Back to facing Linking Road, Andy had to make a decision. Turn right and head towards Bandra, or turn left and head into the armpit of Mumbai, that sorry place where the film people congregated, Andheri West. Andy decided to turn left. He could hang at either Starbucks or The Club. There were always people he knew hanging around and who knows, they might end up making plans for the evening.
Making the left turn, Andy saw to his delight, that had he turned right, which he was inclined to do initially, he would have come out right behind a green garbage truck. And Andy, with or without a coke high, couldn’t imagine sitting another half an hour to forty-five minutes in traffic behind a garbage truck. But that said, his situation wasn’t any better in terms of speed or progress. By now, the evening rush hour was beginning. All lanes on all sides were blocked solid. Google maps would be red-redder-reddest.
Is there really a rush hour in Mumbai? In about thirty minutes, he had covered almost four kilometres. As he wormed deeper into Andheri West, bumper to bumper with all manner of transport ranging from the 14th-century thela to the sparkling 21st-century Maybach, he marvelled at the resilience of the Mumbaikar. His mind, thanks to Gogi’s excellent stuff, was focusing on things he wouldn’t have otherwise thought about.
Any other species, Andy thought, would have been ground to a mushy paste in less than a few hours in this traffic. But the Mumbaikars were a special breed. They didn’t baulk at spending 50 per cent of their lives in traffic. Their “dilli-tamanna” – deep-seated aspiration – limited itself to the four-five metre turning radius.
Jeena yahaan, marna yahaan.
The thelawala, pushing his handcart laden with green marble for some rich seth’s house, dreamed of one day sitting in that magnificent Maybach, navigating these city roads in style. In a million years, it wouldn’t occur to the poor fellow that another life could exist beyond these potholed margins and caved-in pavements, where he might have a better commute even on a borrowed pushcart.
And, because the heavens deem it appropriate that the cycle of stupidity is all-encompassing, similar to the thelawala, the guy in the massive German hearse – with all its five-point-something litre, 0 to 300 in half a second engine, epitome of premium leather-clad magnificence – is also happy to sit in traffic for hours on end. He might wince each time the thela and its ruthless, unforgiving cargo threatens to scratch his beast, but he is too busy making money to be bothered to contemplate a better use of his time or a happier geography to spend his evenings in. Whether rich or poor, the Mumbaikar is forever engaged in a match of wits in traffic, scoring inches over one another, living the life. Sitting there wedged between thelas and Maybachs, Andy could feel himself ageing.
Andy might have continued down that rabbit hole; he and the people around him weren’t going anywhere, but he noticed his phone vibrating and glanced at it.
Usually, as has been documented earlier, Andy’s phone went unacknowledged. Perpetually left on silent mode, the phone had little agency of its own. Unlike the loud ringing type that screamed for attention, Andy’s phone usually sat quietly, face down, in its cradle. At best it vibrated a few times and having entirely failed to let Andy know that someone wished to speak with him, it gave up on its weak effort.
Andy wasn’t alone in his disdain for mobile devices. Over the years, a Bollywood system has evolved around the etiquette of answering phone calls. Andy was anything if not true-blue Bollywood. He only ever answered the phone when the call was important to him. And only those calls that promised money, or sex, or drugs, were deemed important.
Right now, with no sign of money on the horizon, he had no reason to answer calls. At best it might be a wannabe starlet. Their calls still had some promise. Though recently, Andy had grown weary of starlets too. As he moved into his mid-thirties, Andy’s raging hormones had calmed down a bit, and the MeToo movement had also put a bit of a funk on Bollywood. Like with AIDS, one needed to know one was protected before engaging with a starlet these days. As for drugs – he was the one making calls to dealers and not the other way around.
More often than not calls to his phone were from an endless number of creditors asking for money. Those guys, sneaky buggers that they were, often changed numbers and called, hoping to catch Andy with his guard down.
Occasionally, an actor looking for work might call. But who the fuck wanted to talk to an actor looking for work? The only actor worth talking to was the kind busy making hits. And that kind of actor never called Andy. Andy, and his type of producers, called those actors. That was the way of the world.
His friends had given up calling. They usually texted and waited for him to text back. Most being in the same business, and in a similar predicament as Andy, communicating over text served everyone well. Texting was democratic. Texting was desirable. It didn’t create any kind of obligation or expectation.
The phone that was vibrating silently said “Atul Sabharwal”.
“Who the fuck is A Sabharwal? Why is he calling me?” muttered Andy.
As an afterthought, Andy wondered why he had this person’s number saved on his phone. Nothing came to him. Blank. The name was on his phone so it was someone Andy should know. However, a face didn’t leap up at him so he dismissed it. Sometimes, being the good guy he was, Andy met people at a party, took their number, and promptly forgot about them. This Sabharwal fellow was possibly one of those guys. And the fact that he was calling only proved that he wasn’t worth engaging with.
Outside, on the road, a momentous change happened. Something in the traffic moved as if by magic, and an opening of some thirty square feet presented itself. Traffic on all sides eyed the opening, more so because it had a gap in the divider that presented a unique opportunity. An opportunity to swing the car around and go in a different direction.
Andy being closest was quick to launch into action. Gunning his car, far more than necessary, given the gridlocked traffic, Andy made a U-turn. He’d much rather head home, and then to the gym, instead of going on further into the bowels of Andheri West.
Having made the U-turn, Andy regretted it almost immediately. While action has its uses, in certain circumstances, specifically in this case, the act of turning around didn’t improve his situation one bit. Now instead of facing north, he was facing south – the Maybach was replaced by a low-slung Porsche and the thela by a horse-drawn wedding carriage. Any movement was still in inches. Now the Porsche owner cringed every time the wedding tam-jam threatened to move on him. Even Andy, despite growing up in a filmy family, cringed at the wedding carriage. All shiny and silver with magenta rexine seats, this was an assault on his eyes. The carriage reminded him of his father’s films.
Andy was beginning to lose hope when another opening miraculously appeared. Using all the skills at hand, (even Lewis Hamilton would have been proud) he manoeuvred his car into the space beside the horse carriage. A little more and he would be ahead of the ugly eyesore.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be. Two auto-rickshaws competing for space blocked him in. Now Andy was parallel to the horse’s ass. Barely a couple of feet of Mumbai air, and the 6-mm thick crystal-clear glass of his imported BMW, separated them. This is not what he’d hoped for when he had made that skilful move. If he could, he would unwind-unspool-rewind, whatever the hell the word was, and go back to where he was before. He would take his father’s aesthetic any day over the possibilities on offer now. Being at eye level with a horse’s rear end can have that effect.
Andy tried to shut out the horse by looking left. The miserable horse and his shrivelled-up balls a few inches away somehow triggered his memory.
Excerpted with permission from Sinema: The Bollywood Bungle of Andy Duggal, Vikram Singh, Speaking Tiger Books.
