Vimala was hunched over her desk, her pencil running over a large white sheet of paper in the rough, scribbled shape of a human head. The torso came down in angle to rest agains the side of a table…no, too much angle. He looked like he was about to tip over. She exhaled from her mouth, running an eraser vigorously across the torso line.
Her eyes were lined, the skin on her face drawn from exhaustion and lack of sleep. Last night she’d only gotten maybe three disturbed hours of it, though not for lack of trying. A thin patina of sweat covered her face, but she couldn’t turn on the ceiling fan; the paper would keep fluttering. She put the pencil to paper again, began drawing. Light strokes, nothing permanent. For all she knew, they’d scrap half of these papers tomorrow when they actually got down to shooting. Nothing permanent.
She briefly glanced up at the clock. 7 PM Sunday. Christ, didn’t I start at 6 in the morning? She closed her eyes for a few moments, trying to breathe a little slower, deeper. Fucking Dion Productions. Fucking Surya and Nandan, fuck those guys. I’m a screenwriter, not a damn storyboard artist—
No, stop it, stop it! I signed up for this. They told me even before I signed the contract that I’d be doing lots of extra jobs. It’s a shoestring budget, what did I expect? They’re no studio!
A shoestring budget I paid nearly half of.
Vimala opened her eyes, and she realised she was gritting her teeth. She desultorily opened her drawer, saw her chequebook lying amidst a clutter of stationery. She picked it up, flipping the cover to the list of transactions. Her eyes stopped at the third and last entry, the payee’s name. Dion Productions. The number she saw right next to it churned her stomach. Rs. 3,40,000. Her thumb ran across the number, once, twice. Maybe, just maybe it would disappear. Erased from the chequebook and back in her account.
I can’t make my baby without this. It’s an investment. Once I finish…
Once I finish, I’ll be that one rube who paid for the pilot episode all by herself. The cheque’s been cashed already, the least I can do is not be deluded about my own finances.
Vimala cracked a wan smile. She’d always thought it a blessing that Sundar never bothered getting involved with their bank accounts and credit. Now she was dubious of her own ability to be rational with them. You need just one guy to steer a ship, but without another one to warn you of icebergs in your path…
Vimala shook her head, stepping out of a trance. She tossed the chequebook back inside, slamming the drawer shut. There was no time for this. She had to finish these damn storyboards. Drawing was such a bloody drag—
There was a knock on her door. The door slowly opened, and Kalpana stepped inside, her expression almost apologetic. She had a plate in her hand.
“Hi Mummy,” she said. “You’ve been sitting in here forever. Figured you’d be hungry, so…” She handed Vimala the plate.
“What’s this?”
“Cheese and vegetable sandwiches,” she said. “Grilled. And I added some other stuff, try to guess what it is.”
“You made these?” Vimala said, taking a bite. “Baby, it’s so good. Is that pesto sauce?” Kalpana nodded, and it was exactly how she used to do it when she was five. Vimala was overcome with an emotion she couldn’t explain, reaching forward and hugging her daughter tightly.
Kalpana had a bemused smile on her face. “Didn’t realise you liked pesto that much,” she said, hugging her back. She looked down at Vimala. “You were in here all day, you barely ate anything. So I thought I’d make you something.” Her smile was wry, even a little sad.
“I’m sorry, Kalpu,” Vimala said, sighing as she held her daughter’s hand. “I’ve been so busy with this new series. We don’t have a major studio backing us, so I have to fill a lot of shoes to keep things moving.” She pulled Kalpana toward herself, making her sit on her lap.
“Mum, I’m not 10,” Kalpana said with a small laugh.
“You’ll always be that adorable little baby with pig-tails and a mushroom nose to me, Kalpu. No matter how big you get.” Vimala leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek.
“Mushroom nose?” Kalpana turned to look at her mother. “Thanks, mom.” Her head swung to the table where sheets of paper lay in different piles and her laptop on one corner. Her eyes immediately fell on the drawings.
“Why do you make these?” Kalpana said. “Don’t you have scripts?”
