Masked Truths
Everything about her was a lie. That was the truth.
A false name accompanied the corresponding fame. The mirror reflected a stranger. The thunderous claps and wistful whistles reverberating in the theatres when she appeared onscreen rang hollow.
Sanika Dogra, aka San for her million-plus Instagram followers, a multiple award-winning actress, was riding high on a wave of deception that she hoped would end soon.
She had been nurturing that hope for years.
Reclining on the plush leather sofa, she closed her eyes. Memories of her thirty-five-year life flashed in quick succession, and she sank further.
The ‘you are good for nothing’ remarks from her fiery stepmother. Her father’s quiet disappearance to another corner of the house whenever her mother hit her. Discarded, hand-me-down clothes of her stepsister. The leery looks of her stepmother’s brother. The marriage at sixteen to a man old enough to be her father.
The past was the truth, the present a lie.
“There are many who would like to be in your place”, remarked the editor of a reputed cine periodical featuring her on its cover. I am not one of them, she thought.
She rose abruptly and strode to the enormous French windows of her four-bedroom house, pulling aside the curtains. The yellow ball of fire blazed in full glory, painting the blue sea in a multicoloured hue.
Like being in front of the camera had done to her unidimensional life.
After a year of arduous labour and repeated abuse, her husband beat her black and blue, damaging her face. She left him. “You deserve it,” her stepmother said. She ran away from her parents, too, only to collide headlong with the car she failed to see through her tears.
That accident transformed her life.
The producer in the car was looking for a fresh face. He got her damaged face repaired and gave her a new name. After nine months, he spent a lot of money to make her an overnight sensation. “Let your past remain a mystery,” he advised, “and everything will be well.”
She wanted to put the past behind her. Except for the life that sprung from inside her. The child who had miraculously survived her mother’s fate.
“If you want to provide a good life for your daughter, you must forget you are a mother,” the producer remarked. “Otherwise, your career will be a non-starter.”
Not knowing what else to do, she agreed.
Her daughter was growing up in another family while she was giving money from the shadows and projecting a ‘baggage-free’ aura to her fans.
She shivered in the warmth. A tiny tear escaped her eye.
If only all the money in the world would make my daughter call me ‘Mother’ once!
“Ma’am, the paparazzi have arrived,” her secretary announced, breaking through her thoughts.
“I will be there,” she replied, smiling at her fate, ready to essay her off-screen role in life.
A life where everything about her was a lie.