Seriously, Sitara?

by Nishat Fatima

Genres: General Fiction

Synopsis

Sitara Gopalasundaram ? single, high-minded, just-over thirty, arts editor of Homme magazine, with a mop of uncontrollable hair and no time for Bollywood-types ? is seriously upset. Being commanded to unearth the story behind Bollywood superstud Nasser Khan?s much-talked-about reclusive status following the break-up of his long-standing engagement to a cinematic bimbette is nothing short of a nightmare for someone who can?t quite tell her Khans apart. Things get worse as what she had hoped would be a one-time, never-again, meeting turns out to be the first of a series of strange encounters, as fate keeps throwing her back into the arms of Bollywood?s reigning pin-up boy. Blown away by the high-octane world of showbiz, Sitara still thinks she can get her life back to its normal humdrum routine. Seriously?

Release date: May 20, 2013

Publisher: Hachette India

Print pages: 225

Sample

How did Amma stand it?

Hadn’t he complained enough to the hotel that they stop this fragrance attack? Wasn’t he a big enough Khan to be taken seriously?

Nasser Khan walked into the hotel lobby, past a central table with an enormous flower arrangement – its natural perfume smothered by essential oil burners and the overpowering fragrance of jasmine – and controlled the urge to wrinkle his nose. Somebody would take a photo and the newspapers would be full of stories about ‘Nasser Khan ko gussa kyon aata hai’. Though this time, they would be bang on. Nasser Khan was indeed angry. His current director had no concept of time. Now he was only, what, almost three hours late for his interview. And Nasser hated being late.

He didn’t mind doing a scene a hundred times to get it right, but one had to get some perspective. Two continuity shots did not need him to give 200 per cent. Two hundred times. Almost.

There was no getting through this lobby quickly – when your mother and your best friend worked in the same hotel, you knew a lot of people whether you wanted to or not. And he wasn’t counting those who wanted an autograph, a photograph or both.

Suresh – his spotboy, Man Friday and presently holder of all three of his phones – weakly tried to gain his attention: ‘Sir, Anjali madam ka phone…’

Nasser let a posse of fans gain his attention without replying. He had nothing new to say to Anjali. He signed autographs unhurriedly – he mustn’t appear rushed – and posed for photographs, ignoring the pained expression of his spotboy. He blew a kiss to the two teenaged girls who had just taken a picture with him and smiled at their excited squeals. A tall, dark, elegantly suited, hirsute man emerged from behind the girls and blew a kiss back at him…

Another assault on his senses.

‘When will you get rid of that fungus?’ Nasser asked as the man came to a stop in front of him.

‘This symbol of my virility and manhood?’ Shivraj Thakru ran a hand down the closely trimmed beard that covered his cheeks and merged into his moustache. ‘Never. The chicks love it.’

‘Yes, the chicken does sort of stick to it.’

‘That’s just pathetic. Even a four-year-old would be ashamed,’ Shiv told him severely. ‘This is exactly what I’ve been telling you. Your all-work attitude is killing the few brain cells you have left.’

‘Are you accusing me of not playing?’

Shiv snorted. ‘Please. Take your mind out of the gutter. Anyway, even then you would probably lie back and think of your next scene.’

‘How dare you! I don’t micromanage – I think of the movie as a whole.’

Shiv rose to the bait beautifully. ‘You should’ – the gleam in Nasser’s eyes registered – ‘be ashamed of trying to wind up your best friend.’

‘How can I resist? You’re so easy. And you still need to get rid of the facial growth.’ After thirty fuzz-free years, Shiv had suspiciously become an aficionado overnight. ‘Or you can tell me why you are growing it.’

‘I’m a man. What other reason do you need?’

Shiv was definitely holding out on something. He had shuffled his feet, a sure sign that a person was lying according to today’s informed opinion in the highest-selling national daily. Plus there were Nasser’s own suspicions.

‘Admit it,’ Shiv continued. ‘You have hair envy. That’s what happens when you spend your life waxing your chest.’

‘My waxed chest is the recipient of hundreds of women who fling themselves at it. I don’t need to be envious of your hair.’ Nasser skirted an overdressed arrangement of sofas and started towards the bank of elevators.

