Bollywood Confidential Read online

  Sonia Singh

  Bollywood Confidential

  This book is dedicated to my father, Bhupindar Aujla Singh, affectionately known as Bob. If it wasn’t for you, Dad, I never would have made it to Bombay. Thank you for making the whole Bollywood experience happen.

  Mom, thank you for instilling in me a love for all things Bollywood. Masala moviemaking has no bigger fan than you.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Raveena Rai once believed there was nothing worse than being…

  Chapter 1

  Raveena was seriously getting tired of her agent.

  Chapter 2

  One week later Raveena had tried out for the role…

  Chapter 3

  After dinner Raveena returned in a daze to her small…

  Chapter 4

  Siddharth was the number one actor in India.

  Chapter 5

  “Unlike you, Jai, not everyone was sexually active in the…

  Chapter 6

  “India is a dirty stinking place. Too many stinking people.

  Chapter 7

  Raveena was standing in the first-class passenger line at the…

  Chapter 8

  Halfway through dinner, Randy Kapoor fired his screenwriter.

  Chapter 9

  Four A.M. outside Bombay’s Sahar Airport.

  Chapter 10

  “I don’t want to do this film,” Siddharth said, his…

  Chapter 11

  The heat was so intense Raveena could practically hear the…

  Chapter 12

  Raveena had never checked out of a place as fast…

  Chapter 13

  From his second-floor bedroom, Heeru Punjabi watched the young woman…

  Chapter 14

  Raveena followed a slender, dark-skinned young woman with a shy…

  Chapter 15

  The next morning Raveena was having breakfast alone when Randy…

  Chapter 16

  Not surprisingly, Raveena didn’t care for the director.

  Chapter 17

  Half an hour later, Raveena found herself at Sahara Studios.

  Chapter 18

  Siddharth nearly tripped as he got out of his car.

  Chapter 19

  Isn’t it nice when a gorgeous guy dismisses you with…

  Chapter 20

  The pain was so intense Raveena sat up in bed…

  Chapter 21

  The good thing about picking up an ameba or two…

  Chapter 22

  Raveena was attending her first Bollywood bash.

  Chapter 23

  Siddharth wondered if the rumors were true.

  Chapter 24

  Raveena wondered if anyone had ever thought of constructing a…

  Chapter 25

  The next day was Tuesday, and Raveena spent the morning…

  Chapter 26

  By the grace of Ganesh, Raveena hoped to make it…

  Chapter 27

  Raveena was still in a spiritual mood after her sojourn…

  Chapter 28

  The next few weeks began to take on a weird…

  Chapter 29

  Siddharth’s mother, Poonam, reached for Raveena’s plate. “Have some more…

  Chapter 30

  “What are you doing?” Sachi asked.

  Chapter 31

  Siddharth drove to Zenzi.

  Chapter 32

  Days turned into weeks.

  Chapter 33

  Raveena stopped insisting on a bound script and plot coherency…

  Chapter 34

  Siddharth wandered through the empty studio, running his hands along…

  Chapter 35

  That night Raveena sat down with Uncle Heeru to watch…

  Chapter 36

  It had been a sleepless night.

  Chapter 37

  Too soon it was dark out, and they were heading…

  Chapter 38

  Life seemed to go downhill after that.

  Chapter 39

  Raveena put her hair in a ponytail and slipped on…

  Chapter 40

  Shooting resumed a week later.

  Chapter 41

  Raveena’s mother called that night.

  Chapter 42

  Raveena got a call that morning from Millie D’Souza.

  Chapter 43

  Newspapers carried reports that it was the hottest day in…

  Chapter 44

  Raveena wasn’t a wimp.

  Chapter 45

  Damn it to hell!

  Chapter 46

  Hours later, Raveena was still huddled on the dirt floor…

  Chapter 47

  Raveena awoke in a cool air-conditioned room in a bed…

  Chapter 48

  Daddy indeed straightened everything out.

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Other Books by Sonia Singh

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  Raveena Rai once believed there was nothing worse than being a D-list actress in Hollywood.

  But that was before she found herself crouched on the dirt floor of a Bombay slum, inhaling fecal matter fumes and frightened beyond belief because she was on the run from the Indian police.

  Back in LA, the most frightening thing in her life had been discovering she’d mistakenly eaten carbohydrates while on the Atkins diet.

  Now she faced incarceration in an Indian prison.

  Personally, Raveena would rather leap off Mt. Everest—provided she could make it across India’s border and into Nepal.

  She longed to be back in her Santa Monica condo, drinking a vodka tonic and writing practice acceptance speeches for her Oscar for Best Actress or Best Supporting Actress.

  Whichever came first.

  Regarding the vodka tonic, Raveena worried about eating carbs…not drinking them.

  She moved from crouching to a curled-up fetal position. The heavy night air caused trickles of sweat and grime to run down her face.

