Sonya and the General had admittedly been edged out of proceedings altogether by Tammy, and unceremoniously at that, once they had made their Faustian pact. Within twenty-four hours of their meeting, the project was already a looming reality, flashed across social and traditional media as a one-of-its-kind charity event that would see the coming together of the moneyed and the glamorous to give back, to make a difference. Mere minutes after the first press release, celebrities and ordinary mortals alike were pledging their support for the cause, promising to contribute, desperate to be involved.
A Bollywood starlet announced plans to fund building costs for a home for the girls in Juhu apropos her own childhood as the daughter of a sex worker in Sonagachi in Calcutta; numerous businessmen voiced concern for children like the General’s girls and offered to sponsor their education, health, welfare. All outgoing communication from the Torso’s camp dutifully acknowledged the role Colour Purple had played in bringing the issue to the forefront, inspired no doubt by an iron-clad contract Sonya had had drawn up by a friend in the legal team of the firm she was employed by till a few months ago and the logic in associating his brand with a little-known, local initiative. Colour Purple was cited as creator and executor; for all practical purposes, Sonya’s fledgling organisation was running the show. The Torso was just a humble vehicle, an agent for change.
In the week preceding the event, the media went into overdrive. Local Hindi channels scheduled all-day marathons of the Torso’s movies, a celebration of a glittering career that had given Bollywood some of the most memorable (for conflicting reasons) and commercially successful moments in recent history. But Tammy’s real victory was her hold over “serious” television: news networks.
The Torso’s recent trials (literally) and tribulations forgotten, the question on everybody’s lips was this: did the upcoming event mark a shift in his ideology? The Torso still had his critics of course but their recriminations were drowned out by the mob. Didn’t every saint have a past, asked his flag-bearers, every sinner a future? Besides, how does one criticize a clearly philanthropic venture, shoot down altruism? Had he finally matured, the Nation wanted to know, was it finally acceptable to like the Torso again?
The answer would be culled from the Torso’s own words (or Thomas’s, if one wished to be pedantic) a few days later. To call the Torso’s speech a triumph over adversity would have been an understatement. The narrative comprised all the ingredients of a Bollywood blockbuster: incipient humour, glamour, fall from grace, redemption, even tears.
The event was held in Sobo, in the banquet hall of one of the most iconic multi-star hotels in the city, if not the country. Thomas, Sonya and the General had crowded into a rented Merc to arrive in style and still ended up feeling out of place, especially after Sonya was forced to make a hurried phone call to Tammy to gain security clearance. The General’s girls had been chauffeured to the hotel ahead of time, chaperoned by Tammy’s secretaries, for an extended photo shoot.
The Torso was predictably late by a couple of hours, as were the rest of his esteemed guests, causing Sonya to wonder aloud if she had missed some unwritten memo on etiquette regarding these kind of things. But it did give her time to sit down for a drink (or two) with Anjali at the bar and sort out their differences, trifling as they were. By the time the event got off to a start, they were all well and truly hammered, with the honourable exception of Thomas who had chosen to maintain his teetotaling façade in Sonya’s presence. Sonya was too nervous to be annoyed; they stumbled into the banquet hall as one, Sudhi in tow, prepared for the worst.
None of them could have envisioned what awaited them. The room was filled to the brim with familiar faces—familiar in that strange way everybody knew everybody in the twenty-first century: faces they recognized from advertisements and music videos, news articles and the movies, faces with permanent smiles frozen on them as cameras went off in every direction. Sonya and the General were ushered onto the stage by Tammy’s secretaries, and introduced to much clapping of hands. To the surprise of none of her friends, Sonya breezed through her speech, enthusiasm uncontained, joy contagious.
The General was more subdued, gently taking the audience through her journey as a researcher turned activist in a lesson in elocution that left but a few eyes dry. She concluded by calling her girls up on stage, introducing them by name, age, what grade they were in, hobbies, likes and dislikes. The room erupted in thunderous applause as they stood in a row on stage, the General in the middle, and bowed. Sonya had never felt so proud.
But the performance of the day no doubt belonged to the Torso, in what was an uncharacteristically sensitive and endearing reminder of his staying power, of the roguish charm that had helped him survive for so long in a dog-eat-dog industry in the first place.
“Namaste,” he started. “Eyes up here, ladies.” Sonya wondered about his peculiar LA-meets-Bronx accent. “And gents,” he added. It reminded her of Pakistani cricketers from the late nineties but many of them had learnt the language well into adulthood, picking it up from foreign coaches and during travel abroad.
