SS: One step from Hell! Vendatta - Part 20 Oct 1st

Part 1: Fading Light

"Do you think your mom would have ever willingly come out with her memoirs? They are so intimate..."

"Well, she could have made it a lot easier on us by writing that down in her diary too, no?" she had a wry smile on.

"What do you look to gain from this book deal?"

The camera showed her pause from taking inventory of a clothes pile at her boutique and turn to face it. "Everything," she sounded resolute, with a sudden glint in her eye. 

And he touched the rewind button again to head back to the start of the interview for the umpteenth time that evening. 

Her voice, a fresh bee sting every time she spoke with that slow and measured firmness, "Everything..."

He couldn't tell what he had been doing the day of her mother, Mridhula's book release - the yesteryear actress' musings, poems and part of her diary named under 'Fading Light'. 

'Who cares?" being his first thought, disrespectfully dismissing the bewitchment the exquisite peach skinned beauty had over her fans and perhaps, still was the reason thousands of cross-eyed teenagers came in hordes to Bollywood in search of their glitzy movie dreams. He'd also then discounted the number of Aashiqs she'd made with a slow lifting of her gaze at them. When movie critics of the bygone era never failed to mention her deep luminous eyes in their reminiscing of the 70's cinema; or when starstuck reporters - smitten like fawning teenagers - still wrote sonnets over her raven hair and half parting of her lustrous lips, it was only natural that they would pour over her writing and slice it every which way to vicariously be one with her thoughts. 

But, how was he to expect that it had a dark ugly secret of his past for all to see, let alone suspect that it would slander the circumstance of his birth and allegedly claim he was a bas***d borne out of an illicit affair.

This is how it read from Mridhula's memoir.

"N's woes are her own, but I couldn't stand to be a mere observer when I know the pleasure and the guilt that comes from tasting such temptations - in this city, there are as many temptations as the number of stars on a giddying clear night sky with the same luster in its seduction. 

I warned her and yet she took those rides around Marine drive with her husband's new assistant.  "Poor fellow!" she'd told me, "he is from Shimla and doesn't know anyone in Mumbai and I get bored easily when S gets obsessed with the lighting in the room, invoking that perfection which lives in his head alone." and I had let it be thinking she was only living a little. 

But, today, she calls to tell me, she is four months pregnant from a long forgotten romp she'd had with that younger chap in her seaside villa.  

N and I are not the same, except in the weaknesses we share. She doesn't wish to grant a future to her mistakes; to her momentary impulses. 

With S's outdoor shoot for the coming months in Paris, we have decided to play his absence to our advantage. She is to fire the assistant and break up with S for that time and head to my village home. We will have the baby delivered there and hand off the new born to the chap, once back in the city. Abbu will not entertain such wanton ways, but I'm again forced to ask D to help with the settlement money that might be needed to have the matter hushed. Forever, if needed. 

N is not alone in this. But she is in her guilt and I in mine for the rest of the days we will live bearing our sins in silence. I lie and I help a wife to survive while I aid in covering up her secret motherhood. I'm another festered human"

Even before a full week could pass since Fading Light's release, while he was away for a shoot in Turkey, a tabloid report had started rumors with drawn out guesses of the names involved in the memoirs, making that particular anecdote as flash news in many news channels as well.

The Venus of Indian Cinema - Mridhula's 'Fading Light' has not only been an insider look at the workings of the media shy actress' mind, her secrets and her hopes, but also a revelation in itself, giving us a passage in time to dig out the dirty secrets of many of her star studded friends. Indeed, dull nebulous wives that they were as second-hand stars, it is obvious they had their only bedroom sparks from impetuous revelry at seaside villas and adulterous affairs. It is not a farfetched theory when one claims that Mridhula's references to N in the book, is none other than her dear friend Neetu Roy, wife of the pioneer of the golden era of cinema, director Subodh Roy. And given the allusions to 'the chap' from Shimla, who was also noted as the new assistant to be 'fired' quite soon, it leads us to believe that a certain Kundra had been around that time assisting Subodh Roy for the pre-planning of his then directorial venture, the timeless 70s hit 'Love in Paris'. 

No points to any guesses on what Mr Kundra had been doing on his tea breaks. 

However, the point of interest here being the child that was abandoned in what could only be a shockingly reckless act, little anticipated from the star mother who had later given birth to two handsome sons - Pranav Roy and Samyukt Roy and died at the age of 53 from a heart condition. Or was that a chronic plaguing of her past that she'd run from?

Could it be? a little birdie at our studios asks, that the Mr Kundra from Shimla, connected with the Neetu Roy affair, be of any relation to the Siquander of box-office of our current times, who also happens to hail from the same hilly romantic town of Shimla. There is also much less of a question when our badshah's last name shares every letter with the discredited assistant.

Rishabh Kundra's history has not been an open book for us to delve into, but does this mean that the Roy's have after all left behind their uncrowned prince to once again rule the cinema of the 21st century?

Until the next cuckoo bird flies into our studios, it's Ritu Gowalkar, signing off for Xtra TV. Stay tuned...