Long For

Raj Bapat

Mr. Raj Bapet used to bet on horse riders legally and used to bet on casinos illegally. He loved to make fast and easy money, he had done an excellent profit in share market during his early days, according to him he has earned it by his sheer skills and knowledge about the market but all knew how he manipulated the market like anything, he made the use of loopholes and made huge profits, which then he used to bet on casino and horse riding, he even had the famous "Bombay bar" which was visited by the huge businessman and by the bollywood actors. He used to wear brown colour goggles and had a moustache, he was a health conscious person and used to have a daily two hours exercise time. He stood at the executive place of the stadium smoking a cigar, he had called me up here for some discussion, which he didn't inform on call.

"Come here, Dada,' he smiled and hugged me. The horse race began, there were four competitors.

"Whom are you betting on?" I asked.

"The white horse, isn't he beautiful?"

"Why the white one?"

"You know I am a bit racist," he said and winked.

He offered me to sit beside him, as I sat down he asked “Would like a drink?”

“I don’t drink,’ I said and grinned.

“You are in the film industry, I thought this was common, never mind, you shouldn’t drink, it was bad for health,”

“I wanted to know, why are you still betting?”

“As wine is bad even betting is bad for people…like you, I do betting because I know who is going to win, who hates to earn more money?” he said. The white horse won the race and the announcer said “The people who had bet for the white horse, please collect the money”

“How do you do that?”

“Just sheer skills, nothing more,” he said and stood up. “Dada, would like to have a dinner with you coming sunday, have some important thing to talk with you,”

“I hope it is something good,”

“Have I ever given you bad news?” He laughed and went on with his two bodyguards to collect his money.

When I went to his house, while having dinner, the only thing he kept on telling me was he wants to produce a movie by all means and he once he said "I want to make a film with Madhu," I went on to just rest the topic by all means, I didn't want to ruin my ethics of writing because of this man, he didn't leave that topic by any mean and at the end said it out loud that "Screw all this film, if you make a contact of me with Madhu then I stop all the calls and letters to you,"

"She is working on some other film," I said to safeguard Madhu from this man.

"I don't give a damn, get her or you are going to face troubles, dada," he raised his eyebrow and took out a cigar from his pocket.

"Madhu won't work," I said.

"She has to, you will have to get her in,"

"Why do you want her? There are many other—" before I could complete my sentence he said out very clearly "I love that girl, I want to marry her by any means, that's it,"

"She loves someone else,"

"So you are cheating on Amrita?"

"How do you know about her?" I said, my fist wanted to punch this man now.

"We keep our news ready,"

"She doesn't love me, she loves Veer," I said.

"Do I look as if I care? You shoot him dead if he comes in between," he said and punched on the table as if showing his power to me,