5

Of course I’d known immediately they were all actors. Of course the makers knew I would guess this, which is why they have an explanation ready for me. I have just been informed by Jatin, the writer-director, that we rehearse tomorrow, followed by shooting over the next day and a half; that the episode will employ actors; and, finally, that the story we’re telling is only ‘based on a true incident, actually an amalgamation of several such incidents’ when Ravi had made it sound as though I would be mind-reading real people. The web series is called Mind-Reader but, it now appears, what I’ll in fact do is deliver lines alongside other performers.

‘We’re working to a deadline, Jaya, and sometimes the exact situation you want takes too long to find. As you know, we have a checklist of issues we want to highlight in this first episode, which is going to be us planting our flag, so to speak. The episode with which we want to grab people’s attention so that it’ll be forwarded and shared amongst millions who will hopefully remember to look out for more. It would have been a lot of hassle hunting up and down the country for a couple facing exactly the problems we want to showcase. It’s not the kind of thing you can advertise for on social media, is it? And what is more important? These individuals being true or false, or the issues, which genuinely affect tens of thousands of people?’

‘If indeed they affect tens of thousands, wouldn’t two have been quite easy to find?’

‘Jaya, are we the movie capital of the world or not? Our audiences are the most used to actors playing roles. In fact, they expect it, and as soon as the show starts, they forget it. Haven’t you seen the viewership figures for the IPL growing year on year? Just joking, huh, don’t tell anyone I said that, otherwise I’ll never work in this business again. But seriously, we’re following a very common reality-based, reconstruction model. Discovery is full of it, you must have seen; the History Channel too. Most true crime shows use actors as well, right?’

‘Don’t you find it strange to involve me of all people in something that uses actors? And it was your boss’s idea to call the show Mind-Reader!’

‘Exactly, Madamji, that’s what I was coming to. This precaution is for you as well! First of all, we are delivering what we promise in your case — which is an authentic mind-reader. But what if your gift doesn’t work as expected with real people? Then where would we be? How long have you had it for, tell me? Let me check, um … eight days, right? And we’re already shooting the first episode, in which you’ll be encountering strangers from a different part of the country, with whom you’ll use Hindi which isn’t your mother-tongue! Is that a challenge, or not? Therefore, consider this a warm-up with actors; afterwards there will be lots of real people whom you can genuinely mind-read. It also gives us a bit of time to get going: if we can get even two million views per episode, then the concept will be validated and they’ll double our budget, with which we can hire a research team and so forth. But if the early episodes don’t wow, there’s no chance of that happening; our viewers as well as our backers will switch off. So, at this stage, we have to add a bit of extra performance, choreography, masala. Once things have taken off, we might not even need a research team, because people will be contacting us with their stories! That’s how confident I am that this concept will fly. And you will become a household name.’

Despite utterly lacking in scruples of a certain sort, Jatin is a likeable guy. When he said that, he pictured me on a red carpet, in a gold chiffon sari. I guess it means he genuinely believes in showbiz.

I keep my eye on him as I ask my next question. ‘Do you have a Shakti?’

He’s suddenly soaring over Manhattan, because I recognise Central Park in the middle. But to me he claims he’s ordinary. I don’t disbelieve him: what I’m seeing might be his fantasy.

‘Look,’ he pipes up again, ‘during rehearsal tomorrow, if it disturbs you that they are actors, I mean, if it doesn’t allow you to focus, then I can ask for the Shakti to be temporarily switched off. When you wake up, it won’t be there; tomorrow night they’ll turn it back on.’

With that (veiled threat?), he returns to work on the script, which he promises will be ready by breakfast, an hour before we’re due to begin rehearsing.

I can see Jatin’s mind is on his writing, and leave his room without another word. I’m going to take his advice for now: given that he knows about my power, it would have been odd of me not to query all the fakery. But to protest further at this stage might be counter-productive — did I want to risk being shut out as a troublemaker quite so early?

In any case, Jatin might turn around and ask if he has enough of my history in his file — but Jaya, weren’t you also an actor for five years? What else was ‘Chandra Sir’ if not your longest-running part? At the time, didn’t you repeatedly tell yourself it was the stories that mattered, that needed to be seen and responded to, so both the correspondent and anyone else in a similar situation would feel slightly less alone? The fact that everyone involved was hiding their real identity you dismissed in your mind as irrelevant. And also, Madamji, each time you picked the funniest or most eye-popping pair of stories for your column, you realise what you were doing, right? You were confirming that you also understand the rules of the entertainment business!

I ask Jatin in bed an hour later if it’s true that there are more and less powerful gifts. He says yeah, of course, while scrolling on his phone.

‘Give me an example.’

‘Sorry babe, I myself know only so much. But imagine the obvious ones for yourself. Superhuman strength, invisibility, longevity, seeing what will happen in the next fifteen minutes.

‘Harder dick,’ he adds to his list, and cracks up. ‘I’m not joking.’

I smoothly say he needs no gift in that department.