“Usually we don’t bother with storyboards,” Vimala said, some of the lines returning to her face. “Not in such small shows. But this is different. I’m putting a lot of thought into how we block a scene. Having these drawing helps the cinematographer figure out how to place the camera.”
“So what’s the director’s job, then?”
“He’s handling all sorts of things on the shoot. He’s telling the actors and cameraman what to do. These are just for the important scenes. You can’t afford to get into those without planning.”
Kalpana rolled her eyes. “Films are only fun on screen, clearly.”
Vimala smiled wryly. “I wouldn’t say that. But they aren’t easy to make, I’ll tell you that. If you want to do a good job, that is.” Both of them chuckled at that.
As Kalpana got up, her phone rang in her pocket. As she took it out, Vimala said, “Someone’s phone has been awfully busy these past few days.”
“What? No, nothing like that,” Kalpana said a little too quickly. “It’s nothing.” She looked down at her phone again. “It’s…Divya calling. I’ll just take this.” She hurried out of the room.
Vimala was just about to turn back to her storyboard sheet when the doorbell rang. She heard Kalpana opening the door and talking to someone, though she couldn’t hear what they were saying. Footsteps approached, and Kalpana stuck her head inside the room.
“Mummy, it’s some guy called Faizal,” she said. “Says he used to work with you.”
Vimala frowned, taking a second to process the information. Kalpana was already gone. She rose, going to the front door.
When she opened it, she saw Faizal standing there, a small plastic bag in his hand.
“Hi,” she said, the surprise evident in her voice.
“Hey,” he said, an awkward smile on his face. For a moment they just stood there.
“Oh, um, come in,” she said finally, as if breaking out of a trance. “Please, come on in.”
Faizal stepped inside, following her to the living room. Vimala gestured for him to sit.
“Oh, and this is for you,” Faizal said, taking out a small box from the bag, handing it to her. “You should try these. It’s literally a crime to share them with anyone else, but I’m taking a chance this time.”
She chuckled. “What’s all this for? Why the sudden visit?”
“I just…” his eyes shifted away from her, unfocussed. “I was hoping we could talk. You know, about things. Sorry, is this a bad time? I just kind of dropped in.”
“Oh, you know, I was just getting done with some work. It’s fine.” Even she could tell how feeble that sounded. Stop being a prick, Vimala. Take a break. “Hey, you want something to drink? Some snacks?”
“Just water, thanks,” Faizal said, sitting down.
She hurried to the kitchen, grabbing a glass and filling it with water, placing a few cookies and some ambodes on a small plate. She took them back to the living room, placing them on the small coffee table.
“Yeah, that’s definitely not just water,” Faizal said with a wry smile. He looked at the snacks. “Vada and cookies? That looks like an identity crisis on a plate.”
“Shut up and eat it,” Vimala said, smirking. “And it’s ambode. Not vada, you illiterate.”
“There’s the Vimala we know and love.”
“So what are these ‘things’ you wanted to talk about?” she said, crossing one leg over the other.
Faizal nodded, and his head dropped. He sighed audibly.
“Okay,” he said, moving to the edge of his seat as he met Vimala’s eyes again. “Before I say anything, I want you to know that I’m not here to ask you for a job or anything like that. I swear to you, my intention is only to talk to you and tell you how I feel, because of all people you deserve to know. And I would feel immensely shitty if you thought I was coming here to ask you for something, which I absolutely am not. Okay?”
Vimala was silent, studying him with a curious gaze. She nodded in response.
“I’m just going to admit it, Vimala,” Faizal said. “The show’s kind of keeled over since you left. I mean, I know it was getting cancelled anyway, but it’s…it’s gotten really bad. It’s a real shitstorm in the office, no one knows what’s going on. Most of them don’t care, with the cancellation and everything, but I can’t help but think what it’s going to be like in future shows.”
“What do you mean?” Vimala said.
“It’s those producers, Vimala. Not Prakash, I mean the executives. They’re getting paranoid now that one show’s in the bin. We had a meeting yesterday, and all they seemed to be interested in is cutting things from the existing shows, tightening schedules. Romesh and I are stretched over two shows at this point, and with you gone it’s just the two of us. How the hell am I supposed to write that fast? What kind of plot am I supposed to come with at that rate?”
