How I Got Lucky , livre ebook

Random House Publishers India Pvt. Ltd. - J Dadyburjor Farhad

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111 pages

English

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'I was with Lucky... Lucky Star. He showed me what he was wearing to the Cannes Film Festival. He's given me an Exclusive.'Raman Malhotra is thirty five, uninitiated in the matters of love, and endlessly confused about his sexuality. A journalist with The Weekly, his search for front page scoops come to a screeching halt when he's assigned the Bollywood beat. Throw into the mix the shenanigans of an overpowering lesbian photographer, a dirt-swapping PR queen, a webcam model doling out sexual favours, and a rising Bollywood star. Raman's blah existence is dramatically thrown off-kilter when he finds himself being pursued and courted by the bisexual king of Bollywood, Lucky Star. Puckered into a world of celebrity, malicious gossip, and meaningless shags-Raman wrestles with his sense of self, ideas of love, and the monstrous caricatures of entertainment.

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Publié par	Random House Publishers India Pvt. Ltd.
Date de parution	03 avril 2013
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9788184004007
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0420€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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RANDOM HOUSE INDIA
Published by Random House India in 2013
Copyright Farhad J. Dadyburjor 2013
Random House Publishers India Private Limited Windsor IT Park, 7th Floor, Tower-B A-1, Sector-125, Noida-201301, UP
Random House Group Limited 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road London SW1V 2SA United Kingdom
This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author s and publisher s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
EPUB ISBN 9788184004007
To Mum, Delna, and Daisy
The nearly mad are among us everywhere, many of them disguised. Like blondes, they appear to have more fun, as well as more misery. But who, as an artist of some kind, would not welcome the weird as the truth? And who ever gets a straight look at the world?
- Phillip , Hanif Kureishi
One
I f only you thought about it.
Railway stations were matrimonial ads in disguise-waiting to happen; a love paradise abandoned of its reaping. Faces criss-crossed in a hurry, everyone rushing somewhere, with their pliant guises of variable emotions firmly set in their outer masks. It wasn t a large stretch: hope, fear, anxiety were the regulars. The rest were just deadened in anger, creased by non-love. And yet, with a sliver of eye contact perhaps it could all change.
But nobody had the time to think about that, and Raman Malhotra knew. Toss a smile and they violently stared, or incredulously glared, with their eyebrows raised: Who the fuck are you? Move a few bogies up to the alleged cleanliness of the First, and their eyebrows seemed to say, Who the fuck are you to smile at me?
Raman scratched his outer thigh. It was the state of the city; it was what it demanded. Lock your doors and sleep light. And if you get a spare moment-pray. Pray that someone loves you. Your servants love you. Your watchman. The early morning unrecognisable newspaper boy. This was important. It could be life-enhancing. As for money-oh yes, money -there was plenty of that. It was half-regarded. Not reason enough.
Your life is just another commodity in abundant supply.
Ask anyone who lives in a city.

