The days at the office in the coming few days were as uneventful as my life. Thank God for some mercies. I didn't see Agam after our brief meeting at TMP. The only thing worth mentioning about the recent days was the arrival of two new interns, Pooja and Prashant. Their arrival was the beginning of the formation of a coterie amongst the interns.
Pooja belonged to a middle-class family in Pune. Her uncle was the Business Head of the regional channel from the network's umbrella. It was easy for her to get an internship. At 25, she didn't look like a twenty-five-year-old. She behaved like a high school girl. Anything in pants with a stick dangling caught her fancy; we hit it off despite our differences from day one.
Pooja was a perfect poster girl for the fairness cream's ad. She was blessed with flawless skin and a body that was devoid of fat. However, her mannerisms won her no admirers. Her picture-perfect smile was a perfect antagonist to her foul mouth. Her silky hair is an enemy to her unkempt style and her weird actions are an enemy to her golden heart. She befriended me and took a liking to me immediately, most probably because she ran out of options.
Prashant and Pooja knew each other since college. He was simple and gullible and sincere which compensated well for his average looks. His looks didn't matter to me. And good looks were a criterion for women in the media not men, something I learnt from my short stint working at FMN.
We formed a trio and Manto in between was left out with no group to be a part of. She might not have been a friend to me but she was definitely a companion of my lonely times. She drifted apart as soon as we three became a team. She barely spoke to me except the pleasantries that we exchanged in the morning as a ritual. I always hung around with P&P, whether it was lunch or breakfast or coffee, we were sort of inseparable. Bini and her friends would never bother about us and things were pretty easy.
Weeks passed and our friendship became stronger, so did our understanding of office politics. We knew where we lacked in getting opportunities for ourselves. Sitting at the lounge would never help us. Networking was the key and the first and foremost was to get into the good books of Rasik and so our planning and plotting to gain work began. The three of us also understood that getting a morning shift was the worst thing to do. Because most of the big stories broke at noon and Bollywood was partying only during the wee hours. So, a shift in the afternoon was the best thing.
I was not looking to do stories on entertainment but since we were stationed in Mumbai, which was the headquarters of the entertainment industry, this was inescapable. The next best thing to work on was soft stories or the general beat and well, it totally lacked the adrenaline rush I was looking for in reporting.
Thus, Entertainment...it was as decided. Mansi, Mihir and Sugandha were the key entertainment reporters. If we were looking for work these three totally needed to be on our side. Slowly but steadily we started cajoling them. Our ears were always strained to the phone calls for the next story that was breaking out and the story assigned to them. Gradually, we made sure to be available for all the menial work and Mansi was the first to open up.
On one fateful day when Mansi was struggling with a script of her weekend feature, I volunteered to help. She did not have enough resource material and she had a time crunch to do all the research. Though I hated the story she was working on, I did it. Stirring past scandals of the yesteryear stars was downright tacky but what was more important was work and not work ethics, so...
"What exactly are you looking for? Give me pointers and I will get on to work immediately." I told Mansi.
"Okay, for starters I want the footage of the superstar with his wife and then please search for the footage of the star with the actress who he was screwing."
"Excuse me!" I raised my eyebrows aghast to hear such words.
"Excused!" She did not lift her eyes from the screen and continued to work on the script. I had no clue about the scandals let alone the work of these superstars. That was exactly the order in which people knew them.
I could not understand the hype around these actors. What great things had they achieved in their lives except for a few million in money? But in a country of billions of educated fools what could you expect but people fawning over such underrated performers.
Mansi saw me still standing at her desk. "Hurry up."
"Can you tell me the name of the actress?"
"Reyhana."
"Thanks." I buried myself amongst the tapes and for the first time in the world, I realized how scandalous Bollywood could be. I mean there were scores of speculations about these stars and their affairs. Some were extra-marital, some discreet and others openly flaunted it but what was most common was the debauchery amongst them. It didn't take me much time to research because multiple people had covered this aspect of the actor's life. It was so gross to unearth their personal life and talk about it on a weekend feature but then this was what the TRP game was all about. Staying ahead in the competition by all means.
I had to check the footage and select them but none of the screens at the FMN office were free to use. While FMN had only two available, FBN had a score of them. The first thing my eyes scanned the office was for Agam, but he seemed to be out. It was okay then to take a cubicle next to his.
His desk was so neat and clean. He had decorated his board with multiple sticky notes and certain maps of Mumbai. Must be a story that had made him loop things this way. The paper quilt artwork mounted on his desktop was pretty.
"One of the interns last year was an expert in paper quilting. Before she left, she gave me this as a present more like a parting gift to remember her." I didn't have to turn back to know who was answering my unasked questions.
"It's very pretty."
Agam looked at me with feigned interest.
"Sorry, I was just here to compile some footage for a story."
"Go ahead! The floor is yours."
"Yeah, sorry to intrude on you," I smirked.
"You didn't."