“Tell Quentin Tarantino to figure it out for you,” she said.
“Don’t even get me started on Romesh,” Faizal said, unconcerned with hiding his distaste. “He knows he’s an asshat, and he revels in it. When I tried to talk to the higher-ups about all these budget cuts, he didn’t even bother to support me.”
“You knew what kind of guy he was when you decided to back him in shooting my ideas down,” Vimala said, not breaking eye contact with him.
“Vimala, come on, man. Don’t act like you really thought those outlandish storylines would ever get greenlighted. It’s like you were doing it just to piss them off. You were wasting time.”
“Nice that you took the trouble of coming all the way to my house to tell me this,” she said. She turned away from him, crossing her arms and leaning back in her couch.
Faizal grimaced. “Vimala, look, I’m sorry, okay? That’s why I came here. To apologise. I’m really sorry for the things I’ve said to you that may have hurt you. For everything. I will say this—we had a job to stick to a budget and you kept trying to break it like a petulant child, and it was kind of my job to hold you back—“
“I’m really loving this apology,” Vimala said, raising her eyebrows.
“But—I’m not done yet—but, you were that show, Vim. You’re one of the best screenwriters I’ve ever worked with. I don’t care what Romesh says about you, you made that show what it was. And for the record, I really did like most of your ideas. I just couldn’t agree to them, that’s all.”
“Romesh always was a prick, wasn’t he?” she said.
“Yeah, he was—is.”
He was silent for several moments, shaking his head, his eyes roving the ceiling. He wore an expression of begrudging transparency, clearly reluctant to be so forthcoming. But she could tell there was no hint of deception there. She could always tell with Faizal.
When she didn’t respond, he looked at her to see a small smirk on her face.
“Oh yeah,” he said dryly. “Go ahead. Gloat. Like I care.”
“I’m not gloating,” Vimala said softly. She hadn’t lost her smirk, though.
A long silence filled the empty seconds that ticked by.
“You really feel that way?” Vimala regarded him with eyes that were wary of—almost searching—for some kind of falsehood. Or that this was all some elaborate prank he was trying to pull on her. It was ridiculous, she knew, but she couldn’t help it.
“Yes. You’re the last person I’d bare my heart out to if it wasn’t absolutely necessary.”
She snorted.
“Thank you, Faizal,” she said with a soft smile. “For the record, I want you to know that you were one of the few people in the office I actually liked. One of three, to be exact.”
He gave her an amused grin, but his eyes betrayed a silent warmth.
“I’m deeply honoured,” he said.
“So, what’s the plan now?”
Faizal shrugged. “Was there ever one?” He fixed her with a sharp look. “You look like you haven’t slept in days. What have you been doing since you quit?”
“Since I got fired? Well, one of the scripts I’d been writing on the side got approved by this small production house. They want to approach Netflix and Amazon with this. We’re going to start shooting the pilot episode tomorrow.”
Faizal looked dumbfounded. “Wait, what?”
Vimala buffed her nails against her shirt, blowing on them. “All in a day’s work,” she beamed, chuckling.
“Holy shit, Vim, that’s amazing!” He looked genuinely excited. “Dude, I’m so happy for you. That’s great! How did it happen so quickly, though?”
“Thank Prakash for that. He sent the script to a bunch of different studios and producers. Have you heard of Dion Productions?”
Faizal frowned, thinking. “Can’t say that I have. What kind of name is that?”
“I think it’s meant to be Dionysus. You know, the Greek god of theatre.”
“And booze,” he said. “And orgies. Hmm, I like it.”
“Shut up.”
Faizal glanced at his watch. “Oh, damn, I need to get going. It’s pretty late.” He rose, smoothing down his shirt as Vimala walked him toward the door.
“And again, congratulations on the whole webseries thing. Send me the script if you can, sometime.”
“Of course,” Vimala said with a smile. “I’ll send it tonight itself. Oh, and thanks for coming by. I’m really glad we got to have this talk.”
“Me too,” he said, nodding. “Me too. It had been kind of weighing on me for some time. It wouldn’t have been right not to.”
