Whatever happened to Thunder Thighs
[ The inspiration for this small vignette came from one very interesting post : http://passionforcinema.com/kahan-gaye-woh-log/ and from the subsequent comments which were even more interesting. As we enter the age where the next big thing becomes yesterday's news at the blink of the eye, the game of mass oblivion somehow gave birth to this story.
thanks for reaing. And the title is a twist on Neil Geiman's homage to Batman genre. Let me know if you like it. Especially if you don't]
Memory has a smell like dead moths.
Like that moth whom you kill in between your palms and then when his fragile wings shatter on the skin of your hand you sniff a strange rustic smell. The scrapbook smells the same. But there is no dead moth inside. I check each of its thirty three pages. I check in the hollow spaces in between the white paper and the back of the snaps where grey, tired reminiscent of glue could not hold anymore. The smell remains.
I decide to ignore it and go back to do what I was doing. I have another half of an hour. Three quarter. Max. Wife should be on her way home. But it’s raining. And when it rains in this city, you know how does it feel. From the small window in front of me I can have a little glimpse of that black, watery monster’s dance of death. And all these black streams of water―black, shapeless and pregnant with the monotonous sound of eternal grief― make me a little dizzy. I open first page of my scrapbook and bring my lips down to touch the first snap. To touch her eyes.
There she smiles. But it was not her smile that hooked me out the first time I saw her. It was her eyes. Have you ever seen a woman’s eyes that can talk of so many things yet hiding a hint of mystery, a mystery that sleeps silently in your heart, that beats like thunder every time she gets near to you, yet your timid lips can not utter a single word. It was unnerving. All I knew of her was that she was another small town bird, trying her rusted luck in this big bad jungle. Who taught her eyes to talk in all those sweet lullabies? Who taught the essence of her flesh to focus on those two green irises and never to explode from the burden of beauty? I had no answer then. I don’t have one now.
Obviously, the camera did nothing to capture those eyes. For all her celluloid immortality, she was remembered (or forgotten?) as ‘Miss Thunder Thigh’. The dumb camera, the weapon of celluloid seduction, captured her wavering thighs with the precision of a butcher’s knife. Her naked thighs, her semi-naked thighs, her thighs taken in a close-up where base of each hair cried in a hymn of vegetative sex ― fed us, satisfied us; put some conformed titillation in our mundane celebration of watching a movie. During all those shots, sometimes her eyes glanced at me― a casual glance, a fleeting glance― yet my whole world stopped for that brief moment.
Those moments were gone pretty soon. Because, Namita, after her fifteen minutes of seduction in three (might be four) movies and after one ‘full’ role in a gem called ‘Junglee Bibi’, became yesterday. India got new thighs; a face in million forbidden dreams changed.
She tried pretty hard. In all those labyrinths of Bollywood where power brings libido and libido brings power, she let her soul to drown in the perspiration of lust. Again and again. But the world moved on. Her fortune, unlike that eco friendly cola can, could not be recycled. She tried a little more. A small slot in one daily, a Desi Ghee ad—another six long months before accepting that automatic shredder called public oblivion.
Then she was gone. Although, I kept a tab. How her big time lover left her empty both in her bank and in her heart, how small pleasures of imported scotch gave way to daily dose of cheap liquor— like a vulture waiting for final call of his prey, I gathered all these stale, stinking gossip and never really let her go from my mind. Last time when I met her, a plump, middle-aged statue of decay, she had no flicker of all those days in her tired, scared eyes. Yet those eyes were green. Green but mute.
Still, Namita was in better shape than this one whose snap I hold now. This one is actually autographed. “Love, Mou”. Love? Did she ever get to know what love was? She was what we call a ‘shooting star’. ‘Discovered’ by Gusain brothers (Manish, the ‘spot-boy-turned-director’ with a penchant for young ladies (or for boys, if you believe insider’s gossips) and Manoj, the producer), she had a mega launch in another of those college romance movies. She was slated to be the next big thing. What went wrong? A fallout with Manish? A heartbreak that found solace in all those crystalline powder? A naïve small-towner’s uncertain missteps?
After having that ‘one hit wonder’ tag Mou started to get a couple of super duds and concentrated on being another ‘Item Girl’ (That term started then, I have that lady in my scrapbook who started it all). The camera concentrated on her omnipotent cleavages. And on thighs. And on occasional uncomfortable bikini scenes as villain’s one-night-stand.
