Posts
My Life in a Day
An initiative of De Taali Campaign
Special Thanks to
***
De Taali
In association with
***
***
Presents
Blank screen. Ambient noises are heard, so are those of the camera being fiddled with.
She: Hold.
He: What is it?
She: Camera.
He: For what?
She: (dismissively) Just hold no.
He: (clicks his tongue irritably)
There is a pause as one hears soft footfalls going away from the camera.
She: Can you see me? (pause) Arre! I forgot to take off the cover only!
She removes the cover. The screen lights up for the first time and the camera is facing downwards, her feet shown in an oblique angle.
She: Now look at me.
Camera is still facing downwards.
She: With the camera, stupid!
The camera pans up and as it approaches her face…
She: (scandalized, covers her face with her palms) Not my face, not my face!
Abashed, the camera hurriedly goes back down.
She: Only till my lips.
He: But…
She: Done?
The focus and zoom is manually adjusted, the camera really shaky meanwhile as the settings are adjusted to get the desired frame.
He: (resigned) Yes.
She: Good. Ready?
Adjusts her posture, smoothens her long hair flowing down on both sides.
She: (her voice very flirty, with a pronounced nasal twang) Aloha my potato crispies! Muah (blows kisses)! How are you all! I am…n-n-no, I am not gonna tell you my name. I am from Mumbai, aamchi Mumbai and this is My Life in a Day.
Black screen with the words My Life in a Day.
Meanwhile, you hear the sound of her footsteps, going closer to the camera, and asking “How is it looking?”
He: (finally losing patience, the frame going awry) What nonsense is this?
She: Aye! You’ll spoil my movie! Give it to me. Bloody useless.
Walks up to him, grabs the camera away from the man and keeps it on the table facing the bed. You see a man standing a short distance away, seen waist-down and the hijra cleaning up some clothes lying on the bed, making a pile and taking it out of the frame to make it presentable.
She: Sit.
He: I’m okay.
She: Arre? Sit no!
He sits, his face showing, looking up as she gets busy, pacing about the room, cleaning stuff.
She: You NGO people have no life only. You don’t know what I am doing?
He: Putting promos up on planetromeo.com?
She: (comes closer to him and pinches his cheek a bit too hard) No, funnyguy. (He brushes her hands off) I’m making a movie for YouTube. Some bigshot Hollywood director wants to make a movie on the world and wants people to shoot 24 hours of their life non-stop and send. You know what it is called?
He: No?
She: Life in a Day.
He: And yours is called My Life in a Day?
She: (palpable smile in her voice) Yes!
He: Fancy.
She: (stops in her tracks, sarcasm getting to her) So rude! What do you want?
He: Come with me. You don’t have to do this.
She: (chuckles and gestures dramatically) Oh rightaway, my prince! Let’s go to the land of exploding rainbows!
He: I’m serious.
She: Suddenly one day you come on my door and act like my daddy. How do I know you’re not some phony out to get his johnny some action?
He: You want to see my ID?
She: No. I have my own ways.
Goes closer to the camera and her lips cloud the frame from top-left.
She: Shh. Naughty time.
The camera turns away and looks at an open door which leads to the bathroom. Minor scuffling sounds are heard.
He: (alarmed) What are you doing?
She: Shh, don’t speak. You are going to love this.
The top she is wearing comes flying off and lands in the frame on the floor.
He: (his voice loud, ringing) Get off me, filthy filthy whore.
You hear a crash of a body falling down, presumably of the hijra. There is a tense pause.
She: So you are a boy scout.
He: What the hell is wrong with you?
She: (playfully) What is wrong with me? I was just warming up. Why, you don’t like?
He: Just… let’s go, okay?
She: Yes. Follow me.
You hear her getting up and coming into the frame, her long hair cascading on her back as she pushes the remnants behind too. Her gait is exaggerated, like a trained hijra sex worker. She enters the bathroom.
He: Where are you going?
The lights go on and you hear faint sounds of tap water running. A hand extends from a side of the door and a finger beckons.
He: (the man walks into the frame, pacing in, annoyed at the developments) Now you listen to me and you listen well…
She: Hey! There is a movie going on here. No camera, no entry.
He: You…
The door shuts on his face.
The man is annoyed and goes to the camera, picks it up and walks towards the door.
He: I got it with me. Open the door.
She: Aww, aren’t you a doll! Come in. Remember. Not my face. Keep it on the basin top over there.
The camera is kept on the assigned spot. The man sits down on a commode lid beyond the wash-basin top. There is a bath-tub at the end of the frame and only the left-half of it is seen. There are ripples in the water as she gets in it.
He: (disapprovingly, though significantly mellow now that he has realized who holds the reins) Why are you…
She: (moans of the warm water induced pleasure. Her feet have by now stretched so that they are in the frame) Ahh. Now tell me. Are you here to rescue me?
He: I… (exasperated) yes.
Feet prop up on the edge, playing with water at regular intervals.
She: You mean all this while I was sucking cocks only waiting for you to show up? Do I look like Kamathipura to you?
