Part 38

We all flew back into London for Christmas and it seemed drab and in need of a coat of paint after the glamour and glitz of India, although it did smell a bit better. We had a couple of weeks at home, catching up with family and friends, before all flying back to India to see what our future held.

When we arrived we were again asked to leave the plane first and taken to the helicopters. Gaurav held me close as we waited to board and said “You know, last time we were here it seemed out of this world. Now it feels as if it is our world.” We would still keep our apartment in London so leased one near the Bollywood site, filling it up with good furniture and filling the wardrobes with our huge mass of clothes. It was secure enough for us to live in but we did stay at the hotel as much as we could as it was very handy as we worked.

We also leased two apartments below ours for Jill and Joyce. They had been keeping in touch with their boyfriends and the two guys had waited for them to work through the year. I gather that they had been told that it would be India or nothing so they both decided to come back with us. Their first trip on the helicopters was something to behold. The two girls had become integral to our world, which was fast becoming more surreal.

A few weeks later I was getting sick at reading scripts that showed me as a weak woman singer, waiting for a strong man to carry me away to his castle / hovel / island / tent where I was to love him for ever. Gaurav thought they had merit but he was going to be the handsome brute in these movies. Then I read one that did look as if it may work. The working title was ‘The Singing Detective’ and that would have to be changed as it had already been done. The story was set in a nightclub where I was the owner and main singer. There was a series of murders that led back to the club but there was no hard evidence, and what little there was pointed to me. Gaurav was to be the slightly damaged detective who was actually afraid of women.

The plot twisted and turned but the upshot was that the murderer was one of the club members with a hatred of homosexuals and the story only started to make sense when it was found that all of the upright and married victims were members of a secret sect that called itself the Blue Shorts and raped little boys; our murderer having a young brother who had been a victim some years ago. The link was a pair of cufflinks each had in the shape of enamelled shorts that, when worn upside-down, looked like a Vee.

The final scene is a shoot-out in the club in the middle of a show and the detective kills the murderer but takes a shot that was meant to kill the owner. The final scene is her cradling the detectives’ head as they wait for paramedics and he admits that he loves her. You don’t find out if he dies or not and I thought it was a great story which allowed for both of us to sing, me in the club and Gaurav as the detective singing in the shower where no-one can hear him.

Gaurav said that we could never do it as it wasn’t Bollywood and I pointed out that if we wanted to have a solid career we will have to make solid movies that could be up for international awards. We ran it past Lajpal and he was sceptical so I got Jill to package it up and send it to Mr Singh with a copy to Ajay, the director. Ajay came back to us first to say that it could be impossible to make in this studio unless it had approval from the top. He said that he was already building scenes in his mind with a noire feel to them and he was quite excited at what he was imagining.

We kept on reading insipid scripts and had a large pile of rejects when another one took Gauravs eye. This was a picture that was set in a semi-war zone between India and Pakistan. That was immediately a point against it being made. The male lead was a brave Indian Army officer who falls in love with the voice of a sultry Pakistani woman who sings on the Pakistani radio. What he doesn’t know is that all of the songs have been pre-recorded some years in the past and that the woman is actually living over a shop where he goes for his pastries. One day he hears her singing in the shower from out in the street and the love story starts from there with the usual dance. The kicker is that they both perish while making love, for the first time, in an orchard and they roll on a land-mine. That would be some ending – going out with a bang while having a bang. I was sure that the more squeamish in the studio will insist on a forever after ending but we would have to see what transpired. I could see, in my imagination, the camera panning back from the two bodies as the credits roll and the soundtrack being a bitter-sweet love song sung in harmony by the two of them.

We packaged that one and sent it off to Lajpal, Mr Singh and Ajay to see what they thought. As we waited, we worked on an album for the two of us in front of the band which would be the next Dhawanee disc. We kept the touring group together and it would be a fuller sound that we used to have but the others thought that we may as well use the talent that had been offered. We already had a few songs that had been in the show so just needed to find some more. Luckily, with the studio now behind us we had lots of songwriters clamouring to give us material so a lot of our time was, like the scripts, weeding out the crass and the cringe-worthy to get to the good ones.

