Bollywood Fiancé for a Day Read Online Free PDF

had she stepped into one? It certainly had all the makings of a film scene. Sombre head-buried-in-books doctor out for an evening in town with a Bollywood star.
    Zaheer took the seat next to her, his tee stretching on his chest as he leaned back.
    She heard him instruct the chauffeur, the partition slid shut and then they were off.
    â€˜So which one did you like best?’
    â€˜Huh?’ She tore her gaze away from his biceps. Not that they weren’t already imprinted on her memory, they were flashed on so many posters on every roadside. But having them right in front of her, in the flesh, was totally different.
    â€˜My movies, of course. As a fan, you can give me some critical input.’ He said, ‘Out of all my movies, which is your favourite?’
    â€˜I haven’t seen that many.’ A total lie. She had seen them all because, before her friend Neeta got married, she had dragged her to each one, first day, first show. But she didn’t want to display the adulation Zaheer obviously expected from a so-called competition-winning fan, so it was far better to stay quiet.
    â€˜Not seen that many?’ He sounded incredulous. ‘But how can that be?’
    â€˜Is it mandatory to watch your films in order to exist on Planet Earth?’ She shook her head. God, he had an ego the size of the Incredible Hulk! His disbelief made her uncharitable and she added, ‘To be honest, I have actually seen them all, but I’m not a big fan. In fact, I think some of them suck. You did ask for critical input,’ she added as an afterthought.
    Maybe she’d said too much. But, damn it, he had hordes of followers. If there was one woman not falling over herself for him, could it be a dampener for him? He’d get over it soon enough. But it might do him a little good before he did.
    â€˜Yeah, that’s critical all right,’ he mused. ‘But, just for the record, I don’t expect you to have seen all of my films. Or even any. I was just surprised when you said you hadn’t seen many because the quiz for the contest was a tough one, quite non-Google-able, and still you answered correctly, so I presumed you were a massive fan of mine…’ He glanced at her. ‘So you didn’t like the action…or what precisely?’
    â€˜It’s all so fake and…arranged, isn’t it? Maybe you can enlighten me as to what’s so great about kicking feet from under people and bashing their faces in a repetitive sequence of pretend moves?’ OK, so maybe his ego wasn’t quite Hulk-size after all, but it was still the jumbo pack. She wouldn’t start acting all penitent now.
    â€˜Right. But you do know most of my flicks have been blockbusters?’
    â€˜That’s the director’s art to make a movie great. All you have to do is dance and lip-sync and run around trees,’ she said bluntly.
    â€˜Then why did you enter the contest? For that matter,’ he said slowly, ‘why are you even here? If you aren’t even remotely close to being a fan of mine?’
    Vishakha stopped. Stymied. In her desire to make her point that she wasn’t going to fawn all over him she hadn’t thought where this might go. She wasn’t usually so disparaging of people. Why had she gone after him with sleeves rolled up like she had? Mostly she was placid to the point of being submissive. ‘So amenable,’ her aunties always said. Was it him bringing it out or just the strain of the last few days?
    Well, whatever, this was totally a pit she’d dug herself into. How could she explain why she was here? She could hardly say,
To escape the humiliation of facing those chuch-chuch noises my relatives were making.
It had got to be so bad. Every time she passed by, her fat aunties would shake their heads. As though a broken engagement meant the end of the world for her.
    No, n-no,
nahin.
She wasn’t saying it to this supremely confident swan what it