Blame it on Bollywood

Excerpt From: Blame it on Bollywood

Tariq looked around the empty soundstage, plagued again by a sadness he hadn’t been able to shake in weeks. The movie he’d just filmed had been difficult to shoot and physically demanding, and he was happy to see the back of it.

He drove home, taking his usual route over the bridge so he could see his house across the bay. Part of him wanted to hide away, but another part hated the empty silence he knew awaited him inside the sprawling, Mediterranean style house he’d had built a few years earlier. When he arrived and pushed open the main door, the emptiness seemed to suck him inside.

The light on the answer machine blinked. He considered ignoring it, but it could be an important message from his parents back in England. His mother’s voice told him they were coming to visit in a few days’ time to stay with an aunt of his who lived in a nearby suburb, and they were bringing someone with them she wanted Tariq to meet. His parents still hadn’t given up on the idea of arranging a marriage for him. He didn’t know if he ever wanted to get married at all, but if he did, it would be because he was in love, not because of some sterile contract into which his parents had forced him. Sure, it had worked for his parents. They had come to love each other eventually, and they’d had a long and happy life together. Tariq understood why they wanted the same for him. But he wasn’t his parents’ responsibility anymore, and he wouldn’t do something he didn’t believe in just to please them. The last time he’d discussed the issue with them, his mother’s tears had shamed him into saying he would at least think about it, but she hadn’t mentioned it since. Tariq groaned, dreading the conversation he would be forced to have when he called her back and told her he hadn’t changed his mind. The call could wait for now—he wasn’t in the mood.

Later, while he was watching TV alone for yet another night, he wondered at the hollow feeling that had been blighting him in recent weeks. He had good friends and family and a casual relationship with an interesting and beautiful woman whom he saw occasionally. But Sita wasn’t the problem.

For a while, he’d thought their relationship might grow into something more, but as he’d got to know her better, Sita had proven to be a little bit shallow and a whole lot ambitious. He’d found out just how ambitious the young actress was when he’d opened one of the glossy magazines she carried with her everywhere and had seen a personal photo of the pair of them and an article full of such detail that the writer could only have got it straight from Sita. The fact she’d talked publicly about their private lives didn’t bug him nearly as much as the way she’d done it behind his back. Though his trust in her had been shattered, their relationship carried on through convenience because neither of them had the time to meet anyone else. Tariq found it a little ironic that he saw less and less of the woman who had used him to raise her public profile now that her career had taken off. It was little wonder he found no joy in being with her anymore.

Even his charitable work didn’t fill the emotional void it once had, although it was the personal achievement of which he felt most proud. His charity rescued the victims of child and slave labour and financed half a dozen shelters to keep orphans out of the clutches of the traffickers.

Grimacing at his mood, he switched off the TV and headed up the stairs to the bed that would be empty again.