Raman wiped his oily fingers on the outer wrapper of Lay s Magic Masala and threw it away. Why couldn t they make wrappers more absorbent, more tissue-like, so you didn t have to spot the sides of your pants instead? As always, he felt that pull. That urgent knocking in the bottom of his bountiful bones. Advertising or marketing or some such wasteland of commercial creativity-that s where he was meant to be. Group head. Marketing president. Creative director. He could see the toshed gold emblazoned name plate already. Soon. Very soon. But they d have to pursue him. The truly talented never chased.
The platform was slushy with the polished slipperiness of fish basket sweat, that dirty bilious water that leaked from the edges. Raman squeaked as he entered the compartment-or rather, his shoes did as they heaved forward onto the high-stepper. Expensive sneakers came with an attitude: they sniggered at bad treatment. They too demanded equal rights like their leather contemporaries and aspired to walk on lush carpeted floors. And then it hit him full in the face. Raman raised his arms to shield himself, as if cowering from attack, but it was too late. He felt the full force of it, the intense vindication, the boisterous tang of heated armpits. His nostrils flared; he coughed, wheezed, as he tried to find a place under the fan. His eyes began watering, mist-filled, as the blades above him droned on. The air was too thick, too potent even for electricity. Raman moved to the door. It wasn t much better. It seemed to be what everyone else had done.
What do you do?
Raman looked up to see who was talking to him. He turned around. Still coughing, he looked down to be faced with a bobbing head.
What? asked Raman with a hint of alarm.
I mean, what do you do professionally?
Why? Raman stared hard at the man. He remembered something, uncreased his brow and smiled gently. Why? he asked pleasantly.
I ve seen you somewhere, said the man plainly.
Raman had a theory: if you smiled, people were more inclined to be nice to you. Even if you had robbed, maimed, killed, or were about to. Smiling and lying went hand in hand. Scams, bust-ups, indiscretions, financial takeovers, political warfares, marriages had all succumbed to it. Well, as long as you didn t grin shiftily, attracting suspicion. Lying was an art, really.
Where? Raman stopped smiling. The man was still grinning gormlessly. Where have you seen me?
Aren t you from TV?
Raman s eyes darted over the bristles of the little man s moustache: unevenly patchy, hastily snipped, with bits of orange on one end. TV. Yes! He d been on it. But how the hell did this twit remember? Five months on a game show. Prime time. 9 pm. In the audience. Well what d you know!
He used his best camera angle and pursed his lips. Yes, said Raman, matter-of-factly. Life was suddenly everything he wanted it to be. He could bottle this moment and make it last forever. And you? he asked.
Rahul Bhangari. BCom, CA, having business of hardware. The pudgy hand was outstretched. Mobile, com- poo -ter, diary-electronic, latest models, CP209 mobile. With conference facility and micro-small earplug, water resistant, wireless. What you use?
Marketing is a hard job in the world outside of trains. Working the phone, secretarial suck-ups, perspirational delays-almost as tough as dating. But here, if luck struck out, you just moved on to the next guy: on the right, left, back, or front, in the passageway. It was a breeze. Forget about call centres and rigging up your bio: No prior experience was required. Success rates were high. The lines used were the same, naturally. Everyone wanted to be from TV. No one ever was. But in a roomful of strangers, would you admit it? Other conversation hookers were Page 3, fashion shows, and nightclubs-altars of mass worship for everyone.
Raman gave an incomprehensible look. Far too many CPUs, OEMs, RAMs, hard and soft drives to take in at one time. He was confounded. It was all too overwhelming: the disabling motion of the train, the dancing pamphlets, and his controlled urge to fart. His eyes welled up.
Thanks, Raman murmured.
What com -poo -ter you use at home? The 568E Konkita with parallel folding speakers? The thick stubby fingers brushed open an extensive white folder.
There was only one other way to tackle this.
Listen. Raman drew a deep breath and looked back to address the man. His body twitched. He peered at the man more closely.
You have place, my friend? Somewhere I can show you demonstration? The man s thick upper lip was twitching, the nubby thumb subtly rubbing the outer flap of his crotch.
Oh, that s another thing about the city. Everyone has a second job on the side. Everyone. But we ll get to that later.
Two
I f I didn t know you so well.
You obviously couldn t, or shouldn t, or needn t, Raman felt like barking back into the phone. It was one of those that came from the family of I love you but Yeah. Trust words to dampen things, to abuse your dependence on them. Just when you needed not to hear, they always came through. They softened as you got hard. Words ought to be banned.
There was a pause on the other end. Lola breathed in hard. Her concern was audible. She said, You really need to think about this shopping trip because the more you don t It sounded as if she were biting the phone. Digging her front teeth in for an absolving answer.
Sure, said Raman. I ll think about it. Seriously.
Another pause. Another asthmatic gulp of breath.
Yup. Okay, said Lola, hanging up.
And that was it. For today. But there d be another later, Raman knew. Everyday conversations. That s what they really were. Nobody should waste time trying to figure them out, solving their apparent ineptitude. There would always be another one to follow soon. And another. Every single day of your life. Things never looked up in this department.
Raman sighed. He hated his life. His miserable, inconsequential existence. It loomed before him and he knew someday, at the end of it all, there would be nothing to write about. At 35, his life had come to a standstill. A full stop. But something inside kept banging on, raging on, trying hard to get out. He would keep letting loose occasionally.
A thought flashed.
He pulled out his pad. Grabbed his pen. And sat, pen poised in mid-air as he conjured up an inspiration. What was that again? He tried delaying the thought abortion. After a point you stop fighting life-and accept what it gives you. But where do you go from there? Deep hmm, he thought, penning it down and then putting down the pen in satisfaction. For several more minutes he lovingly stared at the pad hoping to add any discarded remnants. And then looked at that other magical source of inspiration-at that very moment in time before his eyes there appeared two sad, middle-aged women in pantyhose and black eye-masks with red stilettos. One longingly sucking a lolly, another brushing back her hair with a knife. A rubber dog, a bowl of fish, and a naked man in a tub. Yes, MTV made reality look preposterously dull.
Oh hell, it was Sunday. Lazily, Raman slouched into the curve of the sofa. When in doubt: scout. He bummed the remote hard for another music channel. Munni badnaam hui, darrlling The song screeched. It drew out. It seemed to be coming out loud, from somewhere down below. Somewhere between the crack of his ass. Damn! The cell phone.
Hello? said Raman.
Darling, where are you? a sharp tone boomed back.
Shit! What interview had he mis