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.