JOURNEY IN JEALOUSY
- P.Krishnamoorthy
The air was cool from the intermittent drizzle. The flash of the lightning lighted the semi-dark area. The flamboyant young Kishore, the superstar of Bollywood was a busy celebrity and his call sheets were booked for the whole year. Kishore was relaxing in a recliner as he was exhausted after a long day’s shoot. He decanted a large peg of ‘ Civas’ into a crystal and swigged it on the rocks. As he was sipping his first drink, there was a call on his cell phone. He answered the call and the caller was his younger brother Sunil from Stanford, USA. After routine family inquiries, Sunil revealed that he would be completing his MBA program in a month’s time and planned to visit Mumbai. Kishore got excited at Sunil’s ensuing visit. “Rekha! Just now Sunil called. He would be here in a month’s time” Kishore conveyed the exciting news to his wife. ” Okay Kishore! Good news ”replied Rekha from the other room.
Sunil, a vibrant personality, brilliant in academics moved to the U.S for higher studies. He was the topper in the State final examinations and got admission to Stanford University, USA. A well-mannered, stylish, smart, classy and positive personality, he was liked by one and all. He was graduating in MBA and planning to continue in Ph.D. Before the next course, he would like to visit his parents as he was away for a long period.
Rakesh Sharma, a veteran actor in erstwhile Bollywood, now a senior citizen, a recipient of several State and National awards was an uncrowned king of the old film industry. His movies were so popular, they celebrated silver jubilee weeks in the State. A strict disciplinarian, pious and God-fearing, he was an unmatched philanthropist and a great contributor to several orphanages and hospitals besides contributions to cancer and other medical researches. Laxmi Devi was his wife and Kishore and Sunil were their sons.
Sunil landed in Mumbai and was happy to see his mother after a long spell. His eyes were full of tears on seeing her. Sunil kneeled down and touched his parents’ feet as a mark of respect. After dinner, Sunil went to sleep early due to jetlag. The next morning Kishore paid a visit to his parents’ house and met Sunil. They were discussing his future plans. Later Kishore left for his morning shoot. As a mother, she wanted to know whether Sunil had anybody in view for a life partner. When she got an emphatic ‘no’ from him, the parents unanimously voiced of getting a suitable girl and his acceptance was unpredicted by them.
Sunil visited Kishore’s house, and after tea, Kishore wanted Sunil to come with him to the shooting spot so that they could continue their talk while driving. Sunil agreed and at the shooting spot, after the usual morning greets, Kishore introduced Sunil to the assembled people including the heroine, Sheila. The scene was a family subject dealing with a middle-class family where their only daughter Sita, loved by Parveen of a well-to-do family, was not approved by Parveen’s parents. Kishore in the role of Parveen was briefed about the shot wherein he was talking to Sheila in the role of Sita, about their future plans. The camera started ‘rolling’ and Parveen finished his dialogue with Sita, who, in turn, was supposed to respond to Parveen. Few minutes passed , Sita was not responding to Parveen. Instead, she was looking passionately at Sunil, the visitor, and the director had to say “cut” to stop the camera rolling. Kishore was flabbergasted at the reaction of Sheila; the director had to announce a ten-minute recess to break the impasse. But Sheila immediately wanted a half-day break before resumption. As Sunil was handsome, smart, and good looking, naturally he would be an easier target to the other gender. From the looks Sheila had over Sunil, Kishore was sure that she might have plans to pursue him further.
After seeing Sheila, a very strange feeling ran in Sunil’s system that he had never experienced before. Some inner urge compelled him to meet Sheila again and again. He madly desired to talk and spend more time with her. He was unable to explain the reasons for his peculiar and unprecedented longing for her. He stayed in Kishore’s place for the night, as he thought Sheila would call him in Kishore’s number. Promptly came the craving calls for Sunil. When he answered it, though the beginning sounded informal, the caller gradually switched to her intentions and wished for a personal early meeting.
Sheila was the leading beautiful female star and mostly she was the pair with Kishore in movies. She was equally a busy heroine and lived in her mansion in Malabar Hill. Many suitors tried their luck with her but none succeeded and how Sunil became her ardent interest was a mystery. She was even dreaming of him as her life partner. She passionately loved Sunil who also loved her. She knew that Kishore would like to introduce Sunil to the movie industry as he had the necessary profile and personality. If the proposed wedding between them would go thru, she thought, with the patronage of Kishore, Sunil would enter the field and gradually become a competitor to Kishore. By this planning, she could break Kishore’s monopoly in the industry and consolidate her position.
