Overview
Critically injured, Indian film superstar Ashok Banjara lies suspended between life and death in the intensive care unit of a plush Bombay hospital, watching the final rerun of his life. Visitors come and go, talking, confiding, pleading with him to rise from his coma, but there is no reaction from Banjara, a prisoner of the technicolor film that plays inside his head. He encounters again all the people he used along the way in his successful film career - his father, a principled politician whose desire to see his son follow in his footsteps is, ironically, fulfilled at the cost of his own aspirations; Maya, his wife, a film star herself who gives up a promising career to live in the shadow of her husband's superstardom; Pranay, the archetypal cinema villain, who has always loved Maya and can no longer watch from the sidelines as her life is destroyed by the man who snatched her away; Mehnaz Elahi, India's sexiest screen heroine and Banjara's mistress; Ashwin, his devoted younger brother, whom Ashok can only betray...and many others who had supporting parts in his life but whose confessions now change the script forever. As a backdrop to these unforgettable characters a private retrospective of his major hits unreels - gaudy, exuberant, beguiling - a never-ending celluloid fantasy that took over his life completely and transformed it into an astonishing, compelling lie. With irrepressible charm and a genius for satire, Tharoor portrays the Indian film world with all its Hollywoodesque glitz and glamour, egos and double standards, as a metaphor for Indian society and no doubt all societies. Onscreen fiction and offscreen reality intertwine seamlessly to weave a tapestry of power and privilege, seduction and betrayal, politics and intrigue, that is at once colorful, entertaining, and deadly serious. Show Business is many books rolled into one: it is a story about the telling of stories; it is a wonderfully funny tale about the romance and folly of cinema; it isA triumphant new novel about the movie industry by the author of The Great Indian Novel. Tharoor's hero is Ashok Banjara, one of India's mega movie stars, a man of great ambition and dubious morals. Tharoor portrays the Indian film world as a metaphor for Indian society and weaves a tapestry of seduction and betrayal that is colorful--and serious.
Synopsis
Critically injured, Indian film superstar Ashok Banjara lies suspended between life and death in the intensive care unit of a plush Bombay hospital, watching the final rerun of his life. Visitors come and go, talking, confiding, pleading with him to rise from his coma, but there is no reaction from Banjara, a prisoner of the technicolor film that plays inside his head. He encounters again all the people he used along the way in his successful film career - his father, a principled politician whose desire to see his son follow in his footsteps is, ironically, fulfilled at the cost of his own aspirations; Maya, his wife, a film star herself who gives up a promising career to live in the shadow of her husband's superstardom; Pranay, the archetypal cinema villain, who has always loved Maya and can no longer watch from the sidelines as her life is destroyed by the man who snatched her away; Mehnaz Elahi, India's sexiest screen heroine and Banjara's mistress; Ashwin, his devoted younger brother, whom Ashok can only betray...and many others who had supporting parts in his life but whose confessions now change the script forever. As a backdrop to these unforgettable characters a private retrospective of his major hits unreels - gaudy, exuberant, beguiling - a never-ending celluloid fantasy that took over his life completely and transformed it into an astonishing, compelling lie. With irrepressible charm and a genius for satire, Tharoor portrays the Indian film world with all its Hollywoodesque glitz and glamour, egos and double standards, as a metaphor for Indian society and no doubt all societies. Onscreen fiction and offscreen reality intertwine seamlessly to weave a tapestry of power and privilege, seduction and betrayal, politics and intrigue, that is at once colorful, entertaining, and deadly serious. Show Business is many books rolled into one: it is a story about the telling of stories; it is a wonderfully funny tale about the romance and folly of cinema; it is
Publishers Weekly
The casting couch, big egos, glitz and various forms of exploitation are just as much a part of India's film industry as of Hollywood, to judge from this entertaining, occasionally uneven satirical novel. (Sept.)