Read Online A Son Of The Circus by John Irving - Free Book Online
Authors: John Irving
Tags: Contemporary, Adult
Ads: Link
marked by Dhar’s resolute vow to keep his father’s identity secret. It was rumored that they met only in Europe!
It must be said, in Dr Daruwalla’s defense, that the improbable nature of his fiction was at least based on reality. The fault rested with the unexplained gaps in the story. Inspector Dhar made his first movie in his early twenties, but where was he as a child? In Bombay, such a handsome man wouldn’t have gone unnoticed as a boy, especially as a teenager; furthermore, his skin was simply too fair – only in Europe or in North America would he have been called dark-skinned. He had such dark-brown hair that it was almost black, and such charcoal-gray eyes that they were almost black, too; but if he actually had an Indian father, there wasn’t a discernible trace of even a fair-skinned Indian in the son.
Everyone said that possibly the mother was a blue-eyed blonde, and all that the police inspector could contribute to the child was a racially neutralizing effect and a fervor for homicide cases. Nevertheless, all of Bombay complained that the box-office star of its Hindi movie madness
looked
to all the world like a 100 percent North American or European. There was no credible explanation for his all-white appearance, which fueled the rumor that Dhar was the child of Farrokh’s brother, who’d married an Austrian; and since it was well known that Farrokh was married to this European’s sister, it was also rumored that Dhar was the doctor’s child.
The doctor expressed boredom for the notion, in spite of the fact that there were many living Duckworthians who could remember Dr Daruwalla’s father in the company of an ephemeral, fair-skinned boy who was only an occasional summer visitor. And this suspiciously all-white boy was reputed to be the senior Daruwalla’s grandson! But the best way to answer these charges, Farrokh knew, was not to answer them beyond the bluntest denial.
It’s well known that many Indians think fair skin is beautiful; in addition, Dhar was ruggedly handsome. However, it was considered perverse of Inspector Dhar that he refused to speak English in public, or spoke it with an obviously exaggerated Hindi accent. It was rumored that he spoke accentless English in private, but how would anyone know? Inspector Dhar granted only a limited number of interviews, which were restricted to questions regarding his ‘art’; he insisted that his personal life was a forbidden topic. (Dhar’s ‘personal life’ was the only topic of possible interest to anyone.) When cornered by the film press at a nightclub, at a restaurant, at a photo session in connection with the release of a new Inspector Dhar movie, the actor would apply his famous sneer. It didn’t matter what question he was asked; either he answered facetiously or, regardless of the question, he would say in Hindi, or in English with his phony accent, ‘I have never been to the United States. I have no interest in my mother. If I have babies, they will be Indian babies. They are the most clever.’
And Dhar could return and outlast anyone’s stare; he could also manipulate the eye of any camera. Alarmingly, he possessed an increasingly bulky strength. Until he was in his mid-thirties, his muscles had been well defined, his stomach flat. Whether it was middle age, or whether Dhar had yielded to the usual bodily measurements for success among Bombay’s matinee idols — or whether it was his love of weight lifting in tandem with his professed capacity for beer – the actor’s stoutness threatened to overtake his reputation as a tough guy. (In Bombay, he was perceived as a well-fed tough guy.) His critics liked to call him Beer Belly, but not to his face; after all, Dhar wasn’t in bad shape for a guy who was almost 40.
As for Dr Daruwalla’s screenplays, they deviated from the usual masala mixture of the Hindi cinema. Farrokh’s scripts were both corny and tawdry, but the vulgarity was decidedly Western – the hero’s
It must be said, in Dr Daruwalla’s defense, that the improbable nature of his fiction was at least based on reality. The fault rested with the unexplained gaps in the story. Inspector Dhar made his first movie in his early twenties, but where was he as a child? In Bombay, such a handsome man wouldn’t have gone unnoticed as a boy, especially as a teenager; furthermore, his skin was simply too fair – only in Europe or in North America would he have been called dark-skinned. He had such dark-brown hair that it was almost black, and such charcoal-gray eyes that they were almost black, too; but if he actually had an Indian father, there wasn’t a discernible trace of even a fair-skinned Indian in the son.
Everyone said that possibly the mother was a blue-eyed blonde, and all that the police inspector could contribute to the child was a racially neutralizing effect and a fervor for homicide cases. Nevertheless, all of Bombay complained that the box-office star of its Hindi movie madness
looked
to all the world like a 100 percent North American or European. There was no credible explanation for his all-white appearance, which fueled the rumor that Dhar was the child of Farrokh’s brother, who’d married an Austrian; and since it was well known that Farrokh was married to this European’s sister, it was also rumored that Dhar was the doctor’s child.
The doctor expressed boredom for the notion, in spite of the fact that there were many living Duckworthians who could remember Dr Daruwalla’s father in the company of an ephemeral, fair-skinned boy who was only an occasional summer visitor. And this suspiciously all-white boy was reputed to be the senior Daruwalla’s grandson! But the best way to answer these charges, Farrokh knew, was not to answer them beyond the bluntest denial.
It’s well known that many Indians think fair skin is beautiful; in addition, Dhar was ruggedly handsome. However, it was considered perverse of Inspector Dhar that he refused to speak English in public, or spoke it with an obviously exaggerated Hindi accent. It was rumored that he spoke accentless English in private, but how would anyone know? Inspector Dhar granted only a limited number of interviews, which were restricted to questions regarding his ‘art’; he insisted that his personal life was a forbidden topic. (Dhar’s ‘personal life’ was the only topic of possible interest to anyone.) When cornered by the film press at a nightclub, at a restaurant, at a photo session in connection with the release of a new Inspector Dhar movie, the actor would apply his famous sneer. It didn’t matter what question he was asked; either he answered facetiously or, regardless of the question, he would say in Hindi, or in English with his phony accent, ‘I have never been to the United States. I have no interest in my mother. If I have babies, they will be Indian babies. They are the most clever.’
And Dhar could return and outlast anyone’s stare; he could also manipulate the eye of any camera. Alarmingly, he possessed an increasingly bulky strength. Until he was in his mid-thirties, his muscles had been well defined, his stomach flat. Whether it was middle age, or whether Dhar had yielded to the usual bodily measurements for success among Bombay’s matinee idols — or whether it was his love of weight lifting in tandem with his professed capacity for beer – the actor’s stoutness threatened to overtake his reputation as a tough guy. (In Bombay, he was perceived as a well-fed tough guy.) His critics liked to call him Beer Belly, but not to his face; after all, Dhar wasn’t in bad shape for a guy who was almost 40.
As for Dr Daruwalla’s screenplays, they deviated from the usual masala mixture of the Hindi cinema. Farrokh’s scripts were both corny and tawdry, but the vulgarity was decidedly Western – the hero’s
Similar Books