Shiv strolled alongside. ‘You’re going against your biological imperative. That’s why you’re reacting so strongly to my magnificence.’

‘And not because you look like a particularly slimy drug dealer?’

‘No drug dealer looks slimy anymore. They look like cool dudes. People whose style statements we need to follow. Especially you.’ Shiv gave Nasser’s outfit a disdainful glance. Shiv had been trying – and failing – to get him to upgrade the jeans-and-T-shirt combo he’d lived in all his adult life.

‘To quote somebody, I’m a man. And a big enough star not to need to make style statements.’

‘Dude! That’s so not metrosexual of you. Don’t let any woman hear you. You’ll lose your fan following.’

Nasser gave him an incredulous look. ‘Are you accusing my fans of being interested in my feminist leanings? What do you think my waxed chest is for?’

‘You poor thing,’ Shiv commiserated, but his gaze was unexpectedly searching. ‘Did I hear an undertone of unhappiness at being objectified? Do you want people to look beyond your chest? Does that mean you’re going to keep it under wraps from now on?’

‘Yeah, I’ve decided I’ll only leave the top three buttons open in my next movie. Tantalize them with glimpses of it. I could even grow some hair.’

Shiv considered the statement before replying. ‘That’s actually quite disgusting, you know. In fact, this entire conversation smacks of a certain lack of intellectualism.’

‘Not at all. I think the changing definition of masculinity and masculine appeal in the twenty-first century is a very intellectual discussion. It’s something everybody should be talking about.’

An uneasy silence fell between them. ‘Or we could talk about your prankster,’ Nasser said.

There was a relieved sigh from Shiv. ‘Good choice.’

‘Good choice? How come? Didn’t he unscrew all the handles to the cutlery drawers at your Sunday brunch? People clamouring for knives and forks all around and your sous-chefs became washing staff?’

Shiv shuddered at the memory. Then he pulled himself together. ‘Yeah, but the good thing is that he’s going department by department. I’m betting it’s Housekeeping next. Your mom thinks Reservations.’

‘It’s Reservations then.’ Nasser came to a halt in front of the lifts and nodded at Suresh to call the elevator.

Shiv threw up his hands. ‘Dude! Can’t you call the lift yourself?’



Sitara glared at the road ahead. The sliver of sea shining on the horizon through the taxi’s dusty windshield was blinding and the approaching edifice of Bandra’s most star-friendly hotel just a dark smudge. The day matched her mood – steaming.

Good and mood weren’t words that would be strung together to refer to Sitara Gopalasundaram for a while. Not after last night’s fiasco. Actually, all of yesterday sucked big time. Between her jerk of a boss and Mr Ineligible from the previous evening, it had been a day from hell. And here she was, on a manic taxi ride to an assignment that was most likely the beginning of the end. She wasn’t sure the end of what yet, but she was guessing things like happiness and peace at work.

All because of her editor. Debashish Bose was a man with a singular mission: to make life as difficult as possible for those who worked under him. Sometimes he picked them off one by one; sometimes, it was more genocidal. Sitara had a feeling yesterday’s meeting was a lead-in to the latter but for the moment, all she could say with any certainty was that he had her, the most-often ignored arts person, in his sights.

Debashish’s particular genius lay in turning colleagues into enemies, because one person’s good fortune was always at another’s expense. He had a sixth sense when it came to picking the points that really hurt. And he had certainly picked her off yesterday.

The memory of his smile rose in her memory, and Sitara shuddered. The smile was a sight to behold – two perfect rows of shiny white teeth that had been some orthodontist’s down payment for a new car; probably a Merc. It wasn’t a familiar sight, usually flashed only at people higher up in the food chain or pretty interns (and they were all pretty, even the men). The only time the team got to see his pearly whites was when he was delivering bad news. And they had been the first thing she’d seen when she’d answered his summons.

Dread had immediately settled in her gut. It had taken resolve to not make an excuse of illness and flee.

‘HQ’s very impressed with your features,’ her editor, extremely ordinaire, had fired his opening salvo.

‘Uh.’ Sitara had played it safe.

‘Yes. A couple of editions want to syndicate your last month’s art story.’