Three months back in India we received a message from Sabhya, through Jill and Joyce, to attend a meeting at a private residence in the hills. We would be taken by helicopter on the Friday afternoon. Jill and Joyce were included and we would be staying until Monday morning and would only need our personal toiletries and casual clothing but was warned to pack warm as it was a bit colder where we were going.

We were taken to a remote area where we flew around a large hill to see a sizeable mansion set facing north. It had a helipad set behind it and our transport settled down on it and we got out. Our luggage was handed down to us and we took it to the edge of the helipad and our helicopter spooled up and took off again, leaving us standing and trying to take in the magnificent scenery that lay in front of us. “Magnificent, isn’t it?” said a voice behind us. We turned to see Sabhya standing with a trolley for our bags. “I have to pinch myself every time we come here. It’s like being in another world and I must thank you, Gayle, for your stand that night. It has changed my life in more ways than you could imagine. Now, let’s have your bags and I will take you into the house.”

We loaded our luggage on the trolley and then followed him down a path to doors that were set into a rock face. “Are we about to meet Doctor No?” I asked and he laughed and said “When it comes to you, Gayle, I think that he is Doctor Yes. You will see when you meet our other guests.” Through the doors we found ourselves in a corridor that led to the main part of the house. We were actually on the bedroom level and our bags were given to maids to take to our rooms as we passed. In a large lobby with a view over the countryside we were ushered into a lift which took us up a couple of floors and we came out into a huge lounge area with full wall windows that made you think you were flying.

Sitting around the lounge were a number of people who stood as the lift doors opened to welcome us. First was Mr Singh, who introduced us to his wife; then was Anu and Anna who both enveloped us in hugs. After that Ajay and his wife gave us hugs as well and then we met two guys and their wives who I realised were the writers of the two scripts we had sent. Of the others in the room, most were film people and then we had our orchestra conductor, Girindra, and a number of aides and PAs. Mr Singh announced that it was time for a casual dinner and we all went into a similar sized room which had a long dining table that easily took all of us.

There was general chatter as we ate a very normal meal, but beautifully cooked and presented, mostly about the tour and what had gone on since. I was sat in between Anna and Mrs Singh and we had a lovely conversation. She told me that she had a crush on Anu ever since she first saw him and she had gone to one of our concerts in Mumbai and absolutely loved it. Anna told me that the tour had taken a lot out of Anu but that he wouldn’t have missed a moment of it. She said that they had a small army of secretaries sorting the mountains of fan mail that was still arriving.

As we came to the end of the meal, Mr Singh stood up and tapped a glass for silence, which was immediate. “Good friends” he started “I have brought you all together this weekend to work on a couple of projects that have caught my interest, thanks to Gaurav and Gayle, here. But first, I would like to propose a toast to the people who made the tour last year such a success. To Anudeep, Gaurav, Gayle, Ajay and Girindra, whose talents, skills and damned hard work pulled it all together and kept it that way over a gruelling year.” We five sat and blushed while the others stood and toasted us.

He stayed standing when they sat again and carried on. “I am sure that you all realise what has brought you together today. Gayle sent me two film scripts that I read and immediately wondered why I was asked to look at them. The synopsis of both looked like they were impossible but my wife read them and saw the same things that Gayle and Gaurav did so I then took time to read them myself. Then I was speaking to Ajay about another project and he asked me if I had seen them and when I said I had, he started describing a few scenes that he had imagined and I then realised that we could do something amazing. I sent both scripts to Anu to see what he thought and the result of his looking at them has brought us together today.”

“We have, here today, the two writers of the scripts, my best director and cameraman, the best conductor and one of our most interesting songwriters who does not usually write for film. This weekend we will work through the possibilities of making both films in a studio I own in Delhi that does not work on Bollywood movies. I am certain that you all know who the lovers will be in both films but my surprise was that Anu wants to play the part of the murderer in the detective one and the part of the commanding officer in the other. Both are non-singing parts and he has told me that he would like his final films to be with him playing a serious part for once in his life.”

Marianne G 2021