It all began on that same night that Salim and I escaped from the clutches of Maman and his gang. We took the local train and landed in Juhu. We walked up to Neelima Kumari's flat, pressed the doorbell and waited.
After a lengthy interval the door is opened. 'Yes?' A lady stands before us. Radhey, the lame boy, was right. She is tall and beautiful, just like a heroine, only older. Salim falls at her feet. 'Arrey.'
She hurriedly steps back.
'Who are you two? What are you doing here at this hour of night?'
'We are friends of Radhey,' I reply with folded hands. 'He told us you are in need of a servant.
We have come to offer our services. We know you are a very kind lady. We are in desperate need of food and shelter and promise to do anything you ask us.'
'Yes, I do need a servant, but I cannot keep someone so young.'
'Madam, we are young only in looks. We can do the work of four men. I can also speak English.
Do try us.'
'But I don't need two servants. I have space only for one.'
Salim and I look at each other. 'Then at least pick one of us,' I say.
'What is your name?' she asks Salim.
'Salim.'
'Oh, you are Muslim, aren't you?'
Salim nods.
'Look, I am sorry, but my aged mother who lives with me cannot eat anything touched by a Muslim. I personally don't believe in all this polluting-contact nonsense, but what am I to do?'
She shrugs her shoulders. Salim looks crestfallen.
Then she turns to me. 'And what about you? What is your name?'
'Ram,' I tell her.
* * *
So I got the job, and only then did I discover that life with a movie star is not as glamorous as it appears from the outside. When you get to see them without make-up you find that they are exactly like you and me, with the same anxieties and insecurities. The only difference is that we are mainly concerned with money, or lack of it, and they are mainly concerned with fame. Or lack of it.
They live in a fish bowl. First they hate it, then, as adulation grows, they start loving it. And when people no longer shower attention on them, they just shrivel up and die.
Neelima Kumari's flat is spacious and contemporary, tastefully furnished with expensive wall-to-wall carpets and paintings. It has five bedrooms. The large master bedroom with attached bathroom is Neelima's, and her mother has the next-largest. As far as I know, Neelima has no other relatives.
Neelima's bedroom is the best room in the flat. It has a huge bed in the middle with a velvet bedspread. The walls have tiles made of glass so you see your image reflected in a thousand tiny pieces. There is a dresser full of perfumes and bottles. Next to the dresser is a twenty-nine-inch Sony TV, a VCR and the latest VCD player. An expensive chandelier hangs from the ceiling. A soundless air conditioner keeps the room delightfully cool. Glass shelves line the walls, loaded with trophies and awards of all kinds. There is another glass case full of old film magazines. All of them have Neelima Kumari on the cover. Looking at all this, I feel privileged to be working in her house. In her time, she must have been the most famous actress in India.
Neelima's mother is a real pain in the neck. Though she is nearly eighty, she has the energy of a forty-year old and is always after me. I am the only full-time servant in the house. There is a Maharashtrian brahmin lady who comes to cook in the evening and also does the dishes, and a part-time maid who does the washing. I do everything else. I do the dusting and the cleaning, I iron the clothes and make evening tea, I do errands outside the house, buy the milk and pay all the utility bills. But Neelima's mother is never satisfied, even though I address her very respectfully as 'Maaji'. 'Ram, you have not brought my milk,' she will say. 'Ram, you have not ironed my bed sheet . . . Ram, you have not dusted this room properly . . . Ram you are again wasting time . . . Ram you have not heated my tea.' Sometimes I get so irritated at her constant nitpicking, I want to tape her mouth.
Neelima, though quirky at times, is not so demanding. She wants me to become a live-in servant.
There are plenty of empty bedrooms in the flat where I could stay, but her mother refuses to allow a 'male' to live in the house. So I am banished to a chawl in Ghatkopar, from where I commute every day to her flat. She pays rent for the room in the chawl. In a way it suits me, because Salim can also stay with me in the same room.
* * *
I am out shopping with Neelima. She doesn't own a car, so we take a taxi. I don't enjoy going out with her. She only buys cosmetics or clothes and I have to carry her heavy bags. She never goes to a McDonald's or a Pizza Hut. And she never, ever, buys me anything.