‘Oh.’ She had continued in the same vein.

‘HQ thinks your style is exactly what Homme’s writing should be about.’

‘Uh huh.’

‘Please, enough. Your response is overwhelming.’ Debashish had a nice line in sarcasm. He got enough practice. The smile had completely disappeared by now, and the shadow of a line had appeared on his brow, signalling his displeasure. Last month, it would have been a deep frown. But then he’d walked into the art department to check pages and had been treated to a zoomed-in version of his deeply furrowed brow being airbrushed on Photoshop. His shock and horror, mimicked by one gifted member of the design team, had been the entertainment mainstay of the office for weeks. Not twenty minutes later, his assistant Canice Mascerenhas had furtively asked the grooming writer for the phone number of a dermatologist renowned for her Botox expertise.

Sitara wondered whether Debashish knew Martin had given his design team instructions to have that image at the ready if Debashish were ever in the vicinity. She had muttered something she hoped could be interpreted as enthusiastic and watched him banish the annoyance as he leaned forward at his desk and steepled his fingers, his patented unfathomable look in place. It was an expression he knew looked good on his already attractive face. Interns practically drooled when he used it on them, which he did fairly often.

How could anybody be such a git? A superior, interfering, womanizing, lazy-assed, incompetent, psycho git at that. And what trick of fate had seen fit to hand him looks, smarm and the ability to string sentences together acceptably so he’d landed the rather prestigious position as editor of the Indian edition of international men’s magazine Homme?

‘There is a feeling that we are limiting your talent…’ he had continued, ‘…that we should give you room to expand. Spread your wings. Do bigger, more important stories.’

‘A cover story on art?’ This was…exciting. She’d never have thought it of him.

‘No, no. We are talking about bigger things here.’

‘Bigger than a cover story?’

‘No. The cover story!’

Sitara ran a hand through her curls. ‘Okay. I’m totally confused. What are you saying?’

‘They want you to do the cover story,’ he enunciated slowly.

‘So when I said cover story…’

‘Art is not a cover story,’ Debashish said coldly. ‘Art does not sell magazines. You should know that by now.’

Sitara wondered whether having his Hermès paperweight make forceful contact with his face would alter Debashish’s worldview a little.

‘We’re talking Bollywood.’ Debashish smiled. ‘You’re going to interview Nasser Khan.’

It was diabolic. In one corner of her brain, Sitara even appreciated his deviousness. With one stroke he had put her in territory she hated, made her unpopular with half the team, awarded himself the advantage in his ongoing war with Mukul and hit Mukul where it hurt most. ‘But…’ Sitara had been beyond concealing her shock.

‘Yes?’ Debashish looked like he’d lapped up a bowlful of cream.

‘But Mukul…’ Sitara groped for the words – will kill me for entering his territory, for taking his interview, for doing the cover story, for getting Nasser Khan – and settled rather weakly on – ‘He’s spent so much time setting it up.’

That much was true. Nasser Khan, the biggest Khan on the block after the original triumvirate, had turned media-shy. It was at about the same time as the break-up of a long and public engagement with actress Richa Bali and it had been a hard slog to get him to agree to the interview. As features director, Mukul Sinha had pulled every string he had. And had only gloated about it, oh, a million times.

‘Yes. But he has set it up for the magazine,’ Debashish said grandly. ‘And as long as the magazine gets the interview, it doesn’t matter who does it. We are a team. This magazine is not about personal glory.’

Who did he think he was kidding? Mukul demanded ‘With Inputs From’ when he got anybody in the office so much as a quote. And he got them the quotes in the first place because he refused to part with the contact numbers of any of his precious stars.

And this was the man from whom Debashish was snatching the one interview everybody in the media would kill for. The interview in which Nasser Khan was going to break eighteen months of silence.

Mukul would tandoor her. After chopping her into tiny pieces, of course. With a blunt knife.



Sitara shuddered, and then realized it hadn’t only been at the memory. Her taxi driver had taken her ‘Drive Fast’ edict to heart and was speeding in a manner that could soon require her to find a brown bag.

She could have done with a brown bag last evening, too, when the ‘oh-so-eligible’ suitor her aunt had set her up with had asked her what her favourite bits about sex were, suggested ‘oral’ before she could utter a word, and looked at her expectantly.