She decided to achieve her ‘life target’ through Kishore. She invited both the brothers for a dinner in her home. Sunil gladly accepted her invitation and also persuaded Kishore to do so. He also understood Sunil’s driving urge to meet her. They landed in her mansion and after the drinking session, Sheila and Sunil preferred to be alone in the garden. They were discussing at length and the spectrum of discussions covered their personal plus and minuses wants and dislikes, reactive temperaments to people, and situations to understand the chemistry between them. Sheila was not keen to leave her successful career and suggested to Sunil to stay in India. She also suggested he entering the movie industry with the patronage of Kishore, and rise gradually to stardom like him. The decision balance finally tilted towards their mutual agreement on life partnership.
Sunil’s parents y were disappointed with his latest decision to get married to Sheila. Yet they felt happy as he would continue his stay in India by this wedding. The social media and the press were all out to flash the wedding news. Her fans' associations welcomed this news. As this was against the wishes of his parents, Kishore had half-heartedly reconciled to this arrangement. On the decided date, Sunil tied the sacred knot to Sheila to signify their bond. The press and the social media made headlines of their wedding as it was connected with families from two leading stars. The grand reception was held in a posh hotel with celebrities and cine stars attended.
After a short honeymoon in Switzerland, they returned and Sheila resumed her shooting schedules. Along with her, Sunil was a regular visitor to the shooting spots on Sheila’s suggestion, as that would familiarize him with acting experience in the sets. Surprisingly on a particular day, a new producer visited their shooting spot and made an offer for two male leads in his proposed movie. He already selected Kishore for one role with Sheila as heroin. He was looking for the second male character. Suddenly Sheila got an idea and instantly she suggested Sunil for the other lead, hoping there would be no objection from Kishore. Kishore happily gave his clearance. Sunil also was excited about the offer and gave his acceptance. His photo sessions and the screen tests were satisfactory and the contract was duly signed.
The ulterior motive of Sheila was to introduce a rival for Kishore in the industry. Sheila was able to hold her leading star position mainly due to Kishore as the leading hero. Whenever she desired to act with a new or different hero, the producers refused her request, since the movies ran successfully only with Kishore’s cast. Sheila’s stay as a leading lady totally relied on acting with Kishore only. Even her call sheets were decided according to that of Kishore. With Sunil’s introduction, Sheila was very confident and positive that he would make it a successful career over Kishore.
The subject of the story was a love triangle with a climax fight between the two characters, one to fall from a hill and dies. The director desired to finish the scene with the role of Sunil’s tragic death. After the shoot when the stars and the crew watched the climax scene in the monitor, they were surprised at Sunil’s super performance. His excellent facial expressions, dialogue delivery, and body language were impressive than Kishore. As the climax was emotional to watch with Sunil’s performance, the audience would be spellbound. Sheila was very happy at Sunil’s initial success, as she had not backed the wrong horse.
As the days rolled over, gradually future projects in the industry preferred Sunil instead of Kishore. His call sheets got filled up as Sunil was able to exhibit his talent in any role he performed. His approval rating was raising high, compared to Kishore’s getting diminished. Sheila also exercised indirect pressure on producers to decide the roles in favor of Sunil. Sunil’s success made Kishore even to reduce his payment for new movies. The cordial relationship between the brothers was slowly eroding. The professional jealousy even minimized their personal talking and contact with each other. Their parents were concerned about the animosity that prevailed between them; they were unable to mediate between them. As time passed that had assumed larger proportions and became irreconcilable. The conflict turned out to magnified proportions leading to absolute obvious professional jealousy. Kishore’s strategy to meet this challenge was to produce movies with foreign collaborations and to take over the rights of distribution. As a redeeming scenario, Kishore introduced a new female lead named Madhuri to the industry. With Madhuri’s gaining popularity with moviegoers, Sheila’s influence on producers and directors started declining. With the generation change in the moviegoers, they preferred to watch new young faces than monotonous old faces for years. The new face Madhuri paired with Kishore in new screenplays and themes, helped his graph go higher again than Sunil-Sheila combination.