He: I know all about you.
She: Me too.
He: Why are you doing this? You are from a rich family, very well educated, smart, capable person and why are you ruining yourself every night?
She: You’re so cute!
A foot extends out of the tub and tries to reach the man, fails and ends up pointing at him before sinking back in.
He: I’m here to help you.
She: Darling, let me help you.
He: (annoyed) You are leading the life of a tissue…
She: (interrupts) What do you do for money? Tell people how to lead their lives?
He: Are you trying to justify your own exploitation?
She: (pauses) You want me to get out of this business?
He: Yes.
She: How many sluts have you ‘rescued’?
He: What?
She: How many sluts have you ‘rescued’? How many sob stories have you heard? Have you heard the one in Rajasthan where they put Oxytocin in girls so that their boobs can grow fast and they can be sold off faster?
He: Are you saying that there’s nothing wrong with what you’re doing? A smart person like you can be used to get rights for your own hijra community. And all you care about is ‘my men’, ‘my money’. How selfish can you get?
She: I am being selfish?
He: Yes.
She: Oh darling, you and your ways. Throw me the towel.
He stares at her, shakes his head and throws the towel hanging by one of the sidebars at her. She gets up, goes away from the frame as the guy’s eyes follow her. She takes her time and suddenly comes in front of the camera wrapped in the towel, taking it with her and placing it on the make-up table outside. The guy walks in and sits on the bed too, so that he is visible in the frame. There are several accessories kept on the table and the auto-focus alternates from the man to the make-up kit with a lipstick as the scene-changer (when you take it off the table, focus is automatically adjusted to the man).
He: (fired up by the lack of response) There are about 1.4 million of hijras in 7 states of India today yet all they can do is beg, dance or sell themselves. We have all heard of discrimination against the disabled but against the perfectly-abled? Mughal period had hijras as court-consultants, today we have hijras as a burden, a nuisance who claps his hands and flashes his parts.
She: They have taught you well.
He: What do you mean?
She: You sound rehearsed.
He: Goddammit, would you stop being so patronizing?
She: Darling, we don’t want to be you.
He: Are you even listening to yourself? You don’t want your own welfare, the rights you deserve?
She: (tone changes) Okay. Tomorrow, I shall stop being a prostitute.
He: (shocked at the sudden change in stance) What? (Pause) Really?
She: Yes. I will lead a normal life, maybe with your NGO. Maybe someone will fall in love with me then. After all, I’m doing a ‘respectable job’, no? He would want to marry me. He would want to father kids with me. But I can’t give him that. And who would allow a hijra to adopt? So his mother will ask him to marry someone else. He will resist but after a few months he will give in. I will be on the streets, back doing what I am doing.
He: You’re generalizing.
Stops making up and starts pacing up and down the room.
She: Tomorrow I’ll get my voting card and will vote another corrupt government to power. I will get admission in schools where they will teach me how not to be me. I will walk on streets like everyone and if I get raped, I will be waiting in the same line as other ones raped, waiting for justice for 10 years. My gurus, chelas, natis, all will be struck down in the name of social equality.
He: Wouldn’t you even want to have more jobs?
She: Who wouldn’t? But give us choices na, don’t make choices for us. You live in a world where there is gender, caste, class, religion, ideologies, politics, judiciary, everything. All we have are hijras. All for one, one for all. I am happy being different. I don’t have to get in line to eat the ice-gola. The thelewala doesn’t want me around and he will give me as soon as I clap my hands. Just like your ‘reservations’. I fight with another hijra and we go to the guru who solves it in another clap of hands. 2 minute-noodle justice. I share, I celebrate. I am happy, I make people happy. Every night. Why would I need help?
He: (hesitantly) I don’t know what to say.
She: (chuckles) Don’t.
Gets up, ruffles his hair.
She: Just come with me, sweetheart. Give me company till I reach my client’s place.
They get up. ‘Last Night I Heard Everything in Slow Motion’ kicks in. Both of them get out of the house. Clips of them getting into an auto, flashes of the outside with the camera being held by her, flashes of him looking at her in the auto, them stopping in the middle of the street, playing with the urchins, stopping at a food-stall, the hijra going to the counter and clapping her hands, licking her fingers as she ate, taking the camera from him and shooting him eating, asking someone to hold the camera and posing for the camera, the auto pulling into the lobby of the building – clips totalling to 1 minute.
The payment is made and the hijra puts on a hijab, enters the elevator, the camera lying snug in her purse. The lift has a reflective glass as one of the sides. She waits for the elevator doors to open and rings the doorbell of a flat. The door opens and a man greets her. She slowly pushes the camera into the handbag. Soundtrack slowly fades out as the screen blackens.
Credits start flowing as, though the audio of the movie goes on in the background, a few murmurs are heard followed by the sound of heavy breathing and rapid footsteps punctuated with excited squeals. Slowly, a moan emerges; both the man and hijra are enjoying themselves. As the credits proceed to the end, the moans escalate; the hijra’s much louder than the man’s, the final credit having the loudest.
0 comments:
Post a Comment