Bollywood and the Beast (Bollywood Confidential) Read online

  So she took a page from her mother’s Captain Obvious Handbook. “I…I wasn’t thinking. I was just kind of…talking. You know…like I do.”

  “‘Just talking’?” The look he gave her was a mirror to her own classic scowl. “Confession does not help your cause. Why did I pay for media training lessons? For that girl who took you round for weeks when we moved to Mumbai?”

  The girl in question had been half assistant, half dictator. Aside from learning the location of the nearest Starbucks and how to dial an Indian cell phone number, Rocky had spent most of those four weeks just trying to stay out of her way.

  “Dad, I’m sorry. I should’ve known better. I just couldn’t help it.” She dragged her hands through her hair, undoing the hard work of the show’s stylists, who’d pulled it into a sleek, neat ponytail. “And if I can be even more honest, it felt really good to say all of that stuff. I mean, staying quiet and smiling like an idiot hasn’t made people stop talking about me, right? So what’s the big deal if I rant a little?”

  “Do you really need me to answer that, Rocky?” Her dad’s eyebrows rose in disbelief, and she sighed, dropping into an overstuffed chair that almost immediately swallowed her up. It didn’t spit her out, though. That was going to be the filmi press…after they chewed her up.

  He was living on borrowed time. Ashraf Khan had known that for years: that someday, somehow, someone would come to him and say, “This was all a great joke. Your career is finished now. You may go home.” He was strangely anticipating the prospect. Playing in front of a camera nonstop for six years, in bigger and bigger roles…it was a dream for some, but he was no junior artiste with cinema-star fantasies. The only roles that had ever truly mattered to him were those of son, grandson, brother. For all the good they had done.

  He knew what part everyone would associate him with now. Boy toy. Arm candy. Characterless, desperate climber. Calculated partner or wide-eyed dupe, it didn’t matter. He’d literally made his bed when he threw in his lot with Nina Manjrekar.

  So Ashraf was unsurprised when Nina’s former partner at Anandaloka Pictures—and former stepson—Rahul Anand, left him several messages and then rang him up to schedule drinks at a popular bistro in Colaba. It was only a matter of time, after all. Anand had dealt with Nina swiftly and efficiently, cutting her from his business and his personal life as though excising a tumor. Her associates could be equally cancerous, equally demanding of removal.

  The windows faced the water, offering a better view than the producer’s shrewd, piercing gaze. Ashraf knew what Anand saw. He saw it himself every day in the mirror.

  There was no condemnation in his tone, though. The man was too well-bred for that. “My stepmother was your godmother,” Anand said, almost as though he’d plucked the thought from the ether once the pleasantries and drink orders were dealt with. “It nearly makes us…brothers.”

  Thinking of Nina Manjrekar as “his” anything made the blood in his veins ice over despite the heat. “Godmother.” What a silly play on industry godfathers. As though she’d waved a magic wand to make his filmi dreams come true. It had been weeks since she’d left the city, but she’d taken up permanent residence in his thoughts, like a parasite clinging to his brain stem.

  “Your wife was briefly my heroine. That nearly makes us rivals.” Ashraf had to make the joke. To push Nina away and pull the pretty, safe image of Priya Roy Anand forward.

  “I’ve no rivalry with you, Khan.” The assurance was just on the border of gentle, not cloying enough to be patronizing. “We are not enemies. I honor my company’s commitments, and any deals Nina made with you for projects will stand.”

  Deals. Oh, he’d made a great many deals, nahin? This time, he could not hide his flinch, though he tried to chase it away with a healthy swallow of whiskey. Anand didn’t bat an eye at his forbidden indulgence. For hadn’t Ashraf done so much more that was haram besides have a drink or two or ten? The entire industry thought him no better than a whore, earning twelve pictures on his back. On his knees. In every conceivable position.

  As if he could see right through to Ashraf’s corroded soul, Anand shook his head. “I won’t ask for anything you are not willing to give. All you owe to me is your time and your hundred percent devotion to our films. No one at Anandaloka will ever again exploit someone on my watch.”

