Ritu glanced at the back of his head — perfectly trimmed hair, a sliver of his fair neck, the collar of his shirt, sloping down to broad shoulders. From where she saw, at this point, he looked like a man scared of his heart failing him, scared of the world witnessing that spectacle. He was, at his core, a man insecure of letting go.
She had never broken people down in her head. Her head had always been a busy place of more constructive pursuits. With him, as he started to climb the stairs to the plane and turned around to make sure she did, Ritu didn’t know why she couldn't stop making, breaking, then again making him up in her head.
————————————————————
She had never been to Patan, or anywhere in north Gujarat. It was beautiful. The December wind was cold, nipping her skin red as it blew over the open stepwell where Nilay’s team was camped. The stepwell itself was a marvel. She had seen some photos, but up close, it was a literal legend. The stones were as old as a millennium, the pillars carved for a queen who had lived a thousand years ago, with the reservoir still filling with water that the locals believed was from the nearby dried stream of the River Saraswati.
Ritu wasn’t interested in history or lore anymore. And yet, sitting here in a folding chair, as she eyed Nilay addressing the models on the heritage of this place where they were about to begin shooting, she found herself swirling again into the mysteries of history.
“This is an inverted temple,” he turned a forefinger around them. “Each of these carvings — literature. Stories that haven’t died even after the erosion of a thousand years. Water has filled, water has flowed, invaders have come, invaders have gone. But art, and a queen’s ode to it, has survived.”
She found herself intrigued by how well he told a story. Without a hero, without a heroine, he told the story of a well and made it… intriguing.
“You are telling a story of that art, wrapped in the silk of this land that refuses to turn into dust. The Patola that you will be donning soon are the heritage of this land. They have lived in local families for generations. And now, they have been revived, re-imagined, and re-stitched to signal a new voice, bellowing out with that same old story — of art, that refuses to die.”
The models, mostly women, with a few men, were all still in robes, hair and makeup in place. Ritu didn’t know what they would wear — sarees or ghaghras. But now she knew his shoot was about Patola.
“Chin up, eyes to the sky, show the world that you are draped in a weave that was indestructible when the rest of them were still wearing leaves.”
Some chuckles, and a round of applause broke the pregnant pause after his last words had left their echo. Ritu found her hands coming together too, quietly applauding him from afar. He got busy then, as he had been ever since they had boarded the plane. He called one of his assistants and murmured something before turning to the racks of outfits. And Ritu gaped as the assistant came straight to her.
“Ma’am, NiP asks that you sit under the shade here.”
“It’s not a problem, the sun feels good in this cold.”
“Ummm… he asked specifically to transfer you under the shade.”
“Tell him I will transfer when I want to.”
His eyes widened. Ritu nodded. Then saw him trace the path straight back to his boss, this time on hesitant steps. He pushed to Nilay’s ear to relay her message, she hoped word for word. And the obnoxious man had the gall to laugh. Ritu didn’t fuel his fire as he turned over his shoulder and caught her eyes. She stared pointedly, and he stared back.
Somebody called for him, and he had to blink first. Ritu shook her head, swiping her phone up and realising that it was the weekend, and no emergency cases. The hospital and clinic were left miles away. She chuckled, feeling like she was at a loss, but a good kind of loss.
“Hey!” A younger, bubbly girl sat down beside her.
“Hi.”
“So, is it officially true?”
“Is what true?”
“That he bats for both teams, but is currently off men?”
“Excuse me?”
“Oh, I am not from any tabloids or anything,” she held her hands up. “Makeup artist,” she showed her the backs of her hands, bleached in different tones of pink. Like that was meant to convince her.
“Yasmin,” she waved.
“Ritu.”
“I know, the whole set does by now. Nobody has the guts to ask, though.”
“What?”
“That if NiP is dating you, that means he is done with his men? Or is it both?”
“Excuse me?”