  But this was no time to think about the havoc wreaked on her pores.

  A near hysterical giggle slipped from her lips as she visualized the expression on her dermatologist’s face. “But Raveena, how could you be on the run without sunblock, an oil-free moisturizer and a good eye cream?”

  But before she could lapse into a bout of panic-stricken chuckles, the sound of voices erupted from outside.

  Loud male voices.

  The police had found her.

  Desperately, she looked around for a place to hide.

  Rather difficult in a shanty one-sixteenth the size of a studio apartment in New York City. The only furniture in the room was a shabby straw mat.

  This was no time to be choosy, so she scuttled across the floor and began wriggling her way under the covering just as the door burst open.

  Uniformed men with flashlights filled the room and yanked off her hiding place.

  She placed a weak hand in front of her eyes to shield them from the glare of the lights.

  This was the end.

  All twenty-eight years of her life flashed before her.

  Well, okay, maybe just the last six months.

  Every single event that had led up to her coming to Bombay.

  And a place known simply as…

  Bollywood.

  Chapter 1

  Six months earlier…

  Raveena was seriously getting tired of her agent.

  He ushered her into his Wilshire Boulevard office and into a black art deco chair shaped like a swan, which was definitely designed without the input of any self-respecting chiropractor. Sure enough, the moment she sat down she felt her back begin to spasm.
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  Griffin smiled. “I’m so sorry I haven’t returned your calls. In between snorkeling in the Caribbean and yachting in the Mediterranean, I haven’t had a moment to sit down.”

  Raveena had spent the holidays pouring half a bottle of brandy into her eggnog.

  She felt a wave of depression wash over her.

  Raveena wasn’t normally a depressed person. She always tried to see the bright side of things. Sometimes it took a day or even a decade to see the silver lining, but at least she kept on trying.

  Therapy helped.

  Denial helped more.

  Because it seemed the “LA” thing to do, Raveena had made an appointment with a well-known psychiatrist in Malibu. Unfortunately, the good doctor hadn’t appreciated it when halfway through their session Raveena tentatively raised her hand and said, “Instead of talking, could we get to the prescribing?”

  Basically, as if the month of January weren’t gloomy enough, her acting career—to put it politely—was in the proverbial shit hole.

  Griffin smiled again, and this time the effect nearly blinded her. Raveena knew she had good teeth—everyone in the Rai family did—but next to Griffin her pearly whites looked positively saffron.

  Across from her, Griffin leaned back in his black leather chair, ran his fingers through his perfectly tousled red hair, and proceeded to wax eloquent about the fabulous role she simply had to try out for. “It’s a career-making role, Raveena,” he said.

  It was always a career-making role.

  As if she expected him to present her with a career-obliterating offer.

  Griffin Bish had been Raveena’s agent for seven years, ever since she’d moved to Los Angeles at the tender age of twenty-one. Some people may not have considered the move a big deal since she’d grown up just forty-five minutes away in Newport Beach. After all, it wasn’t like she was some fresh-faced farm girl from Iowa hopping the bus in Des Moines, coming to LA with her dreams in her jeans pocket.

  Or was it?

  Orange County and Los Angeles may be neighbors, but they’re worlds apart. On the surface, the two locations seem similar, like a glass of water and a glass of vodka, but then you take a sip…

  Speaking of vodka, she thought longingly of the Stoli stashed in her freezer.

  “Raveena, the role is to die for,” Griffin insisted.

  Her left butt cheek had grown numb and she shifted.

  “You’ll play one of two slave girls assigned to the emperor,” he added. They want someone ethnic-looking. It’s not a speaking part—”

  She sighed. “Naturally.”

  “But you’ll be able to do a lot of emoting with your eyes.”

  Right.

  Seven years in Hollywood and she’d played a gypsy girl, a belly dancer, a Mexican cocktail waitress…

  And those were the roles worth mentioning.

  To be fair, it wasn’t really Griffin’s fault. Despite the success of films like Monsoon Wedding and Bend It Like Beckham in the west, Hollywood wasn’t exactly teeming with roles for women of Indian origin.

  Make that East Indian origin.

  Thanks to geographically challenged Columbus, Raveena had once been sent on a casting call where the producers were looking for an Indian woman. Upon arriving, she’d discovered that by Indian they meant Pocahontas, not Parvati.

  Anyway, in Raveena’s expert opinion, her golden coloring should afford her a variety of roles. After all, she’d been mistaken for women of Hispanic, Arabic and Southern Italian origin. The problem was the number of available Hispanic, Arabic, Southern Italian and East Indian roles combined could fit in the tear duct of her right eye.

  Besides, there were enough Hispanic and Italian actresses out there to fill their respective parts. Raveena knew the likelihood of a casting agent selecting her, when Salma Hayek and Jennifer Lopez were ready and willing, was about as likely as a foreign-born action star becoming governor of California.