How could she have just gone back into the living room without a word? Sitara still couldn’t forgive herself for not unleashing her inner Lorena Bobbitt and cutting him down to size. Instead she’d meekly gone and sat down next to her aunt. What a wuss she was turning out to be!

And then she’d had to listen to his mother.

‘…trying to marry her off for years, no? And she lives alone here in Mumbai.’ The woman might as well have said in this city of sin. She had made no attempt to hide her disapproval of Sitara all evening. ‘Wears sleeveless, no doubt. How old is she? Thirty? It doesn’t show on her face. Yet. But she’s getting on…’

Her aunt, Kamala Chithi, had placed a restraining hand on her arm.

‘We are the same age, Amma,’ the sleazoid had followed her in. ‘And I think it’s great that she’s already so Westernized. She’ll fit in perfectly in the US.’

Sitara could have laughed as the gloom became doom on his mother’s face. She had almost told her that it would be a cold day in hell before she married her son. Almost.

The sleazoid was talking again. ‘And I would love to take this further. I hope I will be able to meet Sitara again.’

‘N–’

‘Of course,’ Kamala Chithi’s voice drowned hers. ‘I will talk about this with her parents and we will stay in touch.’

‘I d–’ Sitara began again and found herself the focus of her aunt’s gimlet stare, honed over years of practice.

‘We will do this through the proper channels,’ her aunt had continued. Proper channels! She would–

Sitara was jolted out of her brooding when the taxi driver came to a screeching halt in front of the hotel. In front of the hotel! Blast and damn! She had reached the hotel! Without reading a single interview. Oh no, oh no, oh no.

What was she going to ask him? Her cousin Kadam’s panting fandom – his chest! his gaze! his smile! – pretty much summed up all she knew about the actor. That and the fact that his father had been a cinematographer sometime in the 60s or 70s.

Which, on second thoughts, was more than enough, Sitara decided, as she walked into the lobby of Bollywood’s favourite hotel.

The smell of jasmine assaulted her senses at the same moment that her gaze registered the tonnes of gilt and the reproduction French vibe of the place. Oh god! Sitara hurriedly jabbed at the lift buttons. She didn’t need anything further to make her sick. Her interview was going to be enough.



‘What did you say about the halwe ke puris?’ Nasser’s outrage was writ large as he turned to Shiv.

‘Your mom got me some.’

‘She didn’t make enough to give you some,’ Nasser said darkly. ‘Those were all supposed to be for me. I’m supposed to take them with me to Italy. Did she–’

‘Please don’t say these things out loud. Nobody will believe you’re a well-travelled superstar if you carry food with you every time you go abroad. Next you’ll be packing pickle and MTR meals to take with you.’

Nasser felt his eyes shift before he could stop them. He focused his gaze back as squarely as he could on his friend. Maybe Shiv had missed the earlier telltale movement. No such luck.

‘Oh my god, you were!’ And Shiv was off and running about his favourite subject. Also his work. As F&B manager he had strong opinions about food and, unfortunately for Nasser, he voiced them freely.

‘It’s people like you who give India a bad name. Can’t you lose a bet like a man? I’ve picked a cooking course in Tuscany, not Japan or China. You can survive four paltry weeks without Indian food. Packaged food! My god.’ He stopped to take a breath. ‘Just immerse yourself in the cuisine, embrace the flavours. Ready-to-eat meals? Honestly? Next you’ll be searching out Indian restaurants in Tuscany.’

Since he had done exactly that last night, and had the printout in his suitcase, Nasser struggled not to hunch his shoulders. Why should he apologize for his tastes anyway? He tried to stare Shiv down, and he hated that there was a hint of apology in his voice. ‘You’ve never been away for long schedules. You don’t know of the yearning for masala…’

Shiv flung an arm out dramatically. ‘Masala. This is too much. I am putting my foot down. No friend of mine will sully the land of parmesan with pickle. Ready-made meals in the land of slow cooking! Can you imagine how badly this would reflect on me?’

Nasser looked at his friend for a moment. ‘Uh. I know a really good counsellor – I think you should see her about your megalomaniac issues.’