They shook hands, and as Faizal turned and stepped out of the doorway, he stopped.
“Vimala, if you ever feel like you need a writer for something you’re working on, give me call. I’d definitely…consider it.”
She was silent as he sat on the stool outside, putting on his shoes. She was unconsciously running a fingernail along the wood grain of the door, eyes looking in his direction but unfocussed. She felt time was moving much too quickly for her to think. He’d already worn his first shoe. Now he was tying the lace on the second one. He was getting up to leave…
“Faizal,” she blurted. He turned to face her with a questioning look. She thought for a moment longer. She could still dismiss the thought, say it’s nothing. It wouldn’t even sound odd. Or would it?
Fuck it.
“Can you be here at 8:30 in the morning tomorrow? That’s when I’m leaving.”
He frowned. “But I’m going to the office tomorrow.”
“I know,” she said with half a smile. “Consider it.”
*
“Just leave the sign that says ‘Clean my room’ on the door when you’re going out,” Sandhya said, toying with a key bunch as she spoke over the phone. “The hotel guys will come and tidy up.”
She listened for a few seconds, her eyes rolling as she sat back in the car seat.
“Ma, they’re not going to steal your stuff, they’ll be held accountable for it if they do.” She paused, gritting her teeth. “Can you please stop acting like you’ve never stayed at a hotel before? Yes, there are cameras in the corridors. Not in the rooms, just the corridors. What do you have that they’ll be interested in stealing, anyway?”
After another several moments of silence, she spoke. “You’re staying there one night. I don’t even know why you need to get your room cleaned. Okay, I need to get going, Ma. I’ll call you in the evening. Okay? Bye, love you.”
Sandhya’s eyes widened in frustration as she ended the call.
“My mother has got to be the most paranoid woman in the world,” she said, shaking her head, then turning to face Sundar.
“Why is she even staying at a hotel?” he said with a small frown. “Dharmasthala’s not that far away.”
“Let’s just say she’s super-easy to convince,” Sandhya said, suppressing a smile. “And I thought it would be nice to have an empty to house for a day.”
“Oh.” Sundar’s voice was low, unsure. He fiddled with his car keys, the soft jangling sound breaking the silence. His hands were clammy and restless, and the keys felt slick in his palm.
“Let’s go,” Sandhya said, stepping out of the car.
Sundar’s hand lingered on the handle for a moment. This was the same car he’d started teaching Kalpana driving in barely two months ago. Vimala hated the very idea of it, but her daughter had prevailed over her. Kalpana had promised them that once she’d gotten really good, she’d take them both on a trip to Mysore and drive every last inch of the way herself.
“Not before you get your license, silly girl,” Vimala had said.
“Of course, mummy, how could I ever disobey you?” Kalpana said, wrapping her mother in her arms and kissing her cheek.
Sundar’s eyes regained focus, and he realised he’d let his fingers go limp under the car door handle, the tips white from the light pressure. He opened the door and stepped out into the late afternoon sun, stretching his back. Sandhya was standing a short distance away, fixing him with a curious stare, the ghost of a smile on her lips. In a moment of disconcerting clarity, he knew she understood. There was nothing threatening about the look in her eyes, nothing poisonous. There was a perverse comfort Sundar felt in knowing that she could understand what was going on inside of him.
She didn’t say anything when he came up to her, just took his hand in hers and walked with him towards her house.
The quiet residential street had hardly anyone populating it now. Judging by the look of the small, two-storey houses on either side of the road, Sundar guessed it was an old neighbourhood, with mostly senior citizens living there.
That would explain the unnatural stillness on a weekday afternoon.
He felt an acute discomfort at that thought, as though he were being watched. It felt too quiet, too sleepy for such a central neighbourhood in the city. He was keenly aware of the sounds of vehicles plying the nearby streets, the occasional car honk. A gate creaked open, a man stepped out of his compound. Sundar stiffened, and he tried to disengage himself from her grip, but Sandhya held fast, moving closer to him. He clenched his teeth, praying that the man wouldn’t look his way.
