Bollywood Hijinx
by Jamie Murray



>X
The saffron canopy drips stillness over the film crew as they lounge on the 
mulberry cushions strewn across the open-air set. Clouds hand suspended in 
the sky. For a moment- just a moment- it's how you imagined your career on 
the silver screen would feel. But a dancer coughs, the director glances at 
his pocket-watch, and the moment is broken. The clearing's thronged with 
threadbare chairs. Better get to work.


>UPHOLSTER SEAT
You strip off the plush burgundy velvet from the plywood chair and apply 
paste to some scarlet padding ready to be glued back onto the frame. Welcome 
to the rest of your life. Other girls get to gambol adoringly around the 
square-jawed hero. You get to upholster the set for kiddie features. One 
frame stripped. Forty-one to go.
A bearded man sporting a tail, large faux-rodent ears and a top hat scuttles 
across the clearing. His formal dinner jacket is several sizes too small. 
Thin he is not. A gaudy scabbard dangles from his straining belt. Elsewhere 
in the world his appearance might be remarkable, but not here, darling. He 
plays Zrblm, one of the mice who escaped from the lab after the experiments 
boosted his intelligence. Realism never goes out of fashion in Bollywood.


>>ZRBLM
He turns to look at you, forgets to stop moving and cracks his shins on a 
chair. The scabbard falls to the ground. As Zrblm rolls on the floor 
grunting with thespian agony, the director's twenty-four carat pocket-watch 
rolls out of his jacket pocket and into a shallow warren nearby. Zrblm 
shoots you a silently imploring look.


>TAKE ALL
You pocket the watch, pilfer the scabbard and snatch his ludicrous top hat 
while you're about it. You can always give the director his watch back later 
if you want. You could even say that you just found it lying in the grass. 
Or not. Let's leave our light-fingered ratboy to sweat for a while first.


>N
Producer incoming at twelve o'clock. Time to bustle plausibly away! Too 
late. Here he is in all his glory. The razorblade cheekbones. The wispy 
goatee that would invite a good tug if it looked substantial enough. The gap 
between his front teeth that you could park a car in. If you didn't mind 
getting bits of decaying food on your car, that is.
Parents. Disaster! Parents. Producer! Conjunction! This cannot be. It 
cannot. It is! Your father squints bashfully through his smeared spectacles. 
Your mother pokes the producer, cackling like a monkey with Tourette's 
syndrome. She's spotted you and homes in, waving gleefully.


>LISTEN FOLKS
Your mother is asking the producer what films you have starred in so far and 
if she can see them. As he ums and ahs she asks pointedly if they're 
respectable films. He gives you a remarkable look; one eye looks baleful, 
the other pained. Your mother doesn't actually have Tourette's syndrome, of 
course. No matter how many times you took her to the doctor, he refused to 
diagnose her. I can't cure her personality, he would say. Wouldn't take 
bribes either. Just your luck to get the only incorruptible doctor in 
Jaipur.
Your father, predictably, says nothing. He's been mute ever since the 
unfortunate accident with the iron. Fortunately this has not inhibited his 
pursuit of his hobby; ornithology. Currently he's mouthing at a large bird 
with a pronounced bill as it wades through the shallow end of the executive 
pool. His companions ignore him.


>DRAW SWORD
En garde! You brandish the rapier like the Errol Flynn of Bollywood and your 
mother promptly recoils. It's only a paper sword, of course, which opens 
into an origami fan. Japanese culture is supposed to be very big in Delhi 
this year.


>WAVE FAN
Ah, a lovely cool breeze. The bird\duck\thing doesn't seem too pleased, 
though. It splashes about in the pool until it's feathers stand on end like 
those of a peacock. A dull brown peacock. A peahen, perhaps.
Your mother's expression of horror seems out of all proportion to the 
jocular act of waving a fan. Upon closer inspection, it transpires that the 
fan is a prop from the rodent harem scene. Your mother's opinion of your 
career has just sunk yet lower than before. She sweeps off the set, your 
father ambling, still mouthing like a goldfish, in her wake. As he exits, he 
tosses you one of those weighty onyx eggs that people use as paperweights.


>DANCE ABOUT
That's right. Keep practising and soon you too will be a dancing girl too, 
gambolling adoringly around the square-jawed... etc. This joyful celebration 
of maternal absence is interrupted by the producer. Both eyes glare 
balefully now as he curtly tells you to paint the picket fence ready for the 
farmyard scene next week.



>PAINT FENCE
You daub the pointed fence posts alternately blue and grey. Without warning, 
you're barged aside by a pack of ravening Yankphile pre-teens. You notice 
that their t-shirts all seen to be emblazoned with the face of Sarah 
Michelle Geller gurning like an insipid cherub in dire need of emancipation 
or, failing that, a good slap. They uproot half of the fence posts and run 
off.


>TAKE NEXT TURN
You double back through one of the fresh gaps in the fence and take the next 
turning to the executive pool at the. The duck is still there, feathers 
slicked up like an Elvis impersonator. It does share the bulging waistline 
of his Vegas years, actually.


