Can I be in your movie?? I asked my son, abruptly. ?NO,? he replied just as peremptorily, ?We need someone goodlooking?. You see, as he’s been working in films with such august titles as Feroz Khan’s Mahatma, My Father and Shaad Ali’s Bunty Aur Babli (soon to be screened at an Inox close to you) and as he is second assistant director, I thought, with such a high connection in filmland, it was the right time to strike the iron. A second assistant director, by the way, is not a designation to be sniffed at. You could go ahead and sniff, I suppose, but then you run the risk of my ensuring you never put your nose to proper use again, and certainly not for purposes of breathing.

People of intellect (such as I) sometimes have a hidden, horribly secret, long-suppressed desire to be someone else altogether. And how better than with dream merchandise? Hence, my plea to my son.

?Could I be Kasturba?? I said, bright-eyed with hope. ?Meerabehn? Lady Mountbatten? A face in the crowd?? I persisted, rapidly and hopelessly descending further and further down the social register. Nah, I didn’t land the job. (I could have used it. Someone in Mumbai once told me filmdom pays extras twelve hundred quid a day plus lunch and transport ? though she may just have been showing off.) My son didn’t give it to me. It is patently clear there is no nepotism in that industry.

But ooh, to be in the movies! To elicit loud cheers and seetis from the many-headed in the halls! To be on backslapping terms with the glitterati! (?Hi, Abe,? I’d say, offhand, just-like-that, as I sauntered past him on the sets, ?How’s the babe?? ?Hey Shah. Brushing up on the blah? ?)

And so on. And on. Till one day, I’d have sung, and I would have danced and I would have signed autograph books, and there’d always have been people to carry my tiffin for me, and I would have slain all unworthies around me with a single look ? all the way to that great silver screen in the sky.

But before that dramatic denouement, imagine the effect I’d have had on people I’d be nice to. Conversations (and hearts) would stop when I entered parties, looking (naturally) as delectable as the spread on offer. Nobody would suppress a yawn or try to sidle away (as is their wont) when I talked. And everyone would beg me (yes, me, the wallflower you thought I was a natural for) to join them on the floor. I would graciously accede (although only once) and rubbernecks would then gape at my amazing grace.

Matching step to geriatric step with? Dev Anand.

Sigh.