She stopped at one of the houses, a quaint-looking place with soft blue paint and small windows that made it look as though it were gaping wide-eyed at the street. Sandhya opened the door and went inside, and Sundar followed.
It was a simple house, modestly furnished, with a profusion of God photos and little brass idols.
What a mockery she’s made of this devotion, he thought bitterly. You do have a sense of humour, Sandhya, however dark.
“I’m just going to get changed,” she said, making him look up at her. She flashed him a naughty smile. “Want to join?”
He didn’t reply, lowering himself down on the couch. She snickered softly, bounding up the stairs and shutting a door.
He let out a long breath through his nose, staring at the small flatscreen TV in front of him. He could see himself in its shiny black surface, an unmemorable middle-aged man, by all counts a professor of English literature and nothing more. A man you’d pass by on the street and never notice.
Why me? What caught her fancy when she saw…this? The sort of man you forget about once leaves the class when the bell rings. What am I to her?
He’d believed he knew himself before then. Who he was, what he was capable of, and…what he wasn’t. This wasn’t him. It couldn’t be. There couldn’t be things he didn’t know about himself after 43 years. For the last 19 years, he’d been a family man; that’s all he was ever supposed to be. All he ever could be.
But then this girl appeared, and she…desired him. There was no explanation he could possibly conceive of to explain it, yet she did all the same. She was less than half his age, hardly much older than his own daughter. The very thought churned his stomach. He was frozen within that TV, staring at himself as if through the glass in a museum, a wholly unassuming, ordinary exhibit. Until you went closer. Then the cracks became visible, the grotesque mind that twisted and writhed inside. Oh god, how he hated himself.
She came to me.
He tried to push the thought away. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t, he couldn’t succumb to it.
But she did. I never sought her out, did I? She came to me. She wants me. How can I control that?
But it wasn’t normal. It was wrong…
He felt two hands cover his eyes, and he started. He felt Sandhya’s presence very close to him, her cheek brushing against his ear.
“Close your eyes,” she whispered. Her hands slowly lifted from his face. “Keep them closed, no peeking.”
He heard her moving next to him, then felt her arms around his neck. “Now you can look.”
He opened his eyes, looking at the little table in front of him. A bottle filled with amber liquid sat on it, the glass in an intricate pattern so the whole thing sparkled, mottling the table with a soft, honey-coloured light.
“Sandhya, is that scotch?” he said, frowning as he studied the bottle.
She nuzzled close to him, kissing his neck. “I thought we could make our first date special.”
He reached forward to take the bottle, examining it. “Sandhya, how much did this cost?”
She made a show of looking upset. “Sundar, can we please not talk about money right now?” She took the bottle from him and put it back on the table, climbing on the sofa and curling up next to him. “It’s not like I splurge on useless stuff everyday, okay? Just…let’s enjoy this one, now that it’s only the two of us. Finally.”
He slowly put his arm around her, a little awkward at first. His eyes were still on the bottle, a troubled expression creasing his forehead.
“I’m going to get us glasses,” she said after a minute. She gently wriggled out from under his arm, going to the kitchen. She was wearing a T-shirt and shorts, and her hair was loose so it bounced when she took a step. He hadn’t realised quite how tall she was; her slender legs were more apparent in their length now, her skin supple and the warm colour of almond.
She came back with two juice glasses, tinted blue.
“You must forgive these unsophistications,” she said with a smirk. “I have no authority in the glassware department.”
Sundar cracked a smile, but it wavered. He watched her pour the scotch into both glasses, handing him one.
“Now remember,” she said, the way a teacher would warn a child, “you don’t just gulp this stuff down like a brute. You’re supposed to take in the aroma, nice and slow. Like this—“ She rolled the glass in her hand, bringing her nose very close to the glass. She smiled at how absurd it must have looked.
“I even did some research. They say that with scotch, your nose does more of the tasting than your taste buds.”
Sundar brought the glass to his nose, and the strong, rich odour of scotch filled his nostrils, the sharpness of the flavour apparent in its very aroma. Definitely better than anything he’d tried before. He brought the glass to his lips, taking a sip. The liquid rolled off his tongue, leaving a strong aftertaste as it burned its way down his throat, warming his chest.
