Secrets and Sins. Jaishree Misra
taken it any further because of his fear of small aircraft. Sitting down in a capacious seat, Aman resolved to get his secretary to write to Sheikh Al Maktoum and thank him for coming up with the idea of private cabins on board flights. He kicked off his Loake loafers and settled himself down. After the rigours of the publicity hoopla for his latest film release in London, the air hostess’s standard patter about his seat converting to a flat bed was unobtrusive and reassuring. Adopting his usual method of tackling long-distance air travel, Aman asked for lime juice with soda and angostura bitters.
‘No, nothing to eat, thanks,’ he insisted, ignoring the anxious expression on the woman’s face. The food earlier in the evening at the Mayfair house of the Bindra brothers had been the usual rich Punjabi fare and was still sitting heavy in his stomach. The Bindras were the biggest distributors of South Asian films across Europe and a visit to their home had become compulsory on his London trips; which wouldn’t have been too trying, were it not for the fact that Mrs Bindra always assumed he must miss Indian food terribly when he was travelling abroad. And she sure went to town on all those ghee-laden gravies, when all he really wanted was some soup and toast.
After the air hostess had left, closing the door to the suite softly behind her, Aman strapped himself into his chair, feeling his spirits lift as the behemoth he was ensconced in started to trundle down the runway, picking up speed before it pulled upwards into the eastern sky. Very civilized, he thought, fiddling with the technology around him after his drink had been served. Aman picked up the in-flight magazine and leafed through to the entertainment section. He had over a thousand films on demand – and only seven hours to watch them in! He decided to order a second drink before turning the privacy button on, which, as the air hostess had explained, meant that he would be left alone to watch as many films as he liked until ten minutes before landing. ‘Except in the very unlikely case of an emergency, of course, Mr Khan,’ she had said, smiling. He had smiled back, not voicing aloud the passing thought that, in his current bleak state of mind, the idea of an emergency was not such a worrying proposition.
He looked out of the minuscule window at the empty vastness beyond, dark and purple at its edges…Who would ever imagine that an unsatisfactory marriage could bleed so much of the happiness out of life?
Still, he had many other things to be grateful for. Aman picked up the remote control to search for one of those…Ah, here it was, the Bollywood selection, including eight films in which he played the lead! He scrolled downwards to the earliest of them – Krodh – and clicked on it. He watched his younger self appear in a few fragmented black and white shots under the opening credits. Only the tie he was wearing was imbued with colour, glowing an arty fluorescent red. Very James Bond, he thought, breaking into a sudden grin. He sat back as the film started and watched himself appear on the screen alongside Amitabh Bachchan. As a twenty-something sidekick, in comparison to the great Bachchan, the towering real hero of Krodh, the young Aman Khan was just a boyish young runt! Perhaps it was true what the rags said…Aman had grown better looking over the years, although it wasn’t due to plastic surgery, as some of the magazines had imputed.
Aman leant his head back on the leather upholstery, remembering his excitement at being offered that first big break. It was a year after Aman had returned from England, having decided to give up on university there. And the break couldn’t have come at a better time, when his life appeared to have ground to a complete halt with a failed attempt at a university education and a broken heart. Even now, it wasn’t hard to recapture the gut-wrenching disappointments of that summer.
Aman took a deep breath, searching his memory…Had he imagined Riva’s face in the crowd as he had left BAFTA earlier this evening? He’d always thought of her as a Londoner, an idea he’d picked up from a small newspaper piece he had read in India when she had won that prize a couple of years ago. He had never heard of the Orange Prize before but, from the tone of the piece, it appeared to be something fairly major in the world of books. It had come as no surprise to Aman that Riva had gone on to become an acclaimed author. She had always been so intelligent, even as a teenager, and had diligently read every single book on their reading list in that first year, sometimes helping Aman by giving him compact précis of the more difficult ones. She’d been unfailingly sweet to him during all that time, and Aman had been sure she had been as much in love with him as he had been with her. But in the end Riva had succumbed to Ben’s persistent attentions and Aman had stupidly allowed her to drift away. Looking back now, Aman knew he ought to be kinder to himself. It hadn’t been stupidity that had led to his losing Riva but a lack of confidence; today, of course, he would have dealt with things quite differently. Then Riva had seemed so superior to him, so clever and so smart. It was no surprise she’d chosen the English guy over him really…
Aman looked unseeingly at the pictures flickering on the screen before him. He’d never forgotten that distant past, even though he had firmly walked away from it and not stopped to look back. But this afternoon, he had thought about Riva a lot, his memories sparked by that chance meeting with her sister at the PR firm. The sister had confirmed that Riva did indeed live in London. And – this was the bit that still stuck slightly in his craw – that she had finally gone on to marry Ben. At least, the sister had mentioned the name Ben; it had to be the same guy. It sounded exactly like the kind of golden life Aman would have expected Riva to be enjoying by now. So what would she have been doing lurking among a crowd of his fans at the BAFTA entrance today?
Aman shrugged. As before, he must have imagined seeing Riva in the crowd. It was silly but quite often he imagined he had spotted Riva when travelling in England, seeing her standing on railway platforms or across crowded shop floors. Aman pulled out the small clutch of business cards that was still in his pocket. ‘Kaaya Walia’ was the name printed in a large curly font, flamboyant gold on ivory. Aman had never met Riva’s sister before, and during their meeting this afternoon she had mentioned still being in school when Riva had joined university. She was a good-looking woman, though not a lot like Riva, being harder and far more sophisticated than the teenage Riva of Aman’s memories. But then, Riva might by now have changed a great deal herself.
Aman picked up his drink again, reflecting on how Riva’s success – unlike his own – was completely unsurprising. Even as a first-year student, she’d shown signs of making it big some day, being so bright and focused and determined. And yet she was one of the most gentle girls he had ever met. People like her deserved their success. Unlike him, who had merely got lucky. His own mother sometimes joked that fame had dropped into his lap when he had been half-asleep and lounging on the sofa one lucky day.
Aman took a long swallow of his lime soda, wondering, not without embarrassment, if Riva ever watched any of his films. Perhaps she and Ben laughed at the thought that the shy and rather silly young suitor she had humoured (and Ben had had to fight off) back at college was now a film star. Famous enough to be featured on the cover of Time magazine recently. He looked out of the window and, in its black emptiness, saw his own face looking back. The Time article had described him as ‘handsome’ and ‘aloof’ but what Aman saw when he looked at his own reflection was the rather diffident and uncertain man he had always been. Stardom hadn’t changed him that much. It certainly hadn’t made him any happier.
Aman smiled now, wondering whether he could blame his ‘aloofness’ on his early heartbreak over Riva. If he were honest, he had never completely gotten over her. The easiest explanation was that Riva had been the first girl he had fallen for and maybe it was true what they said about the first cut being the deepest. Or perhaps it was something to do with the fact that she had dumped him – in contrast to all his subsequent relationships where he had been the one to end things. Aman became pensive again. The most likely explanation for the warmth with which he remembered Riva was that his marriage to Salma had turned out to be such a calamity. It was wrong but, every time Salma behaved in a difficult fashion, Aman was unable to stop himself imagining what it would have been like to have married someone as kind-hearted and lovely as Riva instead.
Their becoming classmates had been something of a happy accident. That English degree had been a disastrous choice of subject for Aman but it was all that had been on offer for a green school-leaver from India with unimpressive grades. The course apparently demanded A’s and B’s but his Uncle Naz had been breezily confident