Part 32
Gaurav and I had a few days to ourselves and we found that we were more in love now than we were when we married. I suppose that shared experiences give you something you both can talk about without a need for explanation.
I had a deep think about that and realised that, of all the marriages that I had heard of falling apart, it was because the couple did not share their lives, usually because the man would not give his time to his wife willingly but expected her to be at his beck and call. I hoped that we wouldn’t get that way, wondering what I would think if we both became film stars. I would put my foot down and demand we both appeared in the same films!
I got a text on my phone one day to contact the bank to see my account manager. I didn’t know I had one of those so I rang them and was given a time that day to pop in. It was the account I had under Geet and, when we went to see him, he showed me my account on screen. Sometime yesterday a very large amount had been put into this account and it had put me over the threshold of just being a standard account and I was now a bank VIP. He asked what the amount was for and I had to explain that it was my share of the takings from the Dhawanees tour. His eyes get wide and he said “You are that singer! I am so sorry but I do not follow the music scene but my daughters do. They will be tickled pink when I tell them I have met you.” He agreed to let me know if there were any more big deposits and I promised to think about investing.
Gaurav had a smile on his face when we left the bank and showed me his own account on his phone. He had received about one percent of my deposit as wages. We hugged in the street and I said “To think that there must have been people who thought I was marrying you for your money!” I pulled out my own phone and called up the account I had opened in the name of Gayle. It was now very healthy, if not as full as the Geet one it was enough to be satisfied about. Considering that it was only the share of the Four Winds part of the tour and the merchandise I thought we had done pretty well. It was enough for the guys to get settled in without needing to work too hard. I did not think it odd that I had been paid twice as I did my part in both sets and had nothing to be ashamed about.
I sent a text to the four guys which said “Check your accounts if you haven’t done so lately. Meet up at the studio tomorrow at ten.” I told Gaurav that I would be meeting the guys tomorrow and he said that he did need to catch up with the family business as he was still a major shareholder so we decided to do our own things the next day.
The next morning I met up with the other guys and we had a discussion. The upshot was that we would audition for a replacement for me so that they could still record and do shows. We realised that the fado disc would be the last in that genre unless we were very lucky. They all said that the money from the tour would set them up for a year or two so they will be able to pick and choose. They thanked me for my part in their success and I told them that they were good enough to have found a singer anyway, if not quite so quickly.
A week after that Janet sent me a message to meet her and Lajpal at an up-market hotel the following day for lunch. Gaurav was also invited. Anu, who had gone home, would be back again for the meeting and it would be a celebratory lunch from Lajpal to thank us for the tour. We dressed well for lunch and took a cab to the hotel. It was quite a big table with Anu, Anna, Lajpal and his wife, Jack and Sheila, Janet and her husband as well as us and the rest of the band plus Bill, Aganee and the salon girls, The meal was sumptuous and wine flowed for some. Afterwards we were ushered up to a meeting room where we sat at a boardroom table with Lajpal at the head.
He said “Firstly I would like to thank you all for the success of the tour. You all did your part, some more than others. The reason for this meeting is to tell you about the things we have put in train. We are well into putting a tour of India on the calendar. I expect it to be four night shows in fifty cities. This means that those on tour will need to commit a year of their lives to it. I have spoken to Janet and she tells me that the Four Winds will not be available and that is good, because it will be an Anudeep Dhawan and the Dhawanees tour to mark his farewell. By the time that is over we will be ready to start filming ‘The Singing Rajah’, his final film and I expect that would take at least six months.”
He stopped so we could all take it in. One of the girls from the salon asked “Why are we here?” and he said that they were an integral part of the UK tour and that a successful team should stick together; so, if they wanted a year visiting every major city on the sub-continent this was their chance. “And” he smiled “we do not travel by coach when we are with the stars in India.”
He then went on to say that the tour would start in the first week of January so we would need to fly out to Mumbai between Christmas and New Year. Between now and then, about five months, he wanted me to learn a number of songs in Hindi to sing in the show, as well as a few more duets with Anu. He had brought over about ten CD’s that Anu had put out that had some of his hits on it. He also had the masters to those albums. “What I would like you to do is to take those masters and rework the songs I have noted in the way that you did the others. We have released the second traditional album this week so you should all see some income from that coming in. My plan is to put out a double album of ‘Anudeep Dhawan in a Reflective Mood” for the Christmas market and to promote the tour.”
He then went on to say that all of the marked songs would be part of the show so it would be a single working for two results. We would be paid on delivery of the new master. Janet said she would block book the studio so we could work there. Lajpal then told us that he had organised the film studio in Mumbai to work on the footage from the London shows and that he would be able to supply the single disc Four Winds one and a double disc Dhawanees one later in the year. He said that Jack would be handling that distribution in the UK and he would do so in India. He then deferred to Anu, who said “I too, would like to thank you all for giving me my life back. The UK tour taught me that I should revel in what I do, not what I have. I am looking forward to the next tour as well as to the film. Speaking about the film, a very canny lady gave me a synopsis of a movie and I have been thrashing it out with our best director over the last week or so.”
“It will be along the lines of a ramrod straight Rajah, used to getting his own way, seeing a girl singing in a nightclub and falling in love. The band will be, I hope, the Four Winds who I have grown to admire. This girl has a number of friends who play around with traditional instruments and the story has a sub-plot with them all forming another band. There is a further sub-plot in that the singer has a boyfriend who is the owner of the nightclub. Of course, you can all see who the singer and her friends are. I would like Gaurav to be the nightclub owner.” I smiled and Aganee snorted. Anu went on “The Rajah does win the love of the singer in true Bollywood style and takes her home after the wedding in the scene we already shot. The wedding scene is already causing some cameramen to salivate with excitement.”
“After the wedding, the Ranee works on making her Rajah to be a lot more normal. His love will allow that to happen. She will get him singing in the palace and brings her friends in to play along with it. The old boyfriend comes for a visit and hears the Rajah singing and organises a show for him to sing in. The final part of the movie would be segments from that show and the final number will be a huge extravaganza with about twenty singers, all who have sung with me in other films and want to be a part of this one, in a massive number which will put that elephant scene to shame. It will be my uplifted finger to my detractors over the years and I am so much looking forward to filming it.”
Lajpal took over again and told us we would all be on a base rate from this week if we sign a letter of agreement, with a contract to follow before the tour. Bill would be on the books as an audio specialist and Aganee, if she wants, could be a Hindi language mentor for the band. He wanted to know if any of us needed time to think about it and no-one did so we all signed onto the payroll on the spot and then there was a group hug.
When Anna hugged me she said “I have been waiting for the bitter end for some time but this is going make it all so much fun. I know that you and he will be magic on the screen but he has been magic with other leading ladies before. I think Gaurav will be a fine actor if he puts his mind to it. I watched him loosen up during the tour and I am certain he has the talent that Bollywood is looking for. Pity he doesn’t sing.” We both laughed.
Marianne G 2021