>SMOOTH DUCK DOWN
The water runs off the duck's back like... well, you get the idea. As you 
smooth out the feathers, it begins to look faintly familiar. Perhaps you saw 
an illustration like this in a book once? Some endangered bird that survived 
only on Mauritius? Wiped out by sailors, their livestock and diseases? Of 
course! It's a plover! Your father would drone on about them when he 
retained the power of speech. They're incredibly rare and absolutely 
priceless!
The director wanders in, scanning the floor as if looking for something 
valuable. Apparently not the plover, as he gasps with shock to see it and 
promptly locks it in a cage by the poolside. It's a wicker frame girded with 
jagged stone spikes.


>ANESTHETI
Just as well that you never leave the house without "Lady Hawkwind's 101 
Easy Spells for Toddlers, Cretins and Presidents", available from the New 
Age section of your local bookstore. The chapter on English herbal remedies 
reveals that the top hat does indeed have anaesthetic properties. What do 
you want to do with it?


>I EAT IT
A lesser parser might not have understood that clarification. Just as well 
that you have me, eh? The sheer arbitrary stupidity of this action, in the 
grand tradition of old-school text adventures, is the only possible solution 
to the puzzle. Very well, you chew up the top hat.


>UNLOCK DOOR
You grapple with the stone spikes that protrude from the wicker cage until 
one snaps off in your gashed hands. You use it to pick the lock and then try 
to stem the blood loss from your numb palms with the paper fan before 
opening the cage door. The mother plover snaps at you as its egg cools in 
the straw. Your hands don't look like they can take much more punishment.


>SWITCH PLOVER EGG
As you switch the onyx and plover eggs, you make a mental note to give your 
father a cut of the killing you'll make selling a genuine plover's egg on 
the black market. Now let's get off the set before something goes wrong. You 
cut back through the fence again and jog towards the perimeter of the studio 
grounds.


>STAND ON EAST SWING
Good idea. You climb up onto a swing to survey which checkpoints are 
currently guarded by the studio security goons. The last thing you need now, 
of all times, is a random search. You note a clear route out, but when you 
look down to the ground- well. It's big. It's feline. It's gold. It's got a 
mane. It's roaring. Do I have to spell it out any further?


>KNIFE LION
No wonder you're barred from the zoo. You hack off his great regal mane with 
the serrated stone knife.
"I am Aslan, lord of Nanria!" he roars.
"Don't you mean Narnia?" you retort. A great crimson tear drips from the 
corner of Aslan's eye as he remembers how the other cubs would  bully him 
mercilessly about his dyslexia.
"C.S. Lewis's lawyers aren't very accommodating." Aslan whimpers. That's his 
excuse.


>PRAY
Reluctant though you are to pay obeisance to a lion who can't even pronounce 
the name of his own fantasy kingdom, you kneel and abase yourself before 
Aslan. When you look up, he doesn't look so gargantuan. Scarcely any larger 
than a domestic cat, in fact. Smaller.
Your prayers are answered as Aslan is struck down by a thunderbolt from 
heaven. Well, it was more like a bearded guy in a giant mouse costume 
falling out of a tree onto Aslan. Mysterious are the ways of Krishna; let us 
divest ourselves of pride. Zrblm seems to be tied up, but the miniature lion 
is kind enough to gnaw at his ropes until the giant mouse is free.


>GET MOUSE
You grab Zrblm, who gibbers and fidgets hysterically, compulsively fingering 
his bleeding nose.


>Z
Time passes. Zrblm calms down a little, babbling about babies and the 
morning song of Sylvia Plath. You're not sure whether this is an improvement 
but a change has occurred.


>NW
As whatever Zrblm has been up to may have raised the alarm and caused a 
security alert, you drag him back to the executive pool, on which floats a 
limp periwinkle.


>WAKE FISH
You tap Rip Van Winkle awake and skim him absent-mindedly across the surface 
of the pool, like you used to do with flat stones back home in Jaipur. Like 
all children who live near ponds do, most likely. But you didn't know that 
the periwinkle was even native to the Indian subcontinent, let alone to 
sterile executive pools.


>SWIM
Intrigued by the mysteries of the pool, you wade in on impulse and flail 
about listlessly. Zrblam sniggers and eyes you as if you may be dangerous. 
This from the man in the mouse costume.


>DRINK
The water tastes antiseptic, inevitably, but also rather saltier than by 
rights it should.


>DRINK
OK, enough of the Titanic re-enactions. Your Leonardo DiCaprio impression 
was funny the first time but we don't want to watch it all night.


>READ
As you like to read in the bath, you flick through "Lady Hawkwind's 101 Easy 
Spells for Toddlers, Cretins and Presidents". Fix minor utensil, no. 
Mystical hair dye, no. Remove wart, no! Levitate out of cot, rather too 
late. Censure Israel for crimes against humanity, there's always one joke 
spell in the hundred. Cold cures, might be useful if you stand about in this 
pool much longer. Kill own mother, perhaps later. Skin mouse. Mmm.


