Part 1 Divya
"Divya, my cabin, now."
Four words. Little did Divya Ahluwalia know at that point that those four words were the long-awaited harbringers of change. That after that day, she would finally begin to see a glimmer of light, a dream come true at the end of a tedious tunnel.
"Okay, I have a job for you," said Mrs Dasgupta briskly once they had reached her cabin.
Divya nodded, dreading the mundane task that was to follow. Ever since she had been recruited at Sparkle as trainee, all she had been doing, as assistant to various people, was faxing, photocopying, typing, sticking envelopes and occasionally making coffee for her seniors. She knew she had to be grateful that she had the opportunity to learn so much from the professionals around her, and grateful she was. It was true that she had learnt a lot about the media industry, about journalism, about the way people worked or didn't. But now, after nearly two months of merely pushing buttons and being shuffled from one department to the next, she was beginning to feel more and more frustrated and prayed every moment, with a sense of increasing urgency, for some kind of breakthrough in her dreary existence. As luck would have it, this was the day she had been waiting for.
"We have a scoop," Mrs Dasgupta continued, "and I want you to write it out. Do you feel up to the task?"
"I- I- yes. I mean, I will do my best, and, thank you, Ma'am," Divya stammered, all flushed.
"Call me Shivani. I know it must have been hard for you, the past weeks, just floating about in the office with not much to do. I know that you must have felt useless and under-utilised. I understand. I began the same way. But what you would have learnt, just by observing the people around you, is more than you would have if I had thrown you at the deep end of the pool to fend for yourself."
"Yes Ma - I mean, Shivani."
"Nervous?"
"A bit."
"Don't be. This is your first chance. Mess it up, and it's back to making me coffee. So, no pressure," Mrs Dasgupta smiled.
Divya could do nothing but stare. Mrs Dasgupta was smiling. She had actually smiled. And it was a nice kind of smile, not the mean kind one would have expected from a magazine editor so strict and stern. And she had joked. Divya half expected to see a pig fly past outside.
"Don't stress," Mrs Dasgupta said kindly, "you'll be fine. I know."
"Right," muttered Divya, still a bit dazed.
"Okay," said Mrs Dasgupta, back to her usual crisp business-like self, "Here's the scoop. This is nearly as fresh as it can get. Barely half an hour ago. Nidhi Kapur was in Mauritius, shooting for Dooriyaan. Scene was at a cliff. She jumped and -"
"What?" Divya interrupted, without thinking.
Mrs Dasgupta continued, unperturbed, "She was pulled back by some crew member, and didn't suffer any injuries whatsoever. Question is, why did she jump?"
"She actually jumped?"
"Now, Rohit Thakkar got married last month, as you know. Join the dots. I want 250 words in half an hour. Not a minute more. This month's issue is to be printed today itself, and this news must make it to there. Hopefully, we'll be the first to report this. You've been here long enough. You know what to do. All the best."
"Thanks."
Divya left the cabin, giving herself her customary pep talks on the way to her miniscule cubicle. This was it. And she would be brilliant. She knew what to do, and how to do it. No need to worry. It was okay. Everything was under control.
She called a few people and started typing, her fingers flying in a blurred frenzy over the keyboard...
Nidhi's Dooriyaan-inspired suicide attempt
Nidhi Kapur attempted to dive off a cliff while shooting for Hemant Raghavan's Dooriyaan in Mauritius. A reliable source tells us that the scene required her to stand at the edge of the said cliff, but that suddenly, without saying anything whatsoever, Kapur started walking forward. Were it not for assistant director Rahat Sayed, who pulled her back in the nick of time, the consequences would have been tragic.
However, notwithstanding Sayed's commendable act, the elements of tragedy are not hard to miss in this shocking incident. Barely a month has passed since ex-flame, Rohit Thakkar got married to none other than Kapur's greatest rival in the film industry, Myra Khan. Barely a month has passed since the most publicised dump of Bollywood, when Thakkar explicitly denied that he had ever been seeing Kapur in the first place. And this, after nearly two years of Kapur and Thakkar flocking like love birds all over Mumbai.
In a famous dialogue from Biryani, Thakkar's character Prem says, "Pyaar par koi zor nahin chalta. Ek baar jo ho gaya, toh na mit sakta hai, na badal sakta hai. Maarna ho toh Prem ko maaro, kyunki Prem ka prem toh amar hai." Then how, Rohit, how did your affections sway when the National Award for which both Nidhi and Myra were nominated for, went to the latter?
And to our Ms Perfection, we say this, Zindagi Khoobsoorat Hai. Not to be wasted over heartbreaks, or heartbreakers, for that matter. For who knows, agle mor par kiska saaya hai!
Done. She absolutely hated it. It was embarassingly, stultifyingly pathetic, even for a complete amateur like herself. If only the lightman she had called had been more talkative. If only she could find some other contacts who would be willing to give her information. But she only had five minutes left, so it would have to do.
And then, she still needed a picture. Usually, the graphic design department would have sorted that out, but she knew how overworked the whole publishing team was on the day of publication, so she decided it would be better if she got a picture of Nidhi Kapur from Sam's database herself. Better for more than one reason, obviously.
The handsome Sam, of the photography department, was leaning back on his chair, cup of coffee in his one hand, computer mouse under the other, his beautiful, deep, liquid brown eyes gazing beautifully at the computer monitor. Lucky monitor.
He looked up as Divya walked in. She instantly wished she had worn earrings that matched her blue chikkan kurti. And eye make-up. She wondered if her hair was looking nice. If only she had had the time to glance at a mirror. She found it incredible that in the midst of such an important potentially life-changing assignment, with five - no, four - minutes to go before the deadline, she could still look at Sam and think that he was so brilliant that sunlight seemed to ooze out of his every pore. Hang on, oozing sunlight? Bad imagery, she cringed.
"Div! What's up?" Sam asked, in his usual amazingly chilled out style, with those artistic dark strands of hair falling lazily over his forehead. And he had called her Div! Much better than Dude, which she had voted insulting. And much, much better than Vidya, which was definitely not her name.
"Hey, I need a picture of Nidhi Kapur for an article I'm writing. Can I have a look at the database?"
"Sure thing. Come over."
Divya walked to his chair, reminding herself to focus on the task at hand. He got up and gave her his seat. Like a gentleman. She tore her mind away from the fact that he was practically leaning on her as she browsed through the pictures and the fact that he was smelling divinely good, and selected a picture that portrayed Nidhi Kapur as reasonably heartbroken and suicidal.
"So, um, article, huh?" Sam asked as Divya was leaving.
"Yeah."
"Your big break. Congrats."
"Thanks Sam."
Divya swooned. In her own dreamy little head of course.
And thus, as it would turn out, an attempted suicide by a superstar had just made young Divya Ahluwalia's day.
****
Coming up next...
Part 2 Prem
"Agle mor par mera saaya hai," Prem typed as his facebook status.
Edited by _.serendipity._ - 14 years ago
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