  Exploitation. It was a word for village girls sold into the sex trade. For children forced to do unspeakable things. Ashraf had gone to bed with his eyes wide open, of his own accord. How could he possibly claim victimhood? Nahin, he’d earned every sin, every whisper and every condemnation. If Nina Manjrekar had set fire to every bridge she’d built in Mumbai, he was guilty by association. By so much association.

  His eyes welled with acidic damp, and he knocked back another gulp of alcohol before setting his jaw and nodding. “Don’t worry, Anand-saab. If I am still on the slate for Be-Izzati in three months’ time, then my dates and my devotion are yours.”

  For that was what he’d feared upon receiving the first voicemail, na? That Anand would drop him from the picture like so much baggage now that his stepmother had been pushed from the company and sent packing.

  “You’re still on the slate. You’re still the star. I’ve seen the test shots, Khan, and I know your work. You’re a very fine actor. More than the press gives you credit for. I’d be sorry I took the role in Khoon from you…except it brought me back my Priya. I can’t apologize for that. All I can do is give you Be-Izzati and my confidence.”

  There, of course, was the rub. Rahul Anand hadn’t given him Be-Izzati. Ashraf had embraced disrespect wholeheartedly, all on his own.

  Chapter Four

  As she’d expected, her episode of Sunny Days, Bollywood Nights didn’t even have to air before shit started hitting the fan. A few loose-lipped PAs and a leaked sound bite or two after the taping, and Rocky was suddenly having the week from hell. The flame-y center of it being the emergency meeting with the honchos from her next film.

  “I don’t want her at the guesthouses with the rest of the cast and crew!” 2 Love in Delhi’s director, Arijit Chatterjee, barked as his face turned an ugly shade of purple. “It’ll be madness. She’s caused enough drama.”

  Oh, like she was some American starlet in a spiral of booze and drugs? Rocky rolled her eyes. All she’d done was give one ill-advised interview. The quotes getting pulled out of context and spread all over the Bollywood blogs to paint her in an even worse light…that wasn’t her fault! She raised her voice to defend herself, only to be drowned out by two of the backers and her father. She’d hoped to have some female support in the room, but her mother had begged off the production meeting, claiming an appointment at the spa. For the year and a half they’d been in Mumbai, Mom seemed to have spent the bulk of it at the spa.

  “I want her safe!” Dad bellowed in the meantime. “That is my priority. No paparazzi, no funny business. No men on the street harassing her. Delhi is not safe generally, and now…? It’ll be even worse for her.”

  She tried to suppress a shudder and evidently failed, because her leading man—a surprise addition to the powwow—spoke up from the other end of the lounge.

  She didn’t know Ashraf Khan very well—only by reputation, which wasn’t all that great. But he was nice, polite when he wasn’t being sarcastic, and they’d vibed really well while going over some preliminary scene work. He was good-looking in a brooding, bad-boy sort of way, with straight hair that flopped into his face and a jaw perpetually shaded with stubble.

  “No problem,” he was saying now, “Rocky can stay with my family. We have a house just outside the city. Very private. I’ll be going to the set from there also.” Her dad’s acrobatic eyebrows rose into his hairline, and Ashraf was quick to raise his hands, reassuringly. “Nahin, nahin, Varma-saab. All aboveboard, I promise. My brother lives there, along with his caretaker, our housekeeper and full staff. My grandmother, she is there also. Rocky would be safe. Khuda ki kasam. I promise.”

  E
veryone knew about Ashraf’s brother, Taj Ali Khan…once the industry’s most demanded star. He’d had a terrible, career-ending accident on the set of a big-budget action film, and no one had seen him since. Even ten years later, he was the subject of party whispers and the occasional gossip column speculations. He was a legend, in more ways than one. Rocky had a bunch of his movies on DVD. Who didn’t?

  Although half of her wanted to throw a fit and refuse to let a roomful of men decide her immediate future, the other half of her couldn’t help but be intrigued. Turning down an opportunity to commute from the Khans’ house was probably like saying, “No, George Clooney, I don’t want to summer at your Italian villa.”

  “Okay,” she said, wrapping her hands around her sweating glass of Coke. “Okay, I’ll stay with Ashraf’s family, and I’ll keep my head down. Anything to keep me on this project. It’s too important to me to mess this up.”

