Chapter 2: The Chawl and the Club

My dad is quite something.

What to say about my father? The entire chawl has stories about him—how he’s never settled, how his moods are as changeable as Mumbai monsoon. Some call him a real-life Devdas, others just shake their heads and mutter, “Yeh aadmi kabhi nahi sudhrega.”

He never married, kept six lovers, and has enough kids to form a cricket team.

Six lovers scattered all over the city—Malad, Bandra, Dadar, even Thane. A true cosmopolitan. And as for kids, if you lined us up, we’d give the Indian under-19 squad a run for their money.

I’m number seven—not too high, not too low.

The lucky seventh, as my mother sometimes joked after her third glass of cheap red wine. “At least you’re not the youngest, beta. That one always gets blamed for everything.”

Originally, I was just a daughter who barely existed, but I happened to be pretty.

My mum is a minor TV actress, not too bad herself.

She was always the nurse in those serials—white uniform, plastic stethoscope, and a look that said, "Main sab samajh rahi hoon, madam." Never the heroine.

But I surpassed them both, inheriting all the best genes—so attractive that I get scouted by talent agents eight times a day just walking down Linking Road.

Some people are born lucky. Sometimes it’s in the cheekbones, sometimes in the attitude. Me? I had both. Even the auto-wallahs would stop and stare, making those typical comments—"Madam, heroine ban jao na!"

Since childhood, my drawer was always overflowing with snacks and love letters.

A typical sight: little notes folded in the shape of hearts, Cadbury wrappers stuffed with someone’s phone number, and of course, those orange-flavoured Melody chocolates I loved. Life was sweet, literally.

My admirers could form a line from Gateway of India all the way to India Gate.

Honestly, it was a headache—how was I supposed to get them to give up?

Sometimes I wished for invisibility, like one of those background extras in my mum’s serials. There’s only so much attention one girl can handle before it gets annoying.

Before I could figure it out, something even bigger happened.

My dad’s company ran into a financial crisis.

The word spread like fire—relatives started calling, mum began hiding jewellery, and dad walked around with his face longer than the Virar local at peak time.

To get out of it, my dad used his so-called brilliant brain—smoother than a freshly oiled coconut—to come up with a genius plan.

—Send me to some big shot in Mumbai.

Even worse, since I looked good, the big shot was very satisfied.

With a wave of his hand, my dad’s company was saved.

Dad was happy, the big shot was happy.

Only I was not.

And now, something even worse has happened to me.