The Torso started off with a few barbs aimed at himself, slowly turning the narrative around to take a couple of lighthearted potshots at the Hindi film industry and the media that fed off it. He appeared genuinely touched when interrupted mid-speech by Tammy and Mikey to be presented an action portrait of him, painted by one of the girls. The image was beamed up on the screen behind him – an oil rendering of a still from one of his movies in which he had played a cop, walking away from a burning building as the flames licked the sky behind him – zooming in on the childish scribble at the bottom of the canvas: “Love, Your BIGGEST fan”, followed by a close-up of the precocious artist beaming bashfully up at him from the front row. The man in the painting looked nothing like him but the Torso almost choked up: “Thank you, sweetheart!” – and blew her a kiss. Sonya looked on from the stage at journalists frenziedly transcribing every word, some onto paper, many onto their mobile phones.
Film artists, drawled the Torso, had a responsibility to their audience. Especially when these artists were blessed with the kind of adulation he was by his dedicated fan following. It was an opportunity to do good, to make the world a little better.
Sonya locked eyes with Thomas, standing unobtrusively at the back of the room, a bottle of water in his hand. He hadn’t let her see the transcript despite her numerous pleas.
“I would like to put my hand up today and confess that I have made mistakes, I haven’t always chosen the kind of roles or movies that could have made a positive impact on society.” The transcribers were going crazy, their hands and fingers a blur. “But I’m not here to justify my choices or offer excuses. We are gathered here to raise money for a very important cause, thanks to the hard work and determination of two outstanding young women.”
Sonya couldn’t help a smile escaping from the corner of her lips as the Torso waited patiently for the applause to stop. “I am aware many of you had reservations about my involvement in this event, given the criticisms levelled at my work.” Pausing, the Torso removed his Ray Bans and slung them sideways from the neck of his tee-shirt. The sense of momentousness was immense, a veritable presence that hung over the heads of everybody in attendance.
“There are more deserving candidates no doubt, people whose participation would seem less hypocritical. But I believe in taking the chance, when you get one, to say you’re sorry, to set things right.” This was already the most coherent, sincere speech the scribes had ever heard a mainstream Hindi film star make. “This is not one of those occasions.” There was a collective gasp, lowering of heads, darkening of faces. The Torso held up a hand. “I’m not here to say sorry. I’m here to say I understand. I empathise with the women my roles, my movies, have objectified because I am a product, a victim, of the same system that dictates these economics.”
Uproar. It was the only word for it. Hands shot up, microphones pointed like instruments of war at the stage. Tammy immediately appeared beside her client from the side of the stage to quell the tide. “We will be fielding questions later,” she declared. “I request you to please maintain silence.”
“Cheers, Tammy,” said the Torso and flashed a grin at her, an incongruous if temporary return to nature that had Thomas shaking his head. ‘I started in this industry as a nineteen-year-old boy. Less than a year into my career, the media – you guys – had already given me a nickname that has stuck with me till today. Did I take to my moniker blindly, embrace it? Yes. I was an impressionable kid. I thought it was a compliment.”
The tide was turning. Who couldn’t relate to a tale of misplaced amour propre in the twenty-first century? If the late nineties saw mankind take to the internet timidly, shamefully, living out their fantasies in dimly lit, fiercely protected privacy, the second half of the noughties had exposed them for who they really were: unapologetic attention-seekers, full-blown exhibitionists. They all lived and died by others’ responses to a new haircut, holiday photographs, pay raises. Sonya could see it in their faces. Like them, she had never thought to consider that the Torso might have had a heart.
“We live in an age in which everything is sexualised – cars and phones, airplanes and guitars, bank cards and even food.” That last part was vintage Thomas. “And of course, men and women.” Sonya tried to catch Thomas’s eye but he was otherwise occupied, staring intently at his muse. “The damage that does to society, and individuals, is often irreparable. I cannot express how much I regret having contributed to that culture. But I hope your personal opinion of me will not colour your judgment today. I hope you will give happily and generously to this very worthwhile cause. My name is Shoaib Aslam, and I want to thank you all for coming.”
It was the most sensational public relations U-turn the film industry had witnessed. The Torso waved and pumped his fist in the air as he acknowledged the standing ovation, the surge of applause that refused to subside, and took his seat next to Sonya and the General. Not one to waste a moment, Tammy appeared back on stage and hugged her star client, before stepping onto the dais to announce that the auction would begin in five minutes
Excerpted with permission from Mornings After, Tharun James Jimani, Bloomsbury.