Bombay, 1973.
Jayavardhini -
The heroine's name that you will see
on every oil painted billboard
at the road side,
and every cinema hall
strung up outside
a six foot canvas
30 foot wide -
shows her reclining
with dark-lashed, kohl-lined, doe eyes
pink flowers in her black bouffant,
a blue sari of see-through chiffon...
The aam junta line up, at great length,
to spend
3 hours in her world again
where she frolicks and flees from scene to scene,
dances in monsoon rains upon the screen
and strikes a note in North India's heart
when her coy smile
signals a musical number's start...
Jayavardhini
aged just sixteen
1973's
blockbuster queen
with sandalwood skin
and aqualine nose
gold rings adorning hennaed toes.
Where does this cinematic force come from?
Some say the distant,
Dravidian South,
where she had once lived hand to mouth
without a legitimate father
and
in a chawl on squatted land.
Bombay's industry rags
each have their own high priestess
who preside over and repurpose insider mess
and they've heard at film parties
this new attraction cannot write or read
in Hindi - nor any other language -
it's said, they feed
her lines to her on set
through a grandmother who controls
every single purse string
and maintains a tight hold
over the shy, chubby, pint sized
superstar
who cries in the studio lot in the car...
Arrives on set with bruises
that are powdered away
and seems to flinch when heroes
bid her good day.
Who fiddles with her bracelets
or stares at her feet
when directors and writers come on set to meet
and pitch her new projects
as her old 'Ammi' looks on
who nods only faintly, and sighs when they're gone.
Copyright Yafeu-Khamisi Rodway-Brown