Column

Tales from the locker room

Last Saturday was a test of character, for me on the sets of ‘Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa’. I’m not talking about the show (there the test of character involves only the audiences). I’m talking about the trailer van given to me to relax in during the filming of the celluloid masterpiece.

As was expected I got the smallest trailer. It was so small that after entering it and making myself comfortable, I found my head, arms and feet parked outside it.

That alone was not an issue, because as a young child I used to frequently drape myself with a cardboard box and imagine myself walking the ramp. In fact, it was only about six months ago that my therapist informed me that this was not as normal an act, for 14-year- old males, as I might have thought.

The real test came when in an effort to do something different; I decided to have a bath. I opened the bathroom and pushed most of myself into a tiny room, which I was told was originally a cupboard. But do you know the old Haryanvi saying, which goes—One man’s cupboard is another man’s toilet?

In this cupboard, sorry bath…er…room, was a pot whose size was just right for three-year-olds. Above the pot was a small nodule, which I’m told, was a sort of a flush, that worked only on two days in a month.

Above this was the shower. It was a three-inch-long pipe with a head the size of a marble. When I turned it on, a slow trickle of water descended from it and barely wet my right elbow.

After 15 minutes, I had finished washing both elbows. Three hours later, I had done the odd hand and shoulder. Finally, dejected at this unequal battle I conceded to the power of the shower.

I was told later that in ancient China this very same shower was used to torture criminals into spilling the beans. But the lesson was learnt—forget about dance rehearsals for ‘Jhalak Dikhla Jaa’, it’s more important that you first shower at home.