Mere Anarchy Read Free Page A

the passengers to ricochet off the cabin wall like boiled atoms. By dawn’s early light we deplaned at a makeshift airstrip in Bhubaneshwar. From there it was a bit of a jaunt by steam train to Ichalkaranji, on to Omkareshwar by tongas, and we finally arrived at the location in Jhalawar via
dhooli
. I was given a hearty welcome by the crew and told not to unpack but to go stand directly on my mark so lighting could begin lest we fall behind our schedule. A consummate professional, I assumed my place on a hill in the noonday heat and did yeoman’s work, buckling only with the onset of sunstroke at teatime.
    The first week of filming passed with predictable mood swings. The director, it turned out, was a spineless yes-man who repeated every utterance Afflatus made, deeming each worthy of inclusion in the works of Aristotle. In my opinion Afflatus had missed the central core of the lead character and rather than risk audience displeasure by giving Colonel Butterfat the dimension of self-doubt, he changed his profession from colonel in the military to Kentucky colonel, owner and breeder of Thoroughbreds. How he won the Preakness in the Vale of Kashmir puzzled me and apparently disconcerted the writer too, whose belt and necktie had to be taken from him. As acting is 90 percent voice, I must add here that Afflatus is cursed with an adenoidal whine that hatches in the throat and reverberates off his septum like a kazoo. I tried speaking to him during a break about some ways I thought he could flesh out his character, but it was too radical a shift in concentration from the book that he had vowed would teach him all about Smurfs before the end of shooting. In the evenings it was my habit to keep to myself, dining at a café on murg and chai, though in my third week I miscalculated the sincerity of one of the comely locals who answered to Shakira and in true Indian fashion embraced me with her two arms while the other four rifled through my pants.
    Midway through the filming is when everything hit the fan. We had finally gotten over the internecine clashes of temperament, including the hiding of Hal Roachpaste’s blood thinner by the author, and the project had begun to sprout wings. A rumor came back that the dailies were good, and Babe Roachpaste, the producer’s wife, claimed the footage she had seen rivaled
Citizen Kane
. Seized by manic euphoria, Afflatus suggested it might be time to begin planning an Oscar campaign and lobbied for a flack to ghostwrite his acceptance speech.
    I remember standing on my mark as usual, trying to give the cameraman a target to line up on, my face held high, jaw jutting out at much the same angle Afflatus’s does, when from out of left field emerges an exultation of rag-heads who charge the set screaming like Apaches. They coldcock the director with an ashtray lifted from the Bombay Hilton and scatter the panic-stricken crew. Next thing I know, there’s a bag over my head, which is then adroitly knotted, and I’m being carted off in a fireman’s carry. As the martial arts were part of my acting background, I suddenly snapped to the ground and uncoiled, sending forth a lightning-power kick, which fortunately for my abductors hit air and caused me to fall directly into the open trunk of a waiting Plymouth, where the door was promptly locked. The combination of the fierce Indian heat and the force with which I hit my head on a purloined elephant’s tusk in the boot of the van knocked me senseless. I came to sometime later in an inky black void as the vehicle bumped and rumbled over the jagged terrain of what must have been a mountain road. Using deep-breathing exercises that I had mastered in acting class, I managed to retain my composure for at least eight seconds before emitting a medley of bloodcurdling bleats and hyperventilated into oblivion. I dimly recall the bag being removed from my head in the mountaintop cave of a wild-eyed bandit chieftain with a twirling jet-black mustache and the