Chapter One #4
‘Bravo!’ Timira giggles and applauds lightly. When a big Hollywood film with the same name had come out, she had been fully convinced that the writers had pulled an Inception on her, but let it slide … ‘Only for Bradley Cooper, Alice. Varna pucca sue karti ,’ she had proudly proclaimed.
Feeling the most confident she has all morning, Timira tucks her hair behind her ears and slaps her hip dips a couple of times.
I can do this! Bring it on!
In giant strides, she walks on to the floor, hair neatly gelled and slicked back, pants ironed straight, shirt crisp and her gait oozing tenacity. She smoothens the Peter Pan collar of her silken poplin shirt and stops dead in her tracks.
Oh, crap! He got me this shirt. Great start, Timira! FFS, what is wrong with me?!
Jalebi 1
Timira 0
* * *
They are nearly through with the day’s work, having stuck to the script under Timira’s watchful eyes and in her iron grip. Rodrigo has, to Timira’s relief and surprise, avoided her throughout. He has been lavishing his attention on the stylist they had hired at his request.
Ugh, look at him go. Good riddance. Why did I even think he’d be anything but this? This is who he is. God, I’m such an idiot for ignoring all those red flags. Gadhi hoon! No wonder they call me a jerk magnet.
But she feels uneasy. As though something were stuck near her heart and hindering her breathing.
‘Tim, you’re going to have to explain this bit to him, okay?’ instructs the producer.
Timira doesn’t respond. So the producer has to raise her voice and repeat herself.
‘Timira, it’s this highlighted bit. Just these couple of lines,’ pointing at a little green-coloured section on an A4 sheet.
When Timira still doesn’t acknowledge her, she has to snap her fingers in front of Timira’s eyes.
‘Yo! Timira! Where are you lost?’
This time, Timira jumps out of her skin like she’s seen a ghost.
‘Whoa! Yes, I mean, not lost. I’m here, tell me!’
Pointing at the sheet again, the sprightly but exhausted producer tells Timira which part has to be explained to Rodrigo.
‘But this wasn’t in the script!’ Timira’s high-pitched voice sounds accusatory.
‘I know, I know. I’m sorry, but the client had a last-minute “suggestion”.’
‘And who approved this? Don’t let clients bully you, okay? I’ll go speak with them, wait!’
But the producer, dressed like a special-ops commando, hisses into the walkie she’s been carrying around like a trophy, and in a flash stops Timira, who has walked only a step towards the clients, a group of three girls in their twenties huddled together in front of a monitor, whispering amongst themselves and blushing in unison.
Grabbing her wrist, she pulls Timira back.
‘ Abbe oye , I could’ve fallen! Kya hai , why are you stopping me?’
‘You might want to give the boss a call. The approval has come from him.’
‘ Hain ? No way in hell!’
The producer shrugs and silently mouths what-to-do .
Timira stares at the green section in disbelief.
Talent (looking into the camera intensely): I love you. Will you marry me?
Vis: 360-degree shot of the Amarah solitaire
Voiceover: Amarah by Bejewelled, a promise of love, a token of forever.
Timira feels like she’s going to be sick.
* * *
Timira clears her throat a couple of times, hoping Rodrigo will notice without her having to announce her arrival.
But he seems to be engrossed in conversation with the stylist, who is also a popular socialite by night and is rumoured to have dated the sons of Bollywood bigwigs. So she has to do what she has to do.
‘Er, excuse me. Hi, Rodrigo. Sorry to cut this up, but I need a couple of minutes, please.’
‘Ah, yes, of course, darling.’ He knows how much Timira hates being referred to as ‘darling’, ‘sweetie’, etc.
at work. She has complained to him on multiple occasions of the ‘casually sexist’ nature of such nomenclature.
She is annoyed, he knows, but doesn’t show it.
Turning towards the stylist, who’s taken the opportunity to quickly reapply lipstick, he apologizes.
‘I’m sorry, love. Work needs me. I’ll catch up with you in just a bit,’ he says with a wink and touches her chin like he were lightly pushing a carom strike.
‘That’s a lovely shirt you’ve got on!’
Timira grits her teeth and silently prays for him to change the topic. With great difficulty, she manages to not roll her eyes.
‘Why have you been avoiding me?’ Rodrigo demands to know.
‘Avoiding you? What are you even talking about?’
