Free Show Business by Shashi Tharoor Page A

and into Godambo’s midriff: that relieves the pressure. Both men rise. Fists encounter flesh: dishoom! dishoom! Bodies crash into furniture. A right uppercut from Ashok sends Godambo smashing into the console. A left hook from Godambo puts Ashok head first through the screen. Miraculously unharmed by these calisthenics, the two men expand the locale for their fisticuffs. Godambo leaps over the throne, cape flying. Ashok follows. Godambo reaches a door, kicks Ashok, and opens it. Ashok recovers, follows. The two men are now on an outdoor ledge, overlooking the sea. (Why? Because it would make for a more spectacular climax, that’s why. More demanding viewers may assume Godambo was hoping to escape that way.) More dishoom! dishoom! follows. Both men fall, pick themselves up, hit again.
    A growl is heard. A grrrowl, in fact. Abha screams: “Ashok! The cheetah!” Ashok, his hands at Godambo’s throat, looks back in horror. It is Godambo’s pet, now grown almost to full size. The villain’s wide eyes gleam. “Cheetah, come!” he commands. The animal takes in what is happening and growls menacingly. Then, with a single powerful bound, it leaps toward its master and his attacker.
    Ashok steps aside.
    â€œNo-o-o-o!” cries Godambo, but it is too late. The animal lands squarely on his chest. Godambo reaches out to try to save himself, then with a last gravelly cry of despair, topples in slow motion into the sea. His confused pet follows him.
    The camera lingers lovingly on Godambo’s falling torso, the cape swirling around him like a defective parachute. At last he hits the water, with a satisfying splash. The camera stays long enough on the spot to convince the viewer that he does not come up again. Only then does Ashok turn to Abha, a new light in his eyes.
    She runs into his arms. He clasps her in their seventh tight embrace.
    They are outside now, where a few lugubrious Black Cheetahs are being energetically herded into police vans.
    â€Shabash, Ashok,” says Iftikhar. Ashok smiles, hugs Abha, and reaches out an arm to Maya. The sound track swells with the theme song, this time sung by the two women:
    You are the long arm of the law,
You always show villains the door.
By day or by night
You handle any fight
And put all the bad men on the floor!
    They look like one small happy family, smiling for the camera until the words THE END fill up the screen.
    [Note: this is an abbreviated version of the story. For reasons of space and stamina, we have omitted one puja, two tearful scenes before Ashok’s father’s photograph, an entire comic subplot featuring a domestic servant in a Gandhi cap and a fat woman in a nightdress, and four songs.]
    Â 
    Monologue: Night
    PRANAY
    Your first hit. Godambo. Your first big hit, in only your second film. You always had it easy, Ashok. Just had to open your mouth sufficiently to move the silver spoon to one side, and producers scrambled to say yes. Actresses too.
    Who’d have believed it? None of us took your chances very seriously, not even when Jagannath Choubey cast you in that first film, Musafir with Abha. OK, Abha’s was still a name to be reckoned with in the industry, but mainly for those with good memories. She wasn’t the hottest property around by any means, no longer ranking beside the likes of Sharmila Tagore and Raakhee as a crowd-puller, but you could have done worse. I mean, you could have ended up with a fresh graduate from the Film Institute, or one of those desperate starlets who’ve done the unimaginable to get a lead role but who’ll never convince anyone, least of all the audience, that she is heroine material. That would have condemned her and you to permanent eclipse. Which, frankly, was what everyone expected. Especially me.
    But it worked, or worked well enough to keep you in business. There was that “I shall always chase you” song, which became a hit even before the movie was released,