by Prateek Nigam
Prateek’s story is about a bitter, resentful actor who recounts the events that led up to his arrest. Devoid of regret or remorse, he shrugs off blame and maintains innocence, tries to convince the police that he is just like the hero he plays in his films. But all that may matter for him at the end of the day is capturing headlines, because any publicity is good for the business.
No, I don’t need to wait for my lawyer, inspector Wankhede. I can go over what happened. How much time have you got? Because I have nowhere else to be. Tonight that is.
Do we need to be in this room, though? Can we do it in the interrogation room? I have always wanted to see it in person, a naked bulb hanging over my head and all.
Oh, we must do it here? Fine, then.
After how things just clicked between the two of us at the success party of Bezuban last year, inviting Shania back to my place was only natural. You would have done that too.
What? You don’t know who Shania is? She is the girl from that video that went viral last year. The one she shot at my bungalow.
You do not know about Bezuban either? Fuck. Sixty crores in the opening weekend, sir! I am the only non-Khan actor to have pulled that off. Ask your wife. Wives love me; that’s my demographic!
Stop. Wait. No! Don’t just slap me across the face! My fans are not going to like that.
So, ya. Shania Oberoi. I first met her at my office. She had come for an audition. You can just tell by the name she uses, the dream she intends on selling. A smile that could arrest the hearts of millions of boys. Really, sir. Looking at her is like looking at a flame. You could close your eyes and still not stop seeing her face, the bangs carelessly falling over her kohled eyes. But Shania’s not her real name. It’s Shikha. See how ordinary?
No sir, she was not in Bezuban – the silent, she was only at the party. She had signed her first major film, Rajesh Talpade’s Pratishodh – revenge, hardly a month before the party; signed on with me of course – at least I was supposed to be in it back then.
You know Vineeta Mehta, the actress from the eighties?
Yes, disco queen. She wanted to launch her daughter Afreen with me. Do you know how hard it is to get the producers to agree to drop a star kid and cast a nobody like Shania? Without … well, you know what. I had to give up my profit share.
No! I had not demanded any favours from her. How dare you accuse me of that? What happened between Shania and me was consensual. We both wanted it. And it happened just once. So what if I am married? Was married.
Yes, you are right. I did invite her to the party. Only because she had insisted. She wanted to meet the bigwigs. I had no plans of drinking that much or driving her to my place. It all just sort of happened.
You should have seen the way her delicate fingers were wrapped around the sleeve of my jacket all night. She could not just be admiring the fabric of my coat, right? Be it her soft giggles, the sound of her voice that came in airy whispers, that only I was privy to; or the length of her leg intertwining with mine while we sat next to each other at the dinner table… do they all not indicate even the slightest bit of interest in me?
It’s easy to read about it in the papers now and think of me as a creep. But despite what she said, it was only a kiss. Nothing more than that. And what’s a kiss, especially for us actors?
Of course, I initiated it. One of us was going to. What were we doing back at my place at one in the morning otherwise? And as much as she denies it, I can assure you that my advances were favourably returned. We stopped when she wanted to. Because I am a decent man. And that, sir, is something she very cleverly edited out of that video.
Do you know what I find most astonishing amongst everything that happened? Not a single charge was brought against me. It was just a tweet that she sent out. And that was enough for those lathi-wielding shakha men to walk right up to my doorstep, break into my house, and crack open my skull. And none of you uniforms showed up.
I am sure you have seen a video of that. It garnered a hundred thousand views! People liked it, shared it, made memes out of it. Aren’t these are just terrible times that we live in?!
So Neeta has filed for divorce now. Because, why should she not? A philandering husband at the centre of a scandal – not good for her business, she says, or the kids. From what my incompetent lawyer tells me, she might get full custody along with the house. She is there right now, at the bungalow, with our kids, going about her evening like nothing has happened. While I am living like a refugee in a dingy hotel room that is not even in south Bombay! Keeping a low profile – like my publicist had asked me to.
Blew up in his face tonight, didn’t it?
Losing all hope was freedom in some way. #LAHWF, bro! Have you never seen Fight Club? Trust me, it will change your life.
No, I am not in that movie, please. Are you not following?
Okay, watch the face, watch the face! Not the face.
What was I doing tonight, at the premiere of Pratishodh, the same movie I was kicked out from? I am getting to that.
As you can see, I donned the poorest fitting suit that I could find, put on the fake moustache with dark glasses that had been specially made for my look, and slipped into the screening. It’s not hard to enter these things if one knows the right people in the business or their wives, or who they are fucking these days.
I took a seat right behind Shania, and I waited. I waited like a predator. I ate some popcorn. As the opening credits began, I wept.
And all through the screening I just kept thinking about how this was not how it was meant to be! I was hating every minute of it, especially those scenes where I was supposed to make an appearance. I hated who I was then: a mere shadow of myself skulking in the darkness of the theatre, sitting merely a stone’s throw away from Awesome-Star Arvind, who giddily received every cheer, soaked up all the applause from the crowd. It all should have been mine. Sitting by his side, practically in his arms, was Shania, whose tweet spelt doom for my life.
Awesome-Star Arvind is going to marry Shania they say. Well, if you had cared to read the 2017 February issue of Filmfare, of which I was on the cover, you would not ask me why I think Arvind is doing this to me. Do your job, inspector Wankhede!
Arvind has lost three major roles to me in the last three years. He doesn’t have the right look. And to top that, dude just can’t act. Now you tell me, detective, is there not the slightest chance that they hatched this little scheme to destroy my career? If anything you should be arresting the two of them!
I had to do something, I just didn’t know what. You see, Shania and Arvind are playing in the big leagues now. That goon who led the charge against me, he works with the CM. And it got me thinking if I was the only sucker who could not reap anything out of my two videos that went viral. How much of an idiot had I been all along?
I was not going to blow up the theatre. No. Neither was I going to plunge a knife in his or her back. Or put a bullet through their heads. Not that it had not crossed my mind.
I just walked up to them. I peeled my moustache off. I removed my glasses and savoured their discomfort. Their faces contorted in horror. Your macho man Arvind screamed like a girl. Can you believe that? But no one could hear him over the loud, obnoxious item number that was playing. And I just whipped out my dick and irrigated the hell out of those jerks. #Pratishodh, motherfuckers!
You must have seen the video! Half a million retweets already! And it’s been, what, two hours?
His Armani suit with bawdy, fucking stars painted over it, her Gabbana dress which could hardly contain her – all soaking wet as I broke into a peal of hysterical laughter.
So what are you going to charge me with? Assault? Public indecency? File away, inspector Wankhede. Put me in jail already! But I can already tell you, no one is going to be able to stop talking about me for years.
Prateek writes most of his stories sitting in the balcony of his palatial house, overlooking the beach, or so he wishes. He is an engineer by profession, and is a graduate of Bangalore Writers Workshop. His stories have appeared in Spark.