“Oh wow,” he muttered under his breath.
“You like it?” she said, meeting his eyes. He nodded.
A few seconds passed by in silence, and Sundar stared at the glass in his hand.
“What are you thinking?” Sandhya said. He was taken by surprise at the question, and he turned to look at her. She held his gaze with hers then, drawing him into the depths of her eyes like inescapable whirlpools. He couldn’t turn away from her if wanted to.
“That I should be anywhere else,” he rasped. “Anywhere but here, with you.”
“I know, isn’t it exciting? People would be shocked to see us do this. It’s like, so beyond them and their precious moral codes. It’s perfect.”
Sundar shook his head. “No, they’re right. What we’re doing is wrong, Sandhya. It’s just plain wrong. Just because no one knows about this doesn’t change the fact that it’s morally repugnant.”
“Oooh,” Sandhya cooed, biting her lip. She placed a finger on his chest. “I like it when you use big words.”
“Sandhya—“
“Sundar,” she said, matching his tone playfully. “Look, okay? Everyone has something they want. We have feelings, weaknesses. That’s just human, baby. I want you for myself, and I know you want me, too. Why are you denying yourself?”
“That doesn’t mean we can act on every little urge we feel.”
She smiled. “Of course not. It has to be mutual. I wouldn’t have done this if I didn’t think you liked me. But I knew that you did, and it’s these stupid morals you people desperately cling to that stopped you from doing anything about it.” Sandhya shrugged. “So I took the initiative.”
Sundar snorted, shaking his head in disbelief. “What makes us different from animals, then?” he muttered under his breath.
“Why should we be?” Sandhya sat up straighter, moving closer so their bodies touched. “I mean, sure, we’re a bit smarter than them, maybe. But why should we pretend we’re so different, so superior that we can’t have the same carnal needs they do? What’s the point of that? Do you give you satisfaction to believe you’re above all that?”
“That’s the point of being civilised, Sandhya,” he said, but his own words felt hollow. He was an echo chamber throwing back a voice someone else had spoken in, the potency of the words diminishing with each repetition of them. But he couldn’t help himself. “We’d drown in anarchy if people didn’t control themselves.”
Sandhya looked at him at him pitifully, a shadow of disdain crossing her features.
“Do you honestly care what other people think of infidelity? If I approached them, if I could give them the assurance that not another soul would find out about it, do you think the college peon or most of the male lecturers would turn me down? Or even some of my uncles? I’ve seen the way they stare at my boobs when they think I’m not looking. It’s fucking disgusting. And who knows what goes on in our dear principal’s head when he’s watching girls my age in tights and tank tops on stage on College Day?”
Sundar stared at her, more than a little disturbed by what she’d said. Far from providing him comfort, her words served to make him feel part of a depraved culture of lechers and sinful voyeurs.
“Sandhya,” he stumbled with the words, grasping for something to say that didn’t sound like a tokenism. “I didn’t realise—“
“And you don’t have to,” she whispered. Her legs unravelled from beneath her, stretching out before him and gently resting on his lap. “I already told you. There’s nothing wrong in feeling something. You can’t help it. But isn’t it a pointless deprivation of the body to hold yourself back when it’s not affecting anyone? Tell me, Sundar, how long have you known I liked you?”
“For quite some time,” he admitted, looking away from her. “Almost since the second year began.” The scotch tasted bitter in his mouth, wholly unpalatable. He felt the glass warming in his hand.
“And yet we never quite addressed the issue until I forced our little…encounter that day,” Sandhya said, sipping from her glass. “Wouldn’t it have been so much easier, so much less effort wasted on reaching an inevitable outcome? Not to mention all the time we could have spent together instead of that needless dithering.”
She shifted her legs slightly, but not moving them from their place. Sundar felt something stirring in his trousers. His back stiffened.
“Everyone’s a saint until you read their mind, Sundar,” she said, her lips easing into a contented smirk. “The only difference between me and them is I’m not in denial about it.”
She placed her glass on the table and swung her legs to either side of him, folding them as she sat on his lap.