I concentrated on her fingers. Fingers, like petals of an uneven rose. Fingers, like the five falsetto scales coming from the voice of a seasoned diva. When she talked those fingers curled and moved and called someone hidden deep inside my heart. Obviously, our camera was busy capturing something else. I touched those fingers once. While giving her last paycheck. Those fingers were numb then. Numb from the black burden of failure and from the dust of all those broken paradise. Only then I realized that how ugly does a beggar’s hand looks even if manicured and gleamed with cheap nail-polish. When one last time I held those fingers, they were coarse. Time, the evil clown, had played his failed jugglery tricks once again.
Talking of coarse…Which one from these pictures, from these yellowish, stinking pile of memory, escaped being a gross insult to her celluloid incarnation. I flipped through my fragile pages. Sunita…she got an NRI…God bless her. Rumi…another Samson and Delilah story where Delilah, for a change … a loser. Menka, Mili, Reshmi, Nicky…all gone. Occasional mourning of your cathode ray tube in a Thursday night movie slot and then a comforting shelter in the cold, dead womb of oblivion. Face (and thighs, and cleavages) changes , we remain same. Our hunger, our seduction, our satisfaction…melted, amalgamated…conformed.
And then you see me laughing. A silent laugh till my eyes taste salty water. A silent laugh when Namita’s last scream returns in this empty room. I stabbed her thighs. I stabbed her with all the might that hatred could give me. All those red, all those comforting sound of steel cutting through soft old flesh and her green, tired eyes finally giving in all the mysteries of night. It took me two hours to cut open those two eyes. In a dead, fat face they were the only living things. Do you know that when you store them, the skin of the eyes go rough but the eyelashes — they hang on to that skin forever. It looks like two dead bugs. Two dead hairy bugs. For me, it looked like a silent, calm Namita. Make a small sound and she will open them to talk in the color of green.
It did not take that much effort for Mou. I dipped my knife in her retired left breast and then turned it on and on. I wanted to feel her heart. If there were one. Ever. There was nothing. Only a forgotten item girl’s middle aged corpse in a pool of meaningless blood. Cutting each of her five fingers was easy. Preserving them not. But I learned that trick. I can show them. Those same fingers…those same touch.
And then, there was Mili…I skinned her alive…she had a strange scent in her body…I could not, dear God, keep it with me. There was Rumi…turned inside out with her lips missing…..Menka…a whole bunch of enticing hair….one of my girls every two year…nobody got the link…a small mention in page 13…and then for one last time they were gone.
O.K. Time’s up.Wife is knocking. I gotta go. You probably remember her. She started as an item girl in one of those remixes. She is a real good woman. Her name is _________
Tags: thunder thighs
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“Memory has a smell of dead moths!!! ”
“I concentrated on her fingers. Fingers, like petals of an uneven rose. Fingers, like the five falsetto scales coming from the voice of a seasoned diva. When she talked those fingers curled and moved and called someone hidden deep inside my heart. ”
What a style of writing ! liked it !
P.S. : I am not a Batman / comics Fan, never heard of Neil Gaiman before I touched a book called “American Gods”. Legendary.
Before Gaiman, it was Alan Moore who used this title while writing the last story of ‘The Man of Steel’.
Yep.
Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow
How could I miss that witch from Northampton. Hopefully he does not cast a spell the way he did for “Watchmen” team.
But I liked the Neil Geiman one with his usual suspense building.
On a different note, a few of your words for the actual story posted here would be much appreciated. Thanks.
He he Moore won’t care for it anyway.
‘Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader‘ was tribute from Gaiman to all the Batmans that have existed. I liked it as well more than Moore’s Superman story. Andy Kubert’s art had variations and it encompassed the style of all the prior Batman artists.
Interestingly, the writing from villains view-point reminded me of Hindi comics of Dhruva, ‘Maine Maara Dhruva Ko‘ and ‘Hatyara Kaun‘, which were released some 10 years ago. So our Hindi writers were ahead of Neil or both Anupam Sinha and Neil Gaiman were inspired by some pre-existing work.
thanks a lot for this post & the pic…I miss thunder thighs & I hate size 0…
TTs have become passe? May be in Bolly but not in Kolly and Mallu.
Loved your writing. Call me ignorant but I’ve no idea whom you are talking about.
Not about any real item girls and hopefully
about any real psychopath.
See, I read that “kahan gaye woh log” article in PFC and this story came out.
It has bits of ‘From Hell’, bits of Robert Bloch and bits of black humor to that lust-churning machine of Bollywood which picks and throws away “thunder thighs” at the speed of light.
Oh! now it is making sense. In fact a lot of sense.
If stardust ( the magazine ) was anything to go by, Sri (devi) was called thunder thighs too. Oh man I miss the old startdust, what a good read it used to be. One line that resonates..”Rishi Kapoor changed into a silk lungi in first class, went back to economy and slapped Saroj Khan twice.”. If that is not great reading, I do not know what is!