I am a young struggling actor and I have just one dream- to haunt every silver screen in the world. I want to be the biggest movie star the world has ever been an audience to. For the past 3 years, I’ve lived every day like a high profile audition for my next big break- each day the tickets were sold out and each day it was a stellar performance. Today is one such day…
A rich and successful producer, Kapoor Saahab, wants me to go to the Apollo Hospital and meet his sick daughter, for two hours. If I do this, and if the sick daughter is pleased by my performance, then I will get to play the lead character in the very talented director Bhansaali Saahab’s next Romantic Sci-fi movie titled “Trisexual Quadrelateral”- where the species of man is trisexual, instead of bisexual. And all I had to do was-to pretend that I was the sick daughter’s boy friend, convincingly! Sure why not! To be the lead actor in Bhansaali ‘s next movie- I’ll be her God-damned husband for the rest of my life.
I brought Jasmine flowers, as instructed. She was still sleeping restlessly, when I entered her room. I read her chart- the sick girl’s name was Anju, just Anju. Her whole body was nothing more than pale tight skin wrapped tightly on some fragile ancient bones. She was very ghastly, unlike the very handsome & lively Kapoor Saahab, her father. Kapoor Saahab and Anju had no physical similarities at all. Anju must have gotten her looks from her mom- or was it her sickness?
She probably realized my presence & opened her eyes. She looked like she was recovering from being in a coma or something coz she couldn’t move her body in a well coordinated way. She was clumsy with the flowers that I gave her and she didn’t know how to respond to my very generous hug. She was just too weird- too not human.
“What’s your name?” she asked cheerfully, breaking the gaze of my judging eyes on her body. She had a melodious voice. That was a pleasant surprise- for some reason, I imagined her to have a monstrous voice, like the female ghosts in some horror movies.
“Did you forget your boy-friend so soon, Anju?” I teased.
“So you are my boy friend, huh?”
“Ah! You and your jokes! Sometimes I don’t get your jokes, dummy! Of course I am your boy friend Vicky- how can you forget this cute smile of mine, huh?”
“So Kapoor Saahab wants to cheer me up, after I woke up from that horrible accident, in this way?”
“Ah Kapoor Saahab?” She calls her dad Kapoor Saahab? I tried to change the subject, “So your friend died in this accident, is it? How long ago was it? You were in a coma weren’t you?”
“Ho! Slow down there SuperMan!” she muttered, “I just woke up after a year! I’m slow, and uncoordinated and dizzy and dazzled by your… by your sweet handsome looks!”
“Story of my life!” is all I could say and gave her time to do whatever she wanted to do. I didn’t want to make her feel uncomfortable- my career was on the line here. I wanted to make her happy. This was a feeling I never felt before- the feeling of trying to make others happy or laugh… And I always wanted to be an actor, whose profession is to entertain others- yes, yes, I am getting the irony!
“So you’re here to make me feel better?” she asked finally.
“Yes”
“How long do you have…”
“A little less than two hours…”
“All righty then- Entertain me! Blow my mind away!” she exclaimed lighting her eyes up.
“Well, I always seem to have all the solutions”, I began, “Maybe I made a wrong career choice- I should have been a chemist!”
She blinked. She didn’t get the joke.