Shiv opened his mouth to retort, and froze. Nasser turned around to see what the matter was and found himself in a Matrix moment; only it wasn’t bullets making their way towards him in slow motion, it was the contents of a can of cola.

His senses were extra sharp, and they registered every small detail: the collective gasp, the stunned expressions, the cell phones that were being turned in his direction to capture the moment, the soft sounds of footsteps walking away from him, the steady drip down his face.

Then everything went into fast-forward; unlike Keanu Reeves, however, he wasn’t kicking butt – if anything, his was the butt that had just been kicked. Nasser stared blankly for a moment at the retreating figure of his former fiancée before he regained his senses and thought of damage control.

The first step was to stop standing in front of the open-mouthed crowd while dripping cola. He pivoted and punched the button for the lift, earning himself a disappointed look from the hapless Suresh. He almost flung himself in, well onto the side, pushing the buttons to close the doors immediately.

A few drops delicately spattered off his eyelashes.

Nasser wiped his face and tried to make sense of what had just happened. Had he missed the bulletin about Richa going around hotel lobbies throwing things in people’s faces? And surely it was too much to believe that his former fiancée had lost her temper a year and a half after they had broken up.

After you dumped her, an inner voice corrected him.

His manager Anjali Rane opened the door before Suresh could ring the bell. Nasser had a feeling she’d spent a fair amount of the evening wrenching that door open at random intervals, hoping to find him on the other side. His suspicion was confirmed by the look of surprise on her face. An aggrieved look replaced it in the blink of an eye.

‘Why haven’t you answered…?’ She got a good look at his face – his dripping face, to be precise – and the cloud of grim that nimbused around him. ‘Wha…?’

He had finally managed to render Anjali speechless.

‘Get some clothes sent up from the car, will you? Immediately,’ He strode past her into the suite.

‘But what happened? Why haven’t you answered a single phone call? Do you know how long this reporter has been waiting?’ Anjali had recovered.

Nasser didn’t bother to answer as he walked away in the opposite direction towards the bedroom.

Anjali followed him. ‘What is wrong with you?’ her voice climbing with each word.

Nasser faced her in the bedroom’s doorway. ‘Besides darling Richa who has just thrown some drink in my face in front of half of Mumbai and a moron director who can’t make up his mind about how he’d like two simple shots, nothing much. Now, can I get my clothes? Ask Suresh to leave them on the bed.’

‘But, wait…’ Anjali began urgently.

The door shut in her face. She heard the lock click in place.



Three and a half hours ago Sitara had been upset because she was late and hadn’t done her research. Her relief at learning that her subject was running late – even if the notification had emerged from the inferiority-inducing vision half her size in linen pants and a nautical striped T-shirt, aka Nasser’s manager Anjali Rane – had been overwhelming. She had been asked to wait in his room and told that he’d be up shortly.

Two hours ago, when she’d finished reading all his interviews, writing her questions and listing them out alphabetically, she’d started to get a little angry.

An hour ago she’d been furious.

But in the last hour, the anger had slowly been replaced by the certainty that she was going to die of boredom. So she’d done what any sane woman would do in the circumstances – she’d retired to the loo to play with some make-up.

She should have stuck to death by boredom.

Sitara stared glumly at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Green was just not her colour. Especially when it appeared in a big fat smear down the front of her T-shirt. She must be the only woman whose eyeshadow stick would fall on her person. Hundreds – no, millions – would drop theirs straight onto the floor.

It wasn’t that Sitara was clumsy. Accident prone was more accurate. Things happened to her. Around her. Things that were usually embarrassing. For her, and for those around her.

She looked at herself again. Smear was an imprecise understatement. She now had a diffused, wet patch of green from where she had used water to try and get it out. Unsuccessfully.

Okay, she couldn’t stand around dismayed. Action was required. Sitara whipped off her shirt and washed out the offending part with soap and water till the green had disappeared.

A door shut outside. A phone rang. Somebody answered. Somebody male. Eff, eff, and eff. He had arrived.

A thought made Sitara drop the shirt in the sink and lunge to the door to check that it was locked. It was. Thank god.

How was she going to dry her top now? There was no disguising the sound of th. . .