishenbhai discovered Aasha Rani she had been nothing. A ‘dhool ka phool’, the film rags gleefully dismissed her. An awkward, ungainly, overweight girl from Madras. And so dark. Chhee! Kishenbhai didn’t like dark girls. He’d always gone for ‘doodh-ke-jaisi-gori’ women himself. His own swarthy complexion was worked over with Afghan Snow and Pond’s Dreamflower talc, a part of his daily, post-bath ritual. Aasha Rani had laughed and laughed when she’d found him at his careful toilette. But that was later. After she had officially become his. No, he hadn’t married the bitch or anything. But it was known in their circle that Kishenbhai had got hold of a new chidiya. It was a signal to all others to keep their paws off. But Gopal had deliberately chosen to ignore the commandment. Gopal had always felt one-up on Kishenbhai. Because Gopal was from Himachal Pradesh. Very fair, and with light eyes. Anyway, here she was now. Beautiful sequence. Well shot. Aasha Rani was very finicky about the opening shot. Yes, Aasha Rani had certainly learnt all the tricks. She knew her face better than anybody else. She knew she had a difficult nose. And a heavy chin. But she also knew that once her eyes were the focus and her lips properly pouted, nobody bothered about anything else. Kishenbhai searched the image on the screen and found the mole above her lips. She used to hate it in those days. ‘Nikaldo na,’ she’d plead with her make-up man. It was Kishenbhai who had convinced her that the mole looked very sexy. That it drew attention to her mouth. These days she darkened it. He tried to stop thinking about old times and to concentrate on the song she was moving her lips to. Still the same Aasha Rani—terrified to open her mouth too wide lest her crooked dog-teeth showed up on the screen. 3

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Soft focus lens, a back lit shot, three-quarter profile— everything just the way she wanted. He let the words of the song engulf him. Nothing special—though the soundtrack had a minute or so of suggestive panting. The visual had her in a jacuzzi, one slim leg sticking out. It was supposed to be a fantasy sequence in which the heroine dreamed of her wedding night. Aasha Rani had really let herself go for this one. He watched as she caressed herself with a cake of soap. The camera panned her body lovingly, lingering near her breasts. Those breasts. Gopal farted in the next seat. Kishenbhai shifted uncomfortably. Despite himself, he was beginning to feel aroused. Shit! he thought, the bitch still gives me a hard-on. Gopal nudged him, ‘Kyon ji—kya cheez hai.’ Kishenbhai pretended he hadn’t heard. The scene shifted to a honeymoon suite in a five-star hotel. Aasha Rani in full bridal finery. Why were brides in Hindi films unfailingly North Indian? The same red and gold sari, the same jewellery, the same mehendi, the same bindis. In the beginning she never wore red. ‘Chhee!’ she’d say, ‘I’ll look so dark in it.’ It was her dress designer who had convinced her to wear bright colours. ‘No rey baba,’ Aasha Rani had resisted, ‘Mummy says don’t wear gaudy clothes.’ Mummy says. In those days every sentence of Aasha Rani’s began and ended with ‘Mummy says’. Did she still talk like that? How he hated that mummy of hers! A belligerent cow with ghoulish kaajal-blackened, saucer-eyes. ‘Geetha Devi’ she called herself. Geetha Devi and he hated each other from the very start. But then Geetha Devi hated everybody. ‘Mummy is not like that,’ Aasha Rani tried to explain when he’d cursed her one day. ‘Mummy does that to save me,’ she’d continued. ‘From what?’ Kishenbhai had thundered. ‘Men,’ Aasha Rani had answered simply. And his anger had disappeared. He’d 4

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reminded himself that she was just a child. A fifteen-year-old. With a forty-inch bust. Kishenbhai turned his attention back to the screen. Shit! She still wore those bloody falsies! She didn’t need them; he’d told her a hundred times. But mummy had insisted. So had all the producers. ‘Achcha lagta hai, yaar,’ they’d said, looking at the rough cuts. ‘Kya achcha, saala pahad dikhta hai,’ he’d answered. Aasha Rani had great tits. Kishenbhai could vouch for that. After all, who had bought her all those bras from St. Michael’s? She used to beg him each time he went to London, ‘Don’t get me anything else... just soft toys and bray-si-yares’ (as she pronounced it). Kishenbhai used to take great pride in asking the salesgirls to help him look for black-lace, threequarter-cup, underwired 38-C’s. He’d imagine them admiring him, envying him. And her menagerie of stuffed toys! Toba: pink kittens, blue rabbits, silky black leopards with yellow eyes, polka-dotted pandas, even a four-foot giraffe. ‘My zoo,’ Aasha Rani would giggle coquettishly clutching a teddy bear as she posed for the centrefold of a filmi rag. He could never understand her fetish for toys. ‘You don’t know about my childhood,’ she’d tell him, hugging a doll. ‘I never had anything to play with—no toys, nothing.’ He’d heard the story before. The father who had deserted them. The mother who had been left with three girls to raise. The poverty. The deprivation. The struggle. He didn’t mind getting her these things. Though, he did feel faintly foolish walking through customs with the huge fluffy monkey she’d asked for. What kind of animals, Kishenbhai wondered bitterly, did she like now? The opening sequence ended with a tight close-up of Aasha Rani’s face. Why did she still use those silly false eyelashes and 5

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ISBN 978-0-143-42131-3

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