‘And where does mine rank?’ I ask in the same tone.

He puts his phone away and entwines himself with me. ‘Ah, were people gossiping in Gurgaon? Don’t worry: they might have Shaktis, but none of them know shit. Let me guarantee you something: your current grade of gift might have been determined by previous loyalty, but the rate at which your Shakti develops depends entirely on your initiative and willingness now. You shine at the tasks they give you, babe, and just watch what you become.’

I decide to ease off for now (instead of yelling, ‘But I had zero previous loyalty, Jatin! I’m an ordinary, “sickular” history teacher of exactly the sort the PM’s party despises, and my column too goes against every value they stand for. So why me??’). This has been okay enough to do again: I can save a few questions for next time. Instead, I read his mind, get on my knees and give him an extra pull all over me.

As Jatin dresses, while reminding me to come for breakfast to the rooftop restaurant, he also mentions with a wink that, to my left, the ‘parents’ of the ‘love-jihad victim’ we’ll practise rescuing tomorrow are probably fucking, and to my right their oppressed seventeen-year-old daughter is sound asleep. Her ‘angry brother’ is further down the hall, because all the cast members have been accommodated on the same floor.

‘Which is why I’m telling you now, because you’ll realise it anyway in the morning. The girl’s parents are two friends of mine who’re having an affair. I cast them to enable a little escape from their respective spouses.’

And now that he has left, it’s probably a good time to mention that Jatin just shared the title of the episode — Mind-Reader: The Truth About Love-Jihad!

Yet I’m going ahead exactly as planned.

After a shower, I open the first emails ever addressed to my column as ‘Jaya’ or ‘Ma’am’. Somayya at the railway station probably didn’t even hear me, but the new version — ‘Nobody’s Perfect’ — does begin on Sunday: by tomorrow night, I have to pick two letters from a hundred and eight! (Not to mention replying to each of them, as I’ve always done, over the coming days!) My outing by Mrs Jalan seems to have tripled the usual number of correspondents; also, although this particular trend might not last, it’s not just youngsters writing in anymore.

Ma’am, every word below is true, although you’ll understand why I cannot share all the details. My husband passed away last year from cancer. I live with my parents-in-law and my young daughter. I have a job: in fact, currently I’m the only earning member of our family. But my in-laws want me to earn much more to keep up the lifestyle they are used to, and you can guess what work they are pushing me towards. They are united in this shameful demand, although my daughter of course doesn’t know anything. They have issued me an ultimatum: obey, or get out of the house, and take ‘your’ daughter with you. They know I cannot afford to live in Calcutta on my own, but how can I even think about giving in to their pressure? Tomorrow, what will I tell my daughter? And one day soon, what will they demand from her …

I’m overwhelmed by my own sobbing. Tomorrow, based on what I already know of the storyline, I’m going to participate knowingly in a show that is being scripted, designed, fine-tuned even at this moment for one sole purpose — not viewership numbers, but to spark inter-community conflict! This much is disgustingly obvious well before I’ve read Jatin’s script. I’m going to do my not-so-little bit to fan the flames, and then, while people attack each other over a made-up matter, I’ll be safely home a thousand kilometres away, or starting another fire elsewhere. I’m trying to drown my shame by being blasé and riding the director’s cock, but why am I even here? Why am I so desperate to hold on to this piece-of-shit Shakti? Wasn’t the dream to be of use precisely to a woman like this, to have an amazing power that would take away some of her pain? How exactly am I achieving that right now? In fact, what extra could mind-reading even bring to such a situation?

I click through my tears on another letter, written in Bengali, which is also unprecedented, implying that a broader range of people have now heard of me:

Jaya, I am a thirty-five-year-old woman, happily married with one son. My husband is a dwarf, meaning he is just under four and a half feet tall. I’m of average height, and so is our ten-year-old son for his age. We’re a contented family, but over the past couple of years our boy is so angry all the time. Out of shame, he doesn’t want to be seen in public next to his father, and more and more he expresses this anger also at me. Recently, he has taken to staying out until late in the evening with some older boys, although he is only ten …

I switch off my bedside light, but the truth is still there. The Shakti would be of minimal help to most of these people. The shelters, lawyers, psychologists I could guide them to have nothing to do with my gift. Heck, even if I decide to meet in person — now that I don’t have a lie to keep up — the woman whose in-laws want to pimp her, what comfort, or worthwhile insight, would the gift provide?

No, Jaya, it’s important to be absolutely clear as you step into the single most harmful thing you’ve ever done. Deluding yourself would insult those you’re almost certainly about to injure.

The Shakti freed you to take up your dream job without having to lie. You were also able to help Arati discover the truth about Tuntuni and Ramesh.

But now, just eight days later, this unconscionable price you’re paying (a.k.a. Mind-Reader: The Truth About Love-Jihad) — the foreseeable bloodshed of so many innocents you’re looking away from, and the sheer scale of what is about to be unleashed nationwide — is for everything the gift will bring … to you!