I compiled all the footage that Mansi expected out of me while Agam buried his nose in the files he had been carrying in his hand. An hour passed and I still hadn't made much progress with the footage. Finding the precise thing was a task. I still had 10 more tapes to go through of an hour each. However fast forward I went through it, it still took me a minimum of twenty minutes to go through each one of them thoroughly. If anything piqued my interest, it would take longer and I ended up wasting my precious time.
The aroma of fresh coffee wafted my nose and the loud thud from the mug being placed on my table indicated that the coffee was for me.
"Thank you."
"Should I give you a tip?"
"Aahha," and my tone mocked his sincerity in helping me out.
"Every tape in the library has an index on its cover, which mentions the date and time of usage. Some tapes might have been re-written too. The easiest way to look for the footage is to match the index on the tape with the data on the server. Here, let me show you."
He was genuinely being a help and the rate at which I was proceeding, it would have been midnight by the time I finished all the tapes.
"Thank you. I mean it."
"I know that." He scrunched his nose. "By the way the thank you for the coffee is still pending."
I smiled. "I owe you one for this."
"We will see."
"I am a woman of my word."
He looked at me bewildered.
"What? What did I say that I get that look?"
"We will see the woman and her feistiness one day. Till then let the girl in you seize the day."
"Hmm...wow that's nice."
"Thank you."
"I think I should get back to work. I need to give Mansi some sense of relief before she leaves for home."
"Yep, please go ahead. I need to finish reading my files too."
"All the best." I chimed.
He gave me one of his jaw-dropping smiles. I had to train my thoughts around him because they went all haywire when he did something for me. This man was having an effect on me that no boy had ever had. He was crawling under my skin with his niceness.
I compiled all the footage in the next one hour and headed back to Mansi. On my way back I saw Agam shooting in the studio. I stood and stared at him a little longer than it was comfortable. He was handsome. He found me looking at him but did not bother to acknowledge my presence.
And before I could embarrass myself a little more, I decided to make a move.
"He is hot."
"Who?" I turned to ask Pooja.
She gave me a devilish grin and I know your object of admiration look.
"You mean to say Agam," I stated as a matter of fact.
"And you are on a first-name basis with him while I call him Sir."
And I coughed. "Sir! Why?"
"Common, he is a senior."
"So what I said defiantly. Do you call Mihir Sir or just call him by his name? He must be the same age as Mihir. And there isn't much of a difference between your age and him. I mean he must be around 28."
Pooja leaned onto the glass door of the library and took a look at him. "Must be in the bracket of 28 to 30, not more. But he has earned a name for himself which Mihir has not been able to do. He is the star reporter and the Editor's favourite. "
"I heard that from the office goss too. He is a favourite in the Delhi HQ bracket."
"Hmmm." escaped Pooja's mouth which sounded like a moan.
"How long are we planning to discuss him?" I broke our chain of conversation about him.
"Mansi is looking for you and I came to inform you that."
"Okay, let's not get sidetracked by him."
"Totally agree with you, sis."
"And I agree too. No man is that worth." Prashant butted in from nowhere.
"Er tu Brutus?"
And the three of us laughed and walk backed to our office.
I reported to Mansi about all the footage I had collected and informed her about the snippets that came up during my research. However, I did put in a word of caution as a responsible journalist that these were all gossips with no true foundlings. Because no one confirmed it ever.
Mansi looked at me but not with contempt. She asked me to read her script. I read it meticulously and with every word, my eyes grew as big as the saucers.
"Mansi, that's scandalous. Assuming from her body language that she was interested in him and supporting it with a psychologist's byte could get us in trouble."
She shook her head vigorously and said, "That's the catch. We are leaving room for interpretation from our audience. We aren't giving anything in words. My script doesn't indicate or use any inappropriate words."
And I couldn't agree more. There was nothing in the script that out rightly judged Reyhana or the superstar. There was no speculation on our end but all the inputs were suggested by the bytes of other people. It seemed like an opinion from them. This was very clever yet I felt uncomfortable with this style of writing.
"Abhilasha, no one in Bollywood will ever verify the gossip for you. No one has the guts to take these people head-on and call out their names. So, everyone talks behind their back and so do we. Plus, Reyhana is old news. The hag died some time back and there are no family members to sue us on her behalf. Our superstar too wouldn't dare to react to this story because he is too busy fighting his old lady in the house and her alcoholism. Plus his health is fragile. Our audience would lap it up. The TRP for this feature will be an all-time high because this is the kind of sensationalism everyone is looking for to be entertained on a Sunday."
I had nothing to add to Mansi's monologue.
"Got it." I nodded my head in agreement.
"Good work though." And she raised her hand in the air to give me a high five. "We did this as a team. This is as much yours as it is mine."
I wondered what on the Earth had I done to deserve much credit from her.
"You can leave if you want to."
"Yep, thanks. See you tomorrow."
She got back to writing and completing her story on time while I decided to pack my bags and call it a day.