Misindirection

Bunty Kapoor’s wife wants to know who are Misty, Gulabo, Chiki, and Malti, the names he calls out in his dreams each night. The golden jubilee hit movie director and lover of rich food and fine single malt hopes to cover up his misindirections.

Bunty Kapoor woke up with a throbbing headache made worse by the chirping of birds accompanied by the sputtering of innumerable rickshaws headed who knows where.

“Well! Good morning, kumbhkaran,” said his wife, her words laced with irritation, her voice much too loud for Bunty’s comfort.

“Please! Not now. I have a headache.” Bunty moaned.

“BP-165, Sugar-240, cholesterol-250” came the unsympathetic response followed by a vicious jab of the insulin needle. “There!” she said, “the insulin will make you feel better. Good thing you married a nurse.”

“What time is it?” Bunty asked weakly, “I have to be at the set. Shooting starts at two.”

“It’s 1:30 Director-sahib, but before you go, tell me who are Misty, Gulabo, Chiki, and Malti.”

Bunty groaned, his fuzzy mind groping for an answer. Last night was shrouded in the impenetrable fog of this morning’s headache. All he could manage was a weak, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The question is what were you talking about. You kept calling their names in your sleep all night.”

The drive to the location was sheer torture. His dark glasses were no match for the sunlight blinding him no matter where he turned, traffic was terrible, and Krishna, the driver, kept on swerving, braking, accelerating much too erratically. When he finally reached, the hero had not shown up, but the supporting actress had.

“I haven’t had time to read through the lines for today,” she announced, “but you need to speak to the script writer and get him to fix all the problems.”

The insulin kicked in finally and Bunty, the golden-jubilee hit director of more than a dozen super-hit, cult-classic movies like Muqaddar ka Samundar, Phati Patang, Garam Halwa, and Mera Naam Naukar, to name only a few, settled down to do what he did best. Lines were cut to put the supporting actress in her place, and it was only when she started groveling that she was added back in the scene. The hero was dragged from his first shift set and given a stern dressing down. The shot was set up and, after a few takes, Bunty was satisfied.

“Pack up!” he announced commandingly, sitting down in his island of calm to watch the frenzied scurrying around as props, lights, miles of wires, and innumerable other objects were picked up, accounted for, and put away.

For Bunty, directing was like meditation. His blood pressure went down, the insulin took care of his sugar level, and his mind settled in a zone where cholesterol did not matter, where kulhads of mishti dahi, plates of gulab jamuns, chicken samosas, and pegs of single malt kept flowing in a never-ending stream. He caught Krishna’s eye. And Krishna knew what Krishna had to do.