  Oh wait…

  Taking a deep breath, Raveena forcibly gulped down her pride. “When’s the audition?”

  Griffin flashed another blinding smile.

  This was Hollywood, remember?

  Chapter 2

  One week later Raveena had tried out for the role of slave girl, lost it to a Brazilian bikini model, nearly twisted her ankle in a pilates class and stubbed her toe in yoga.

  About the Brazilian model, apparently the casting director was looking for a more marketable minority.

  Try saying that three times fast.

  To top it all off, it was Saturday night and she was having dinner with her parents.

  Truth be told, she didn’t mind hanging out with them. It’s just that a long, long time ago in a place far, far away, she recalled spending her Saturday nights with dates.

  Sometimes when she was in extreme periods of denial—yes, her favorite word—she convinced herself that she’d sacrificed her love life for her career.

  It was called ambition.

  It was also called eight years later and no career or boyfriend to speak of.

  Almost on cue, Mr. and Mrs. Rai walked up to the restaurant.

  Raveena’s father, as usual, was dressed in a three-piece suit, silk handkerchief visible in a neat triangle in his breast pocket. If he could, he would wear a three-piece suit every day of his life.

  He also liked wearing women’s perfume, but this was neither the time nor the place to go into that.

  This time the suit was charcoal gray, the tie and handkerchief were burgundy, and the scent was Opium, if she wasn’t mistaken.

  Her mother was dressed in an elegant gold sari. Her shoulder-length hair was loose, and a stunning gold and pearl choker graced her slender neck. Matching chandelier earrings dangled from her small ears. She was a beauty.

  People had often told Raveena that she looked like her mother, and she supposed it was true, but with some very discernible differences. Her mother was barely an inch over five feet and slender as a willow.

  At five-six, Raveena was sturdy as an oak. Raveena’s shoe size was also five sizes bigger than her mother’s, which made walking around in stiletto heels a form of torture not condemned by the United Nations.

  Meanwhile, her mother’s tiny feet would have made a nineteenth-century Chinese noblewoman drool with envy.

  Yes, her parents were different.

  And not just because they were committed curry consumers.

  First of all, Raveena’s father came from a very devout Sikh family, yet his parents chose to name him Bob. Raveena’s mother was Hindu and named Leela after a famous Indian actress who happened to kill herself by downing a bottle of Johnny Walker and jumping off the tallest building in Bombay.

  Then again, Raveena’s elder brother Rahul always said they were just your typical Indian immigrant family.

  Speaking of Rahul, Raveena suddenly wished he were joining them tonight. Rahul was in international banking and had been promoted from the Manhattan office to Brussels. She’d stayed with him last summer and met his girlfriend, Brigitta, who cooed endearments to Rahul in Flemish.

  Rahul was four years older than Raveena, and she honestly believed her parents would have refused to let her major in theater arts if it weren’t for him. Because by the time she was ready for college, Bob and Leela were under the blissful delusion that their one and only daughter would be studying accounting.

  Please don’t ask her where they got that idea!

  When they realized Raveena wanted to forgo accounting for acting, they didn’t just hit the roof, they demolished it.

  Rahul—about to graduate summa cum laude from Stanford—flew to Orange County and sat the Rai family down for a talk. He explained to their parents that acting was his sister’s dream and she would be unhappy doing anything else.

  They were unmoved and unimpressed. Bob stared pointedly at his watch.

  Rahul then pointed out that as an investment banker he would see to Raveena’s financial security if the need should arise.

  Their parent
s visibly thawed.

  Rahul then winked at Raveena and added that he would be sure to introduce his equally successful fellow banker friends to his little sister.

  The tension in the room broke and slowly disappeared. Although for some reason their father continued to stare at his watch.

  In that moment, Raveena felt like she’d won the sibling lottery.

  Bob was hungry, so they entered the restaurant and followed the statuesque blond to their table. Raveena couldn’t resist a small thrill of satisfaction. They were at Mantra—a hip new LA restaurant that specialized in Indian-Californian fusion cuisine. Because her last name wasn’t Coppola, she’d had to book the table three weeks in advance.

  Still brimming with bubbles of satisfaction, Raveena smiled at the blond.

  The blond did not return it.

  This was Santa Monica. The waiters and waitresses all had headshots. And customer service was not listed on their resumes.

  Determined to enjoy the night, Raveena sat down and kept the smile on her face with all the determination of a beauty pageant contestant. Tonight was her mother’s birthday. They were celebrating.

  Though based on past experiences out to dinner with her family, she reflected that the only people who’d really be celebrating were the ones at the other tables.

  Leela gracefully adjusted the folds of her sari and gazed around. Suddenly her nose began wrinkling furiously like a rabid bunny. “What is that smell?”

  Raveena took a sniff. “Curry powder I think.”

  Her mother raised an elegant eyebrow. “You think I don’t know what curry powder smells like?”