A Burning(58)
Her words are feeling to me like Azad’s embrace when we were falling in love, like a tub full of syrupy roshogolla whose sugar is flowing in my veins, like Mr. Debnath accepting me to his acting class. It is feeling like Ragini’s hands in mine, our laughter during the national activity of watching TV together in the evening.
“But listen,” she is saying, putting her head close to mine, “one concern that my team has is, we want to avoid bad publicity. Your testimony for the terrorist—”
I am looking at the floor, showing shame. “Don’t worry,” I am saying. “She was my neighbor, but I am understanding now that maybe I was never really knowing who she was.” The shame is burning in my cheeks.
“Good,” Sonali Khan is saying. Then, in a normal voice, she continues, “Your video in which you were playing a mother, oof! Such feeling! Such emotion! Such drama in your eyes and voice! I said, ‘This is a star being born right here. We must call her in.’?”
After that, can you guess how my audition is going?
* * *
*
ON THE FIRST DAY of the shoot, in front of the studio doors, the whole unit is coming together, from driver to caterer to cameraman to director, and we are doing a prayer, then cracking a coconut for god’s blessings. For all my life, everybody is believing that I am having a direct line to god, but I am knowing the truth. Whenever I am calling god, her line is busy. So today I am bowing my head deep. Please to let me act well today. Please to not let me get kicked off this film!
In my purse I am bringing my own lipstick, just in case, but after the prayer, when I am going into the makeup van, my eyes are growing big like pumpkins. This van is having a big mirror, lit up with rows of bright bulbs. On the counter, there are open boxes of pastes and powders and colors, wigs and little cotton sheets and glues and clips. Then the makeup artist, Hema, who is smiling and calling me madam, is using one of those soft cotton sheets to clean my face. I am smelling mint, like a chewing gum. The hair artist, Deepti, is pulling and tying, pinning this and gelling that. When I am saying, “Aaoo!” she is saying, “Oh, sorry, madam.”
“Close your eyes, madam,” Hema is gently saying, but how am I closing my eyes when they are making me look like a superstar in the mirror?
Inside the studio, which is a big warehouse with nothing stored inside it, I am walking carefully, looking at the ground for the cables that are running everywhere.
“Madam!” Someone is giving me a thumbs-up, a boy carrying silver umbrellas. “I saw your video!”
I am giving him a smile.
On the other end of the large studio is a set like the living room of my dreams—a big sofa, many plants, paintings on the walls, a cup of tea on a table. The cinematographer and director are making me sit here and sit there, stand at this angle or that angle. I am feeling afraid that my makeup will be melting.
Then the studio is becoming so quiet I am hearing somebody sniffle.
“Silence!” someone is calling.
“Rolling!” someone is calling.
“Action!” someone else is calling.
And me, from the depth of my heart, I am becoming the mother I am needing to be, even though the child actor will be coming tomorrow, and I am only imagining her today. Every wish of motherhood that I am having, for all my life, I am pouring into the lines they are giving me. I am dreaming this child into being before my eyes, and I am holding this beloved little person. How real is she, my child.
This child is having the face of Jivan, daughter of those poor parents, donor of pencils and textbooks. How is she living, alone in some dark cell? Even if she is not feeling the knife at her neck, I am feeling myself holding it. Now, my face thick with makeup, my hair stiff with gels, I am knowing what Arjuni Ma was truly telling me: In this world, only one of us can be truly free. Jivan, or me. Every day, I am making my choice, and I am making it today also.
“Daughter,” I am telling this child, looking directly at the lens, “never let anyone tell you those lies. You are coming from the most precious place. Not from my womb, no, but from the deepest dreams of my heart.”
“Cut it,” the director is calling. When I am stepping behind the camera, looking at the small TV where my shot is playing, I am saying, “Excuse, excuse,” to get through the dozen people crowding.
They are all wiping their eyes.
* * *
*
AT THE END OF THE DAY, when we are wrapping, Sonali Khan is personally coming to me. She is holding my arms and saying, “Lovely, you are going to be the country’s next big star, you just wait!”
Then she is handing me an envelope and telling me to open it at home.
On the train, I am eating jhalmuri to celebrate, crunchy puffed rice and chopped cucumber in my mouth. I am walking past the guava seller and turning around. To him, for the first time, I am saying, “You give me three good ones!”
He is looking up and having a heart attack to see his new customer.
“Yes, it’s me!” I am saying. “I am making a film now, so I am having to be fit! I am going to be eating fruits!”
In my room, I am eating a washed guava, and opening the envelope that Sonali Khan was giving me. Inside, there is a big glossy photo of me in scene.
I am finding some Sellotape and tearing it with my teeth. Then, beside my posters of Shah Rukh Khan and Priyanka Chopra, I am putting up this photo. Me, Lovely, in full hair and makeup, delivering a line to the camera in a Sonali Khan film.