The Zoya Factor (3 page)

Dad moved in here when he retired from the army because he felt that motherless kids like Zoravar and me needed all the family we could get. His relationship with his brothers was tempestuous, to say the least. Like, these days Gajju was totally pissing off my dad by parking his crappy old car in Dad's parking spot in the drive. 'He's just doing it because I bought a new car,' Dad grumbled. 'I've a good mind to go upstairs and pull his nose.'

I used to stress about this internecine warring among the brothers when I was younger, till Eppa explained that my dad and his brothers were actually quite fond of each other. 'Your mummy alvayz said they shows their loves by fighting, Zoya,' she told me once after Yogu Chacha had torn into our house like a guided missile and ripped the shirt off my dad's back, claiming it was his and that we'd flicked it off his washing line. 'Actually, they verrri close family. See how they all sees the cricket matches together!'

She had a point.

The ICC World Cup is a huge family event in our house. Everybody huddles around one TV and cheers like crazy. They curse and kiss and chest-bang and stuff. All is forgiven. Total bonding happens. In fact, my dad and three Chachas were all thrown out of the maternity ward of the Military Hospital by the irate Mallu nurses the day I was born because they were cheering the Indian team so loudly. It was the Prudential World Cup final that day and their lusty yelling had put all the delivering mommies on the floor off their
breathe-in breathe-out
rhythm.

Apparently, I only very narrowly escaped being named Kapila Devi Solanki.

Sometimes I can't help thinking that the fact that the last World Cup had been such a washout as far as India was concerned, was one big reason why our family bonding had taken such a nosedive.

Dad sipped his tea moodily, finally spotted me and did a double take. '
Arrey
, Zoya! When did you come?'

I told him about the change in plan at work and he beamed happily. 'That's more like it!' he said. 'Flying to Dhaka to see some top-class cricket! Much better than shooting with hero-sh
eros.'

***

I was in office by eleven. I signed the register, greeted Totaram, our amiable security guard and drifted in only to suffer everybody going, 'Zoya? Why aren't you at the shoot? What happened?' It was full
jale pe namak.

AWB is the biggest ad agency in the country. Its Delhi office churns out TV, print, radio and outdoor ads for a huge number of multinational clients, one of the biggest of which is the cola company
Zing!
Co. An agency basically has three departments: Servicing (that's me), whose job it is to suck up to the clients and help them work out what kind of strategy they need; Creative (that's Mon), whose job it is to actually
create
the campaign based on that strategy; and Media, whose job it is to decide where the campaign should appear (as in TV channels, radio channels, newspapers, magazines, the Internet, and street hoardings) so that the maximum number of people of the type the client wants to target end up seeing it. It's a fascinating, unabashedly shallow world, and I fell madly in love with it when I came here as a summer trainee two years ago.

I snuck into Sanks's cabin and hung around waiting for him to look at me. But he was leaning back in his armchair, both eyes closed, listening to a script that Neelo Basu (a lean, mean cadaverous machine, in a SICK MY DUCK tee shirt who lives to smoke joints and download south Indian sleaze off the Net) was narrating with full feeling. I had no option but to hang around near the cabin door and hear it too.

'Film opens on this sexy fucking highway, okay? There's this biker dude riding the Terminator, and as he cruises by, these massive fucking gates open for him, all by themselves, like magically. The dude grins a crooked grin and rides through and then he comes up to this high mountain pass in fucking Ladakh, okay? And these massive boulders roll aside magically too. He grins, again, like this happens every day for him, you know? And then he passes this green meadow where these babes are doing yoga, okay? They're all really hot, stacked types. Solid mutton
-shutton
happening, in skin-tight leotards, okay. And as he approaches them, they do this fucking
mandook aasan
, the
frog position,
okay, basically all hundred of them go up on their hands, raise their butts in the air and spread their legs out, like
fully,
man. Then this Hollywood-trailer type voice-over says: "THE WORLD OPENS WIDE FOR THE NERO-TASHA TERMINATOR."'

Neelo dropped the dramatic pose he'd frozen in, looked eagerly at Sanks and asked, 'What d'yu think?'

Sanks, eyes still closed, said mildly, 'Comments, gentlemen?'

One brave little servicing guy spoke up. 'I like it,' he said stoutly. 'It's different. It'll get us noticed.'

Neelo beamed at him, but Sanks said, eyes still closed, 'Why don't you come
naked
to work tomorrow, fucker? You'll be different and you'll get noticed.' The servicing guy shrank backward as Sanks opened dangerously glittering eyes and glared at Neelo. 'It's the Nero-Tasha
Terminator,
you fuck,' he spat out balefully. 'Not the Nero-Tasha
Fornicator.
When are you going to get your mind out of the gutter?'

But Neelo stood his ground. 'Don't be so one-track-minded, Sankar,' he said loftily. 'I'm showing how much
respect
this bike commands. Gates and shit open for it. Ladakhi boulders! And I did
research,
man! I went on the Net and found out the names of yoga aasans and all. This is a
real
aasan, by the way, in case you think I've made it up. Actually, if you think about it, it's quite a subtle script...'

Sanks got to his feet. 'Subtle, my ass,' he said rudely and then, spotting me, said, 'Aah, Zoya, take Subtle Bihari Vajpayee here and hit the airport. Your flight leaves at one.'

So then Neelo took me home in his rattling car to pick up my things for the trip. On the way he went on about how cool his script was and how he was a creative giant reporting to pygmies-in-suits and how the only way to sell bikes was to tell the consumer he would get laid big time if he bought the Nero-Tasha bike.