“You’re here right now, aren’t you? It’s just the two of us, Sundar. Don’t think about anything else. Just…be with me.”
He raised the glass of scotch to his lips, taking a long sip of the liquid, feeling the raw alcohol burn a track down his gullet, a bloom of warmth in his chest. She teased the glass out of his hand, setting it aside. Sandhya moved forward, and brought her lips to his.
*
“Here’s the script. Just go through it while I sort this issue out, okay? I’ll be back in a second.”
Vimala handed Faizal a copy of the script. He could tell it was well-used from the dog-eared edges and small scribbled notes next to the printed text. He looked around him, eyes panning across the cameraman, director, the two actors. They were shooting on the terrace of a small apartment building, the parapet walls lined with bright green potted plants. He spotted Prakash talking to the guys from Dion Productions, Surya and Nandan. Faizal didn’t know what to think of those two. They seemed nice enough when Vimala introduced him to them; they were accommodating a stranger on their shooting set, after all. But what really can 10 seconds of conversation tell you about a person?
He was feeling a little uncomfortable skipping work for this. Romesh wasn’t going to be pleasant with him when he did show up. Besides, it wasn’t even as if he knew anyone here besides Vim and Prakash. He was that one random dude who just happened to be on the set who didn’t really have anything to do or anyone to talk to. Faizal brought his attention back to the scriot, and as he flipped through the pages, his eyes gliding over the words, he could overhear some of what Vimala was saying.
“You picked this time to start the shoot, didn’t you Prabhakar? You said this is when lighting is the most suitable. How can you just say that? Okay, so if we do wait past lunch and you change your mind about the light, what are we going to do then? There’s no guarantee, Prabhakar. You can’t just expect us to call all the crew members and have them wait half a day to get any work started.”
Faizal sensed movement from the corner of his eye, and peered down from the terrace wall at the compound below. He saw four large, burly men exit a Scorpio, walk up to the security guard to the apartments. He couldn’t hear them from up there, but he saw that they were talking to the man. The guard was motioning towards the top of the building. The men nodded, heading for the staircase inside.
Nandan come up to Vimala, said something softly as he drew her away from the guy she was talking to.
“That guy has an ego the size of a planet, Vimala,” he said, as they both walked in Faizal’s direction. “I know, he’s hard to work with. He does this sort of thing all the time. But trust me, he’ll get us results.”
“Nandan, I want good cinematography in this series more than anyone here. I mean, it’s my script. But it’s also my money funding this damn pilot and I can’t waste any time on this perfect lighting bullshit. Do you know how much that camera costs?”
“I rented it, actually.”
Vimala looked flustered for a moment. “Yeah, exactly,” she said hastily. “So you know how painful it is to pay that kind of money and have the damn thing sit around for like five hours totally unused. We’ve already burned through a quarter of our budget and we haven’t even started filming yet.”
Nandan nodded, running his fingers across his jaw as he bit his lip. “Yeah, I get it. Of course I get it. But look, okay? We’ll need to humour this guy. Maybe not every time, but especially now, with the project so new. I don’t need anyone getting into fights and leaving the show. Yeah? So please, Vimala, however hard it might be for you, just don’t shout at the guy. Cool?”
Vimala crossed her arms, her eyes rolling in barely suppressed anger.
“Got it.”
Nandan nodded appreciatively, heading back towards Prakash. Vimala strode up to Faizal and sat in the chair next to him. Her eyes were still on the cinematographer, her nostils flaring.
“Fucking prick,” she said under her breath.
“Cinematographer troubles?” Faizal said with half a smile. “Akash sometimes tells me what a pain they are to work with.”
“The guy refuses to shoot anything until it’s like 3 or something. This isn’t some fucking Stanley Kubrick movie, we’ll never finish this pilot if he wastes time like this.”
“Wait, did you pay for all of this?” Faizal asked. “Did you fund the pilot by yourself?”
Vimala didn’t reply for several seconds, staring at something in the distance with a frown, biting her thumbnail.
Then she lowered her hand, released a breath through her nose. “Yeah. Still don’t know if it was a mistake, but yeah.”
