Neelima dies in the film after delivering an emotionally charged speech. The film ends as soon as she dies. We stand up to stretch our legs. Then I notice that Neelima is crying. 'Madam,' I ask with concern, 'what happened? Why are you crying?'
'Nothing, Ram. I just felt a sense of kinship with my character on screen. See, I am smiling now.'
'How can you actors laugh one minute and cry the next?'
'That is the hallmark of a great actor. Do you know why they call me Tragedy Queen?'
'Why, Madam?'
'Because I never used glycerine to weep in any of my films. I could summon tears to my eyes at will.'
'What is so great about that? I also never need glycerine to bring tears to my eyes,' I tell the maid when Neelima is out of earshot.
* * *
The more I see of Neelima, the more I begin to understand why she is called the Tragedy Queen.
There is a core of melancholy which surrounds her. Even in her smile I detect a hint of sadness. I wonder about her past life, why she never married. She seems to have no real friends. But she goes out of the house from time to time and returns late in the evening. I wonder whom she meets. I doubt that it is a boyfriend or a lover, because she never returns looking radiant. She comes back looking haggard and depressed and goes straight to her bedroom. This is one mystery I would love to get to the bottom of.
I also wonder about her obsession with beauty. Physical beauty. She is good looking, yet she spends hours doing her make-up and preening before the mirror. Her dressing table is full of creams. I try to read the labels one day. There are anti-wrinkle creams, anti-cellulite creams and anti-ageing lotions. There are deep radiance boosters and hydrating age-defence creams, revitalizing night creams and skin-firming gels. Her bathroom is full of strange-smelling soaps and scrubs and face-masks which are supposed to make you look youthful. Her medicine cabinet has as many medicines for her as for Maaji. There are human-growth hormones and breast-firming creams, pharmacy-grade melatonin and antioxidants.
I finally say to her one day, 'Madam, if you don't mind my asking, why do you need all this make-up? You no longer act now.'
She looks me in the eye. 'We people who work in films become very vain. We get so used to seeing ourselves in make-up that we no longer have the courage to look in the mirror and see our real faces. Remember, an actor is an actor for life. Films may end, but the show must go on.'
I wonder whether she said this from her heart, or just recited some lines from a film.
* * *
Something truly wonderful has happened today. Maaji has died in her sleep. Aged eighty-one.
Neelima weeps a little, then gets down to the practical business of making funeral arrangements.
It seems as though almost the entire film industry comes to her flat to offer condolences. She sits stoically on a sofa in the drawing room, wearing a white sari and light make-up. I recognize many of the people who come. There are actors and actresses and directors and producers and singers and songwriters. The drawing room is overflowing with visitors. I crane my neck to catch a glimpse of the famous stars whose pictures I have seen in Starburst and whose films I have seen on screen. I wish Salim could be here with me. But he would be disappointed. Because the visitors don't look like the glamorous stars we see on screen. They are not wearing make-up and flashy clothes. They are all clad spotlessly in white and look grim and sombre. Even those who are famous for comedies.
I don't know how Neelima took her mother's death. But to me Maaji's departure from this world felt like welcome relief after a depressing film.
Within a month of Maaji's demise, Neelima asks me to become a live-in servant. She knows that Salim is staying with me in the chawl, so she continues to pay rent for Salim's room. I shift to her flat. But I am not put in any of the four empty bedrooms. I am given the tiny ironing room.
I notice that after Maaji's death, Neelima begins to go out more frequently, at times not even bothering to return at night. I am convinced she is seeing someone. Perhaps there will soon be a marriage.
* * *
I am wakened by a scraping noise coming from the direction of the drawing room. The sound is quite faint, but sufficient to disturb my sleep. I rub my eyes and look at the alarm clock by my side. It says two-thirty am. I wonder what Neelima is doing pottering about the flat at this hour.
Suddenly I realize that her lover might have come to visit her and I get all excited. I tiptoe out of my room and move towards the drawing room.
The room is in darkness but there is a man there. He doesn't look like a lover. He wears a black mask over his head with slits only for the eyes. In his left hand he holds a black sack. In his right hand is a flashlight which is pointed at the VCR. He quickly disconnects the cables, picks the VCR up and inserts it in his black sack. I know now that he is no lover. He is a thief. And I scream. It is a piercing scream which shatters the silence of the night like a bullet. It wakes up Neelima Kumari, who comes running to the drawing room. It completely unsettles the thief, who drops the sack and the flashlight and covers both his ears with his hands. And it shatters a glass figurine which was poised delicately on top of the television cabinet.
'What is the matter?' Neelima asks breathlessly. She switches on the drawing-room light. Then she sees the thief and lets out a scream too. The thief has almost gone deaf by now. He falls down on his knees and begins pleading with us. 'Please, Madam, I am not a thief. I have just come to look at your house.'
'Ram, bring me the phone. I will call the police immediately,' Neelima tells me. I bring her the cordless phone with alacrity.
The thief tears off his mask. He is a youngish man with a goatee. 'Please, madam, please don't call the police, I beg you. I am no thief. I am a final-year student at St Xavier's. I am one of your greatest fans. I have come to your house only to see how you live.'
I notice that Neelima softens visibly on hearing the fan part. 'Don't listen to him, Madam,' I warn her. 'This fellow is a thief. If he is a fan, why has he stolen our VCR?'
'I'll tell you why, Neelimaji. I have purchased cassettes of each and every film you have acted in.
All 114 of them. I watch at least one of your movies every day. Due to heavy use, my VCR has become defective. I am having it repaired. But I cannot bear to pass a day without watching one of your films. So I thought I would take one of your VCRs. Just the fact that I am watching a movie on your VCR will make the experience so much more memorable. I was going to return your VCR when my own comes back from repairs. Please believe me, Madam. I swear on my dead father I am not lying.'
'This is all a lie, Madam,' I cry. 'You'd better call the police.'
'No, Ram,' says Neelima. 'Let me first test whether this man is indeed telling the truth. If he has seen all 114 of my films then he can answer a few questions. OK, Mister, tell me in which film I played the role of a village girl called Chandni?'
'Oh, how can I forget that, Neelimaji? It is one of my favourite films. It is Back to the Village, right?' 'Right. But that one was too easy. Tell me, for which film did I get the Filmfare Award in 1982?'
'That's even easier. For The Dark Night, surely.'
'My God, you are right. OK, tell me in which film did I act with Manoj Kumar?'
'It was that patriotic film, The Nation Calls.'
'Oh, you even saw that one?'
'I told you, Neelimaji, I am your greatest living fan. Tell me, why did you agree to do that two-bit role in Everlasting Love? I always thought the director underutilized you.'
'It's amazing you ask me about Everlasting Love. I too feel that I shouldn't have done that role.
All the credit for the film's success went to Sharmila, and I got a raw deal.'
'But you were fantastic in It's Raining over Bombay. I think the monologue that you deliver in the temple after your father's death is the most memorable scene in the whole film. You really should have got the Filmfare Award for it, but they gave it to you for Woman instead.'