'In fact,' said Neelo, fully warming to his theme, 'that's the only way to sell
anything,
man! Bikes, televisions, insurance, cold drinks.... Buy
this,
get laid! Buy
that,
get laid! Buy fucking
anything
, get laid! Hey, maybe I can sell my script to
Zing!
whatdyuthink, Zoya? "The World Opens Wide For The
Zing!
Drinker". Cool, huh?'

***

3

Dhaka isn't that popular a destination but that day the lines snaking in front of the Biman Air counters were the longest in the terminal. Malayalis, Manipuris, Sardars, old, young, pierced or vibhooti-smeared, they were all in the queue.

That's cricket fever for you.

It's the Great Indian Disease, I tell you. Worse than dengue or polio or tuberculosis. They should vaccinate us against it when we're born, I thought gloomily as I queued up behind the long line of Dhaka-bound cricket freaks. One shot at birth, a couple of boosters over the years and you're immune to cricket for life. No heartache, no ulcers, no plunge in productivity during the cricket season and no stupid bets that make you lose money and lead you to commit suicide.

The queue was over forty people long, but luckily we spotted the still photographer on the project, Vishaal Sequiera, more than halfway up the line. He waved to us and we strutted up to join him, moving up some twenty places in the process.

Vishaal was all excited about the trip. His artily untidy hair (in which orange gulmohar petals were scattered like confetti) stood up like it was electrically charged and his eyes had the manic gleam of a cameraman-with-a-plan. '
Kaafi
intense type
ke
shots
lenge
,' he told Neelo, puffing on a Navy Cut. 'You know, Reebok, Nike types...sweaty, focused, looking right into camera. Attitude, you know? Besides, we'll get to see some matches, it'll be cool.'

As cool as clandestine glimpses of Shah Rukh Khan's chest? I don't think so. But that reminded me.... 'What's the captain's name again, Neelo?'

'Nikhil Khoda,' Neelo said, rolling his eyes. 'Really, Zoya, you're pathetic. Please do read up on all these guys or you will fully cut off our noses in Dhaka.'

Vishaal said, 'How can you not know
Khoda?
He's a
God
, dude, he's a
King
!'

'Plays that well, huh?' I asked as we all moved up a place in the line.

Vishaal shook his head impatiently. 'Never mind
that!
Do you know who he's
dating?'

'Some Bollywood heroine?' I hazarded, not very interested.

'No, no.' Vishaal shook his head again. 'Nothing so mundane! He's dating' - he clasped his hands together, lowered his voice and breathed reverentially - 'the girl in the
yeh toh bada toinnngg hai
ad!'

Both Neelo and he let out a long low moan.

Oh, please.

The ad in question is an extremely raunchy spot for men's underpants. It features this ripe-'n'-tight village babe in a choli-sari who sashays really proudly down to the river panghat to wash her husband's chaddis. All the village women gather around to watch as she soaks, scrubs and rinses the garment in the sudsy river water, getting more and more turned on in the process. There's a one-line song-track that sighs steamily, '
Yeh toh bada toinnngg hai
' right through the ad, seeking to inform us that the wearer of the underpants, which the proud village babe is washing so slavishly, is very
toinnngg,
whatever
toinnngg
may mean. It is seriously the most sexist piece of advertising I've seen in my life. But no one can deny that the babe is a scorcher....

'Big deal,' I muttered. 'What does
toinnngg
mean anyway?'

Neelo cleared his throat. 'I think it means' - he held up his hand with his index finger hanging downwards limply and then slowly raised it till it stood fully erect - '
TOINNNGG
, you know?'

I choked, but was saved from having to answer because we'd finally reached the check-in counter. I hitched my bag higher on my shoulder, handed our tickets over and resigned myself to a really educational trip.

We got into Dhaka by six in the evening. The airport had this air of smug self-importance and a big banner over the arrival gate. 'WELCOME ALL THE CRICKET PLAYING NATIONS FOR THE
ZING!
MINI WORLD CUP!'

A chubby boyish type was standing holding a placard with our names on it when we finally staggered out. He smiled and grabbed the trolley and bundled us into an Ambassador car with 'Sonargaon' emblazoned across the door. Apparently, all the teams were shacked up in either the Sonargaon or the Sheraton.

As we drove through the city I saw all these awesome trees ('What are they called,' I asked Neelo and he answered, 'Uh,
Bong
trees?') strung up with banners and buntings and stuff. It was very festive. Neelo was busy commenting on the hoardings along the road. There were lots of
Zing!
and Niceday Biscuits (the other big sponsor) hoardings with the Bangladesh team looking all resolute and focused. We even saw one for 7-Up, a still our agency had shot five years ago. Yana Gupta sizzling in a green qawaali outfit. Only, while ours had her in just a teeny-weeny kurti and juttis, flashing smooth bare legs at the grateful public, this version wore a demure green churidar. Well, this was an Islamic country.

'Imagine the poor choot who must have sat and painted on that churidar, man,' Neelo cackled. 'Must've taken him three whole days at least!' He sounded a little wistful, though. Ever since he'd heard about this guy who actually held a highly paid job as Hollywood's official nipple-tweaker (apparently, he pinches famous pairs with just the correct amount of pressure before every shot to make them look all perky), Neelo had been fantasizing about a similar job, one that 'would totally fulfil my creative soul'.

When we arrived at the Sonargaon we discovered that the Indian, Sri Lankan and Australian teams were staying there as well. Of course, lots of teams had already packed up and gone home. My client Ranjeet, brand manager of
Zing!
Cricket and Promos was checked in there too, which was pretty painful. (He got in on the Idiot Quota; everybody else at
Zing!
Co. is pretty savvy.) The commentators and umpires were lodged there as well, which meant we would be running into them in the elevators. The hotel was totally buzzing. OB vans from practically every news channel were parked outside. The guy in the coffee shop (called Coffee Shoppee) confided that this was the biggest thing to happen in Dhaka for like, forever.