A Bollywood Affair by Sonali Dev Page B

announced himself every time he came over.
    “How long have you been up?” He only half looked up from his laptop, that one-part-amused, two-parts-arrogant smile diffusing the concentration on his face.
    “What are you writing?”
    Both amusement and arrogance dissolved behind a wall. “Just something.”
    “That’s a long something you’ve been writing. I thought you said your workshop didn’t start for a few weeks?” He’d told her he was here for some sort of special month-long writing workshop.
    He stared at the screen, a frown crinkling his forehead. “It doesn’t. But I came in early to finish up my script before it starts.”
    “Script?” She tried to sit up. “Like a movie script?”
    He moved his laptop aside and helped her up. “You don’t read film magazines or watch much TV, do you?” The arrogance was back full force.
    Much as she loved movies, those film magazines made her sick to her stomach and she had never found the time to go out and buy a TV. “Why? Are you some sort of big, famous star?” she teased.
    He gave a sheepish shrug and went back to typing.
    Oh God, was he really famous? And she hadn’t even recognized him.
    “Don’t look so embarrassed. I’m not that famous. I am a director. But I write my own stories and I’ve always wanted to take a screenwriting workshop. So here I am.”
    “Seriously? You’re a director? Like a real director director? What have you directed? Anything I’ve watched?”
    “I don’t know. Do you watch films?”
     
    “Do I watch films?” Mili flattened an outraged palm against her chest as if he’d just accused her of stripping for cash in her spare time. “I’ll have you know I watched every single movie they showed at the Balpur theater—first day, first show.” Her eyes went all nostalgic and Samir found himself hungry for a glance at the memories flashing through her mind.
    “I mean hello! Doesn’t the name Mili sound familiar? I’m even named after a Hindi film. Mili was my mother’s favorite film.”
    “Your mother named you after a girl who dies of cancer?”
    “She does not die!” She looked so appalled he had to force himself not to smile. “The love of her life takes her to America at the end and vows to fight for her recovery. Did you even watch the film?” Were those tears in her eyes?
    “You mean the nasty drunk who’s horrible to her throughout the film?”
    She gasped and narrowed her teary eyes to slits. “He is not nasty! He’s hurt and disillusioned. His heart is as sick as her body is. And they heal each other.” She waved her hands about, making healing sound as simple as making rotis, a few swipes of the rolling pin and you had nice, perfectly round dough circles.
    “Have you watched anything that was made in this decade?”
    She pulled a face at him—one that told him exactly how much of an arrogant jerk he was. “I watched whatever our Balpur theater showed. After I moved to Jaipur, I never had much time to go to the theater. Pandey, the theater wallah in Balpur, was an Amitabh Bachan and Shah Rukh Khan fan, so that’s mostly what we watched. My favorite is Sholay, and I’ve watched Chandni eight times and Darr five times.”
    None of those films were made in this decade, but she looked so excited he didn’t correct her. Plus, if she hadn’t watched movies in the past few years the chances of her knowing who he was were slim. And that was a stroke of luck he wasn’t about to question.
    “You don’t like these films?” she asked as if she were asking if he had a soul and any taste at all.
    “No, they’re great films. Sholay ’s one of my favorites too.” God, he’d die for a script like that. “But the other two, well, they aren’t exactly the kind of films I make.”
    Ah, so he made those artsy-fartsy films. Pandey had shown one of those once, about this honest cop who goes around killing all the corrupt politicians. It was all so dark and depressing the public had started shouting in