“Why didn’t you tell me yesterday? Vim, that’s not…I mean, are you sure that’s okay? It doesn’t sound like these Dion guys—“
“It’s done, okay? They’ve cashed the cheque, rented all this shit. Nothing I can do about it now except hope.”
Faizal swallowed, looked away. His eyes travelled down to the compound, first at the security guard, then the Scorpio still parked next to the gate.
“Hey, Vimala,” he said, swinging to face her. “Is someone else supposed to be here for the shoot?”
She frowned. “What? No, this is everyone who’s supposed to be at the shoot. What are you talking about?”
Faizal’s scowl deepened. “A bunch of guys got out of that car over there. They didn’t look like they had anything to do with your show, but I saw that guard send them upstairs. I mean, I might be wrong, but—“
The door to the terrace swung open, slamming against the wall. Everyone’s heads swung in that direction, startled. The four men Faizal had seen get out of the Scorpio stepped through the doorway. The last one among them was carrying four large wooden sticks like clubs.
Surya stared at them in shock for a moment, frozen, then moved forward to stop them. The man in front shoved Surya to the ground, startled cries rising from the filming crew. Without sparing him even a glance, the thug walked to the film camera, grabbing it by the tripod.
“No!” Vimala screamed, running forward. A hand appeared out of nowhere, striking her cheek and sending her sprawling. She saw him raise the heavy camera in the air like a hammer, bringing it down with more force than she believed possible. It exploded, shards of plastic and glass flying.
Vimala’s left ear rang, all other sounds drowned out as she lay on the floor in a daze. Her vision was clouding, going in and out of focus. She tasted blood.
The last man tossed clubs into the others’ hands, and they spread out across the terrace. The crew recoiled from their path, huddling together in a corner, watching in horror. The thugs toppled the lighting equipment, smashing the bulbs and tearing the umbrellas. They went to a table littered with random electronics, lenses and wires, tossing them to the ground and crushing them underfoot.
“Sir, please,” Nandan said, inching forward fearfully. “Please, I beg you, stop! Why are you doing this? Please, not the hard drives—FUCK!” He ran impulsively forward, but before he realised what he’d done, the thug slammed his foot into Nandan’s chest. There was a faint cracking sound, and Nandan screamed, collapsing to the ground. He writhed on the floor, grimacing and gasping for air as Surya frantically pulled him away.
Vimala realised Faizal had helped her up onto a chair, and was trying to dab the blood trickling from her mouth. She could feel swelling in the left side of her face, the flesh aching and growing stiff. She watched silently as the men picked apart her shooting set, destroying the equipment she’d rented under heavy wooden clubs and thick soled-shoes. Pieces of camera and lightbulb lay scattered like rubble after a bomb had dropped. Thick vapours rose in noxious white coils from the broken lights, and the lithium batteries had swollen and burst, flaming as the outer surface melted and curled up. A migraine was splitting Vimala’s skull, and she closed her eyes, trying to make herself numb.
The man who’d entered first surveyed the set, checking to see if there was anything he hadn’t smashed to pieces yet. Satisfied, he walked toward the crowd, bunched up in a corner, trying to move back further as he approached. One man tried to bolt for the door, but a thug standing nearby made to lunge forward, slamming his foot on the ground in warning. He glared at the man as he stopped in his tracks, stepping back to the parapet wall.
The first thug let the club swing limply in his hand as he went towards Surya. He stopped at where the shattered remains of the camera lay, placed his foot on the largest piece, crushing it without so much as looking down. Surya was bent over Nandan, trying to calm him and lie him down flat when he saw the man approach, and stood shakily. His lips were trembling, nose inflamed and eyes glistening as he struggled to keep a modicum of composure. He wiped his eyes hastily.
“Kaanta,” Surya said shakily, “what do you want?” His voice was barely audible.
The man shrugged, frowning as if the question didn’t make sense. “Me? Why would I want anything?”
He came closer, and Surya tried to step back, but the man placed a hand on his shoulder. Gentle, yet firm. He smiled. “But next time Rajanna gives you a call, maybe you’ll answer it.”
Oxfords, Not Blogs 