  Her father gave her a pointed, eloquent look. One that said she should’ve thought of that before running her mouth on camera. She fired back a look just as chatty: I know, Dad. I’m going to fix this. Don’t worry.

  She was just good enough as an actress for him to believe her.

  Taj slouched in front of the large-screen TV as the highlight reel of his greatest hits played out in bright, bruising hues of green, purple and blue. His legs seemed to go on forever. His hips swiveled like Elvis Presley’s. He looked like a king, as befitting his name, if not the King. The unerringly cheerful host, rosy-cheeked and pretty, couldn’t have been more than six when his first picture debuted in cinema halls. And now she was lauding him like he was a veteran, worthy of retrospectives while still in his prime. Nahin, not his prime. His early goddamn retirement. “Aur ab, Taj Ali Khan ka aakhri picture ki superhit song,” the girl simpered, as though his last film were a black and white from the ’40s. As if he wasn’t out in the world somewhere, watching his own bloody wake on a Bollywood “news” program.

  Ten years since his career had been declared dead, and the industry never failed to remind him that blood could still be squeezed from his dusty bones.

  His fingers closed round the controller, ready to pitch it across the room. Reprieve came in the form of his ringing mobile. “Yeh Dosti” from Sholay burst forth from the speaker. A playful ode to friendship was his baby brother’s idea of a grand joke, considering the state of their relationship most weeks. Their friendship had broken years ago, and they’d patched it together with strips of cello tape.

  “Bhaiya?” Though the term was respectful, Ashraf’s tone was anything but. Nahin, he was hurried, distracted, a bit irritated.

  It only amplified Taj’s own irritation. “Were you expecting Prince Charles?”

  Laughter exploded over the line with a huff. “I never expect a prince when I ring you. Only royal pain.”

  The pain was mutual. “What do you want, Ashu?” He sighed, letting his head fall against the hard teak contour of the sofa Kamal had arranged with an optimal view of the television. “My blessing to go to bed with more piranhas? Jao. Go forth.”

  The dig was met with silence. Then a deep breath. “Nahin,” Ashraf finally said after the moment of melodrama. “I’m coming to Delhi for a shoot, so expect me home.” This was said as though he anticipated disagreement. He would not find it from Taj’s camp. “I will not be alone. Rocky Varma will stay with us.”

  “Who?” The women in Mumbai grew more and more unknown with every passing minute. Younger as well. He glowered at the screen, where the infant hostess was still prattling on about his legendary exploits.

  “My heroine.” Ashu mirrored his tone, the bite almost as impressive. “She is here from the U.S. Still new. But her family does not want her in the hotel or at the guesthouses with the crew. It is too unsafe. So I offered her to stay also.”

  “Oh, haan, because your aged nani and your invalid brother pose no threat to her virtue, nahin?” He punctuated this thought with a few choice expletives, slouching into the warm cocoon of his pillows. “Vah. Brilliant. Very heroic behavior, Ashu.”

  “Try heroic behavior yourself, okay, Bhaiya? We’re arriving tomorrow. Be civil.” Ashraf ended the call without any goodbyes.

  That was fine. Taj didn’t need any. Not when he was being eulogized by a horde of background dancers and his own perfect, unmarred face.

  Chapter Five

  “I still don’t understand why you can’t stay somewhere nice. Particularly if a hotel’s closer to the set.” Caroline stood in the shade of a decorative palm tree, her oversized sunglasses practically glued to her face, but Rocky could guess at her disapproving expression. She’d seen it enough during the past few days. “Isn’t that more efficient than staying God-knows-where with some boy we don’t even know? I mean, honestly, what was your father thinking?”

  “Bringing this up five minutes before I have to be at the airport isn’t useful, Mom.” Rocky dragged her rolling bag to the curb so the bellboy could heft it into the trunk of the private car. She’d packed light, a bunch of easily interchangeable salwars and a few dresses, knowing that Wardrobe would have her trussed up in costumes during the day. “Besides, Ashraf isn’t ‘a boy’. He’s my costar. I probably won’t even see him except for when we’re on set. It’s not like we’re going steady.”

