Best

Koomar is the best actor in the country. He works in just one film
each year. He decides what his fees will be and always gets it. But the
roles are really the same, always. Koomar plays the 'angry young man'
who is attacked by twenty, thirty people at one go. Despite the
inherent difficulties of such a situation, Koomar wins always.
Directors try variations of the same routine over and over again. The
audience scarcely minds. It seems that the paying public merely wants
Koomar to spank the baddies. The rest of the film has a few comic
scenes, a love song or two and family situations. Koomar is very good
at all that. But the trouble lies elsewhere. Koomar became an actor
because he wanted to be people different from himself. He hated doing
the same thing repeatedly. It suffocated him, made him sick. He now had
everything he needed. Huge houses, innumerable cars, private jets,
fancy yachts, an island in the Bay of Bengal. Indeed at his age, at
forty years, few people had more. But Koomar had always been different.
He learned acting by reading books and practising before the mirror.
His parents could never afford to send him to a fancy acting school. He
had started off as a junior artiste and worked his way up. He had no
backers and no contacts in the film industry. They said he was too
tall, that his voice was too gruff. But nothing, just nothing could
stop Koomar from becoming the top hero in just five years time.
Thereafter it has been a lone journey to greater and greater heights.
But he needed to prove to himself that he could still pretend to be
something that he was not.
It's a normal day at New Technicians' Studio. All thirteen floors are
booked. The supervisor has been busy all morning answering calls from
all manner of people. He called the canteen and asked them to send some
coffee. Just then, a man entered the room. The supervisor's room has no
door and unless stopped at the main gate of the studio anyone can enter
it. The man in question was wearing a green shirt and green boxer
shorts. The stranger greeted the supervisors with folded hands. He
said, "Sir, I am from the districts. I am in Calcutta looking for work.
Please allow me to clean your premises. Pay me what you like if you
approve of my work." The supervisor took a good look at the man
standing before him. His clothes were dirty and his face was covered in
a beard. Despite this the man seemed very familiar. Why, the supervisor
did not know. He thought for a moment. There were security guards
everywhere. What harm could a single unarmed person possibly do. And he
would only be paid if his work was liked. He asked the man to commence
work. The man thanked him and went out of the room after being frisked.
He had kept his broom outside.
The first room he went to was the security guards' common room. Around
ten of them were gathered there sipping tea from glasses. After they
had finished drinking they asked the cleaning person to take their
glasses to the canteen. The man gathered the glasses and placed them in
a tray. Just as he was about to leave the room one of the guards
tripped him. He fell to the ground, flat on his face. Five glasses were
broken. In mock anger, the guards began beating up the cleaning man.
Though he looked strong and agile he did not protest. The manager's
lady secretary was passing by. Had she not intervened and stopped the
guards the cleaning man would have hurt himself very badly. On an
impulse she took the man to the manager's suite. The man sat on the
floor carpet and tried to recover from the thrashing he had just
received. It was strange, the secretary noted, that, the cleaning man
knew how to take a few blows from a stranger. He looked exceedingly
handsome too, but for his beard. The secretary asked him what he was
doing in the guards' room. The man told her. She remembered that the
fan in her boss' room needed cleaning. She put him on the job.
Ten minutes later the manager walked into his room with a load of
files. He failed to notice that someone was cleaning his ceiling fan
standing on his table. He switched on the fan. The cleaning man was
lucky that he had finished his job and got out of the way. If he
hadn't, he would have lost a few fingers at the least. The manager
demanded to know what this man, covered with dirt, was doing in his
room. The cleaning man, wiped the dust off his clothes and said
sternly, "Mr manager, do you know I can get you dismissed from your
job, immediately?" The manager took one hard look at the stranger. He
looked at him again from the side. He then knew who it was. It was
Koomar, the top actor.
That night Koomar threw a great party at Calcutta Swimming Club. All
his friends were called. Also invited was the supervisor, secretary and
manager from New Technicians' Studio. Koomar told his friends how he
had taken up an exciting, new challenge. He had decided that he would
pretend to be someone else and spend a few hours, incognito, in a place
which he frequented. Say, like New Technicians' Studio. Hence the guise
of the cleaning man. If he won, he had promised himself, he would throw
this massive party at the Swimming Club.