‘Oh, c’mon. Anybody can tell that you’ve consciously tried to ignore me all day.’
‘If that’s how you wish to think, go right ahead. I won’t stop you.’
Timira is determined not to lose her focus. Or her cool.
But Rodrigo has other intentions. His tactic of trying to make her jealous may not have worked, but he has more firepower up his sleeve.
‘I didn’t think you’d be so childish. In any case, you did the dumping. All that confidence, where’s it gone? Why can’t you so much as look me in the eye?’
Nothing he says can rattle me. I will not let him have that pleasure. He knows he’s in the wrong. I expected this when I walked on to set this morning. Why should I be surprised? INNER PEACE INNER PEACE!
Timira takes a deep breath and replies in a low voice.
‘I hate to break this to you, but we are in the middle of work. I’d really appreciate it if we could focus a little here.’
‘I’m the talent here. You have to work around me, so don’t dictate. This is not our relationship that you can call the shots.’
Timira swallows her pride in a gulp and digs her nails a little deeper into her palms, clenched tightly into fists.
‘You are right, I can’t force you. But see all these people? They all want to wrap things up and go home. They’ve worked overnight and are exhausted. What happened between us is not their fault. So I’d request you to cooperate, not for me but for them.’
‘Unbelievable. Timmy, you’re unbelievable. How can anyone be so emotionless? Do you even have a heart anymore? Why did you wear this shirt today?’
‘Because it is no different from any other shirt I own. It’s just a shirt with no special meaning.’
‘Lies. All lies. You are lying to me and you are lying to yourself. Look at you, so childish and yet trying to make me look immature and inadequate.’
Timira can now feel tears start to sting in her eyes.
She recalls the evening of his birthday when she’d taken an uncharacteristic personal day in the middle of the week and taken over Alice and Bhaskar’s kitchen to cook up a feast for him.
The evening she had waited for him to come over for a surprise until a text from him, well past midnight, informed her that he wouldn’t be able to leave the team hotel.
She recalls the morning after, when she woke up to photos of him splashed across tabloids and social media—photos of him locked in an embrace with a rising tennis star–social media influencer who’d only just turned legally adult.
The same morning, the platinum promise bands she’d got for the both of them sat untouched on the bedside table, a reminder of her naiveté and his infidelity.
She valiantly fights back the tears and clears her throat purposefully, forcefully.
‘Like I was saying, you’ll need to emote while saying these lines …’
‘I’m not listening to any of this. You first answer me. Do you feel nothing when you see me?’
‘As you can tell, the client wants it to sound like an actual proposal. So you will have to make it sound as genuine as you possibly can.’
‘Oh, to hell with these lines. And to hell with you!’
Rodrigo’s voice is raised a few decibels over his usual pitch and, snatching the sheet away from Timira, he tears it up. The room is stunned into silence.
Timira cannot hold it in any longer. Channelling her inner Geum Jan-di, her favourite teenaged heroine from Boys Over Flowers , the megahit Korean adaptation of the megahit Japanese manga and TV show Hana Yori Dango , she grabs Rodrigo by the collar and with all her might and all the technique she had picked up during her brief obsession over Bruce Lee and resulting dalliance with Jeet Kun Do , she knees his nuts.
Pressing hard, she twists her knee clockwise and then anticlockwise, and with glazed eyes filled with glee, watches him first turn pale, and then a shade of blue she can’t name but that looks painful.
She relents and releases her grip only when he collapses to the ground.
The room that had been pin-drop silent until a few moments back now erupts in thunderous applause.
It continues to clap and cheer loudly as Timira, wearing a triumphant victor’s smile, makes her way through the crowd in giant strides befitting a winner and makes her exit, while the vanquished lies on the ground, clutching his family jewels and wondering if they were lost for good, while staring at her receding form, slowly melting into the darkness.
* * *
‘And that’s a wrap!’ yells the director.
Cacophonous voices fill the air that was next-to-noiseless until just a few moments ago. Shoot rushes are getting intently peered at, footage being backed up onto hard disks, backups of backups being arranged, calls being made to place food orders, and plans being made for the wrap party later.
A lot of backslapping, hurrahs and applause later, Rodrigo is inside his vanity van with his manager. The same guy who had intervened just in the nick of time and perhaps fended off what had the potential to be a giant disaster.
Dude, that was close! I actually thought she’d hit him!