>LOOK UP
He's gone! Zrblm's scarpered, probably to bring the wrath of studio security 
down upon your head like a rain of Seattle bricks. This calls for action. 
This calls for a plan. This calls for the plover's egg to be smuggled off 
studio premises immediately.


>DRESS BOOK
You root through a trunk of spare costumes and tart up "Lady Hawkwind's" 
with a pink tutu and fishnet tights. You tie a yellow ribbon around the 
spine as an afterthought, remembering that the schoolgirl textbook look is 
going to be sooo big this season!


>SHIP PACKAGE
Now for the cunning and less overtly camp part of the plan. You skip merrily 
down to the studio Post Office, which is stacked to the rafters with 
unstamped letters, unposted parcels and unwrapped gifts to industry players 
and their families. Among the mounds of junk nestles the odd gem; a glazed 
green glass bowl, for instance.
You ask Mr. Crisp, the postmaster, to send the book in a package to your 
home address as a present for your mother. He seems to believe your story. 
Obviously hasn't met your mother. Yet he has another grievance to express.
"Don't call me Mr. Crisp!" he snarls. If nobody calls me "Your Mean Old Boss 
Mr. Crisp" then I wasted my money on the deed poll!"
"But Mr. Crisp, you're not my boss!" you blurt sweetly. "In fact, as a 
contracted set maintenance operative, I do outrank you!"
An awkward pause ensues.


>PRESENT BOWL
You hastily remove the label and present Mr. Crisp with the beautiful glazed 
bowl and he melts, just like a big fuzzy wuzzy bunny might look if it was a 
very ugly fuzzy wuzzy bunny smoking a cigar. He doesn't seem to recognise 
the bowl. Glancing surreptitiously at the label, you notice that it's 
stamped to have been posted from the studio last Diwali.


>DROP TOY
You drop the clothed book of teenybop shadows into the parcel, also burying 
the plover's egg deep in the layers of superfluous bubble-wrap that account 
for half the studio's annual expenditure but that you always knew would come 
in useful someday.


>SLEEP
You drift off into dreams of golden sceptres, pyramids of gems and 
glittering onyx eggs. You wake up in a plush burgundy velvet chair in the 
make-up trailer. The star of the week is brushing his hair and intently 
studying his reflection in the wall mirrors. A perfunctory sitar and an 
apple sit alongside his vanity products on the shelf.


>PLAY STRING
How do you want to play the sitar? Pick the strings or strum?


>PICK
You pick out a melody for a while but it needs new strings and you're better 
at the tabla anyway.


>POLISH APPLE
You buff up the apple but it's still pretty wrinkled. You suspect that 
vanity man considers mere apples beneath his palette.


>EYE MIRROR
He too sports the plover quiff. Every other component of rock'n'roll culture 
has endured revivals and rehabilitation since the Fifties, but not the 
quiff, and this guy is a living example of why. Too much gel. Too heavily 
permed. Too much ego, though that's a cause of the quiff rather than a 
consequence.


>POSE
You succumb to the temptation to pose a little next to vanity man and 
immediately regret provoking him into a cheshire smirk.


>UNDO
No. What is done cannot be undone. What is said cannot be unsaid. What is 
posed cannot be unposed. Not in a transcript.


>TRIM CORSET
Shouldn't have gone wading about in the pool, should we? You slash your 
corset with the stone knife and breathe more freely, only to be jostled when 
the pack of ravening Buffy fans appear out of nowhere again. They're still 
waving their fence posts but they seem to have sharpened them.


>PUT GREY ON BLUE STAKE
You snatch a couple of stakes from and rub them against each other until 
they spark.


>LIGHT FIRE
You stoke the fire until the primal hordes of pre-pubescent Buffy fans 
recede, driven away by the light and heat of civilisation. Sadly, your 
intervention came a little too late for Zrblm, slumped on the cold earth 
with a stake through his heart. That'll teach him to wear a mouse costume in 
public.


>HELP MAN
You close his eyes and lay the traditional twin pennies on his eyelids. 
Other than hefting his corpse onto the pyre, there's little more you can do.
Hands patting your face. You wake to find the director shaking you.
"Wake up, Alice dear. Why, what a long sleep you've had!"
"It's Alia." you retort, treating his remark to all the contempt it 
deserves.


>STATION
You decide to take the train home. The guards don't bother to search you at 
the gate. You're beneath their notice. As the train approaches the plaform, 
you notice the weight in your pocket.


>STOP WATCH
You stop the director's pocket watch and the scene freezes. The train stops 
in its tracks. The plastic station canopy, bulging with the weight of 
puddled rain, drips stillness onto your fellow passengers as they pose like 
waxworks.


>XYZZY
You're inside a cramped brick well-house by a bubbling spring. A stream 
flows out of the building and tumbles through a forest gully.
You have the feeling that it's going to be a long day.