  At least one gossip blog had already asserted exactly that. Of course, they had a habit of pairing up whoever happened to be in a movie together. The ridiculous rumors circulating about a hookup between Avinash Kumar and Harsh Mathur on their last picture had cooled her father’s temper. Because anyone who was anyone knew Harsh was actually seeing Avinash’s wife.

  “I’m not going to be gone that long, and you and Dad can visit all you want.” It was an eight-week location shoot, with interior, studio-only work in Mumbai afterward. She planned to be at the House of Khan for a fraction of that time…not that plans really meant anything when most crews had their own insane schedules.

  “Visiting’s not the same, and you know it.” Caroline had said something similar just before they’d left Oak Park, when Rocky gently suggested she stay home and hold down the fort. “What if something happens to you? I won’t know what to do with myself.”

  “Something probably will happen to me. It’s called ‘growing up’, Mom.” You should try it sometime, she wanted to say but thought better of it. Caroline’s streak of opulent narcissism was recent, probably a product of living in a new city. It wasn’t fair to call her out on something she couldn’t control. Not with minutes to spare before Rocky had to leave, that was for sure. “I’ll text when we land, okay? And when I get to Ashraf’s place—assuming they have decent cell service. Just don’t freak out.”

  “I’m not freaking out. I don’t freak out.” Her mother frowned, the lines around her mouth growing more pronounced. Rocky loved those lines. Earned through girly shopping trips and movie outings and soccer games in the backyard. Why Caroline seemed determined to erase them, she didn’t know. “I just love you, sweetheart.”

  Rocky hefted her purse higher onto her shoulder and then stepped into the shade, giving her mom a quick hug. “I love you, too. And Dad.”

  Her father stuck his head out the passenger-side window of the dark Ambassador car. “You can tell me you love me on the drive, Rakhee. Come on. You will be late.”

  If she interpreted his subtext correctly, he meant that being late would be one more strike against her. Ugh. She smothered a huff of frustration against her palm and made tracks. The door handle was already sizzling hot from the morning sun, and the hotel’s doorman gave her a scowl of reproach for trying it herself. She let him do the rest of the work as she slid into the backseat.

  In Delhi, she’d be almost completely on her own. Like living on campus again. She really, really hoped she didn’t get schooled.

  Home. Just a short trip away via airplane, but it felt as though Ashraf had traveled a thousand kilometers and twenty years to get here. Certainly the flight had felt endless, as he’d made polite chitchat with Chatter
jee and his AD and watched Rocky turn down a complimentary glass of champagne in favor of studying her script.

  He’d downed two, the sickly sweet bubbles catching in his throat and then stirring his gut. Nina had never been without a bottle of the stuff, as if perpetually celebrating her schemes. Their schemes. She’d given him his first taste when he was just sixteen, congratulating him on completing his first Bollywood dance class. He wouldn’t be in a picture for another three years, but she’d toasted his every step along the way. Dance classes, acting classes, photo spreads, fashion shows and parties. He’d been waxed, shaved and styled to her every specification.

  Rocky wore no makeup. Her brown hair was pulled into a horsetail. Her T-shirt was long-sleeved and overly large, with the name of an American university emblazoned across the modest chest. She wasn’t the least bit self-conscious, and had grabbed her own bags from the carousel at the Delhi airport.

  Now, in the car, she broke the silence with occasional questions about him, about Taj and their family. He could answer only in generalities. In half-joking warnings and platitudes. The truth was not for her to know. Not when he barely knew it himself.

  The road swiftly became less of one, the paving and lines giving way to dirt and dust. The city became a backdrop to fields and rice paddies and mud-brick houses. The pungent smell of cow dung seeped in even through the rolled-up windows, and Ashraf half-expected Rocky to press a handkerchief to her nose and shudder.

  “This is gorgeous,” she said instead, her voice faint and dreamy. As though she were a million kilometers away. “Sometimes you forget…being in the city…that the real India is outside. Not in high-rise buildings and fancy restaurants.”

  “You mean the poor India?” he translated, glancing out his own window at the dull brown canvas, so devoid of a film set’s glitter and color.