The Mountain Shadow

Lisa had worked with them for several months when she was running a small talent agency, sourcing foreigners to work as extras in Indian films. When she’d segued from the agency into work at the art gallery, she’d kept up contact with Cliff and Chandra.

Their films had been hits in recent years. The producers had established a banner that attracted some of the biggest stars in the city. It was a measure of their success that Chandra and Cliff, who’d always adorned themselves on public occasions with a young starlet, had four pretty girls with them for the dinner that night.

We greeted one another, met the four girls – Monica, Mallika, Simple, and Sneha – and took our seats at the table. Ranjit sat us on either side of him, Lisa on his right, and me on the left. There was no place set for Karla.

‘Isn’t Karla coming?’ Lisa asked.

‘No, I’m sorry,’ Ranjit said, pressing his lips together in a rueful smile. ‘She’s . . . she’s not feeling a hundred per cent. She asks you all to excuse her, and she sends her best wishes.’

‘It’s nothing serious, I hope? Should I call her?’

‘No, she’s fine, Lisa,’ Ranjit said. ‘She’s just been overdoing it a bit lately. That’s all.’

‘Please be sure to give her my love.’

‘I will, Lisa. I will.’

Lisa glanced at me, but quickly turned away.

‘Are you all actresses, Mallika?’ Lisa asked, turning to the girl sitting nearest her.

The girls all giggled and nodded.

‘Yes, we are,’ Mallika said shyly.

‘It’s a hard crawl to the top,’ Cliff De Souza said, slurring his speech a little, beginning drunk. ‘We don’t know which one of you will make it to the next level, yaar, and which ones will fail, and never be seen again.’

The girls giggled nervously. Chandra Mehta moved in to mitigate.

‘You’ll all get your shot,’ he assured the girls. ‘You’ll all get face-on-screen. Guaranteed. In the bank. But like Cliff says, there’s no way to know which of you will have that special magic with the camera, the It factor that moves you onwards and upwards, so to speak.’

‘I’ll drink to that!’ Cliff shouted, raising his glass. ‘Onwards and upwards!’

‘Have you been acting long?’ Lisa asked Simple, when the glasses hit the table again.

‘Oh, yes,’ Simple replied.

‘We started months ago,’ Monica added.

‘Veterans already,’ Cliff slurred. ‘Another toast! To the business that makes us rich!’

‘To show business!’ Chandra agreed.

‘To creative accounting!’ Cliff corrected him.

‘I’ll certainly drink to that,’ Chandra laughed, clinking glasses.

Baskets of pakodas and narrow strips of Kashmiri parathas arrived at the table.

‘I took the liberty of ordering for us,’ Ranjit announced. ‘There’s some non-veg for Cliff, Lin and Lisa, and a wide selection of veg dishes for everybody else. Please, begin!’

‘Chandra,’ Ranjit continued, as we began to eat. ‘Did you happen to see the article in my paper last week? The one about the young gay dancer, who was murdered near your studio?’

‘He doesn’t read anything but contracts,’ Cliff replied, pouring another glass of red wine. ‘But I saw it. Actually, it was my secretary who saw it. She was blubbering like a baby, crying her eyes out, and when I asked her what was going on, she read the article out to me. What about it?’

‘I was thinking that it might make a good story line for a movie,’ Ranjit said, passing a basket of pakodas to Lisa. ‘My paper would get behind it, if you did it. And I’d put money in it.’

‘Damn good idea!’ Lisa agreed.

‘So that’s what this dinner’s about,’ Chandra said.

‘And if it is?’ Ranjit asked, smiling charmingly.

‘Forget it!’ Chandra spluttered, gasping on a mouthful of food. ‘You think we’re crazy?’

‘Hear me out,’ Ranjit insisted. ‘One of my columnists, he’s a pretty fair writer, and he’s written a few screenplays already, for your competitors –’

‘We don’t have any competitors,’ Cliff cut in. ‘We’re at the top of the cinema food chain, hurling coconuts at the others far below!’

‘Anyway,’ Ranjit persisted, ‘this young writer is hot for the story. He’s already begun to write a screenplay.’

‘That dancer fellow was foolish,’ Cliff said.

‘That dancer fellow had a name,’ Lisa said quietly.

Her manner was calm, but I knew she was angry.

‘Yes, of course he –’

‘His name was Avinash. He was a brilliant dancer, before a mob of drunken thugs beat him unconscious, poured kerosene on him, and tossed matches at him.’

‘Like I said –’ Cliff began, but his production partner silenced him.

‘Look, Ranjit,’ Chandra said nervously. ‘You can play the hero in the pages of your newspapers, writing about that poor young fellow –’

‘Avinash,’ Lisa said.

‘Yes, yes, Avinash. You can write about him, and take the risks, and get away with it. But be realistic. If we put that story in a movie, they’d come after us. They’d close down the cinemas.’

‘They’d burn down the bloody cinemas,’ Cliff added. ‘And we’d lose buckets of money, for nothing at all.’

‘Some stories, it seems to me,’ Ranjit said gently, ‘are so important that we should take the risks involved in telling them.’