Excerpt : 52

When I sat down to write the story, I had a nagging suspicion that there was more to it than had met the eye, but suspicions cannot be reasons for mistrust. In the following weeks, eveningers announced the Saif and Amrita marriage. The couple denied it once again. It was 9 a.m. on 10 October. I was getting ready to leave for work, when the telephone rang.

It was Amrita on the line. ‘Hi,’ she said cheerfully. ‘How are things?’ Her tone was too casual and my journalistic instinct warned me that something was in the offing. So without waiting on formalities, I said, ‘You’ve called to say you have got married.’ There was a brief silence followed by a giggle. ‘That’s right. How did you guess?’ ‘Because,’ I told her, ‘A star marriage has once again followed the predictable pattern. Always, the stars first deny the news, then confirm it, cleverly packing their interviews with philosophic quotes to cover the confusions. We journalists have learnt to take star contradiction in our stride. We never completely trust them.’

‘I guess you are right,’ Amrita admitted sheepishly. ‘It does feel a bit awkward confirming the story now. But even if it’s embarrassing, it has to be done.’ Why had she denied the story in the first place? ‘At that time we hadn’t informed our parents and we wanted them to be the first to know. Now that they do, we don’t mind going public.’ They got married on 21 September. The ceremony was performed according to Islamic rites, at a common friend’s house.

On 22 September they broke the news to their parents. ‘Or rather to our moms,’ clarified Amrita. ‘We were too scared to tell our fathers.’ When the mothers knew about it, why did they hide the news for so many days — 18 to be precise? ‘Our moms were going to tell your dads and they had to go about it in their own way. It needed time. Saif and I decided that until we had sorted it out within the family, it wouldn’t be ethical to make statements to the press.’

Didn’t they think it unethical to get married without their parents’ consent in the first place? ‘Our marriage was our personal decision. Something strictly between Saif and me, so it was okay,’ Amrita answered. After the news was broken to the fathers, the couple went to Delhi. The families met, talked, planned. ‘Everything was okay and not at all traumatic. Contrary to what we had anticipated, everybody was gracious. In fact, our parents are planning to hold a reception for us in December,’ she blushed.

And how does it feel to be a new bride? ‘I feel happy but more than anything, I feel relieved that I’ve confessed to the event.’ I asked her if she felt embarrassed by her earlier defensive statements when she had said that she was not a cradle snatcher (Saif is six years younger than her). ‘I deliberately said these things to mislead the press. When you are in love nothing matters. If he’s younger, so what? He is not successful today, but he is very intelligent. Life isn’t over. There is plenty of time and there will be plenty of opportunities. And what’s most important is that I love him.’ Does it matter that they have made a laughing stock of themselves? ‘It does,’ she admitted. There was a long pause. Where is Saif Khan now? ‘If we are newly married, he has to be beside me. Wait, I’ll put him on the phone for you.’

A minute later, Saif came on the line and true to his reputation, answered my queries cautiously. ‘My mom was to arrive in Mumbai on the 22nd from Delhi. That was the day of our nikaah and I went to receive her at the airport after the ceremony. When I felt it was the right time, I broke the news to her. Naturally, she wasn’t ready for it, and was shocked. She was slightly hurt too, that we had kept her in the dark but once she got over the initial hurt, she was very sporting.’

Does he agree that their marriage has turned into a joke? ‘No,’ Saif protested. ‘Our marriage isn’t a joke. We went through all this in order to save our parents from embarrassment. In the bargain, I do agree we have appeared very silly, sounded like liars, but it was a situation that couldn’t be helped. Our action has caused a lot of confusion. We apologise for it. What more can I say? People have tried to warn me against Dingy (Amrita). But I don’t care for what people say. I don’t think Dingy is a problem and if she is, she is a beautiful problem. I will face it.’

Before disconnecting, I spoke to Amrita again. ‘My marriage is forever. I should know. I have loved and lost too many times to know what I’m getting into. I’ll make it work.’ When I put down the phone and sat to pen the Amrita-Saif love story on paper, I couldn’t help remembering the pundit who, after reading Amrita’s kundali had predicted that she would marry a nawab’s son. ‘It’s in her horoscope and she will not be able to avoid it.’

On the whole it was a controversial year. A weekly column reacting to an April fool joke by a rival magazine brought me more stress than I had bargained for. Amitabh Bachchan look-alike Vijay Saxena of Tulsi Mix advertisement fame was photographed in an intimate pose with Archana Puran Singh. I felt that the idea was in poor taste and wrote about it. The very idea that stars could actively participate in fabricating a scandal was distressing. Is reputation so cheap that one can barter it for a magazine cover? And if that’s so, stars deserve the scandals they are beset with. My outburst was more an emotional reaction. Besides, the current trend in journalism encouraged media-postmortems, only I had to pay a heavy price for self-expression. I was subjected to character assassination which caused me heartburn and loss of sleep. Still, I don’t regret taking a stand. It was an ugly incident but I’m glad I stood up for my convictions.

Four months later, I walked into another controversy. A scandal involving Anupam Kher and Mamta Kulkarni’s younger sister Moulina led to a lot of bad blood between Anupam and the actress. On the sets of Yash Chopra’s Parampara in Pune, in the presence of the entire unit, Anupam slapped a journalist and the episode blew out of proportion. The controversy became a burning issue when film journalists combined to fight the physical assault and made it a moral issue. Anupam was equally distraught. Sworn to fighting till the end, he systematically instigated a campaign and led morchas to protest against the magazine. But once again, disunity amongst stars worked in favour of the press. One of his colleagues forewarned the magazine and the journalists had sufficient time to get their act together.

(to be continued)

—Bhawana Somaaya
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