With the new entry of Madhuri, Sheila realized that her position in the industry becoming shaky. It was high time for her to think of different strategies to counter Madhuri’s rising under the patronage of Kishore. As Sunil was tagged on to Sheila, his future projects also have moved in favor of Kishore. The slow poisoning of Sunil’s mind by Sheila to develop the utmost hatred towards Kishore was responsible for the creation of professional jealousy in them. As the days go by, so the rift between brothers also got enlarged and related hostilities became aggressive. The parents felt this strange scenario got its existence as if God had impulsively or callously rolled the dice to select the winner.
Sheila’s mind was working on a new strategy. According to her, the rise of the Kishore-Madhuri partnership like a phoenix from the ashes could only be stopped by permanently eliminating them from existence. With this, both Kishore and Madhuri would have perished and Sunil-Sheila would only be there in the industry. As time rolled by, suddenly there was another development of a legendary movie producer planning a multi-lingual movie on a large scale budget with the theme of clashes of mafia gangs. There would be two mafia leaders vying against each other over control of a wealthy area. He offered the leading male roles for Kishore and Sunil besides the female roles to Madhuri and Sheila for the lady leads. Since it had the subject of clashes between mafia leaders, both the brothers thought it would give them better opportunities to exhibit their individual style and talent. The producer was very happy at their acceptance as their strange combination itself would sell the movie well in all centers.
As per the script, the scene would open, after the delivery of the first dialogue, Sunil would pull the trigger of the gun without bullet at Kishore-Madhuri. This scene gave an inkling for Sheila to execute her master plan of eliminating them. Sheila’s plan was to use a gun loaded with a real bullet in it without the knowledge of Sunil and the director. When ‘action’ signal was given by the director, Sunil would shoot at Kishore-Madhuri with the real bullet and they die instantly. She also devised another plan to justify the tragic end as an ‘accident’ due to the real bullet not removed from the gun by mistake. Sheila was thrilled at her criminal plan and if executed flawlessly, she was confident she would become the uncrowned queen with Sunil as the uncrowned king for the whole movie kingdom.
The set for the climax scene was installed with all paraphernalia in time. On the day of the shoot, as scheduled, both brothers separately arrived at the spot along with Sheila and Madhuri in full make-up and costumes of the characters. Kishore looked realistic as a mafia leader when compared to Sunil, the counter mafia leader. The director explained in detail as to how to portray the characters and made sure that the guns were without real bullets and pulling the trigger shown only in action, but supported by bullet sound effects in the background.
As per the script, at the end of the gang clashes, both mafia leaders (Kishore and Sunil) were face-to-face in the same location to draw the trigger with the guns on hand. All eyes of the crew were focused on the scene. After delivery of the first dialogue, Sunil was about to shoot with his gun, there was a thundering gunshot sound heard on the roof of the set. Sunil was confused and scared at the bullet sound as he had not yet fired from his gun. There was dim lighting in the set and one could see only a shadow in a corner holding a gun. When all the lights were switched on, all could see Rakesh Sharma standing with a gun. Both Kishore and Sunil were taken aback to see their father there and fired the shot at the roof. Rakhesh Sharma had to do this for stopping Sunil from shooting at Kishore with a gun loaded with a real bullet. Before the gun was handed over to Sunil, without his knowledge, Sheila conspired to load the real bullet in the gun to kill Kishore and Madhuri. Sheila’s servant-maid, who clandestinely witnessed her loading the gun with a real bullet, hurriedly came to Rakhesh’s home and informed him about Sheila’s conspiracy. But for her timely information, the whole situation would have turned tragic with the end of Kishore’s life.
Rakhesh Sharma warned Kishore and Sunil alone as to how their professional jealousy compelled them to become hostile to each other and led to ‘accidentally’ not removing the real bullet from the gun. But he purposely not disclosed to his sons about Sheila’s own selfish agenda of loading the gun with the real bullet to kill Kishore as it would harm the relationship of members in the family. He was also quoting to them “mild jealousy and covetousness are actually a route to improved capabilities. It’s called creative envy. It’s part of aspiring. The pressure can be channeled to new skills that take artists to a higher level, both economically and as evolved beings”. The journey in jealousy finally reached its destination.
