ArHi SS: Swayamvar | COMPLETE | 31/7

"... 10 single women. Ready, to open their hearts and find love. The only thing standing in the way... Is each other."

"Cut!"

The beady eyed man runs his hands through his hair irritatedly, glaring at me as I hit the stop button on the giant camera sitting in front of me.

"God Khushi, I told you. You need to zoom in on my face when I pause, okay? Dramatic effect. I thought you were supposed to be the "smart one"."

The air quotations around smart one make me wince, and I shove my thick rimmed glasses up my nose as I refocus the lens.

"Take 30!"

"No! Not yet, NK! Can't you see that my foundation is melting? You need to turn down these lights. They wash me out."

"You haven't even seen the damn recording, Shyam."

"I know what makes me look washed out. And I refuse to continue until you turn down the lights."

NK rolls his eyes, and I struggle to remember why exactly I'm doing this again.

Chashmish, the genius writer in high school who was supposed to be the script writer for Hollywood, Bollywood, and every other wood out there, is sitting behind the camera of a trashy reality TV shows with diva hosts.

What an ironic twist.

I was supposed to be the successful one, the one that looked down upon everyone else at my ten year high school reunion, and everyone was supposed to know me for my Oscar winning screenplays.

Ideally, I would have a nice row of those polished, shining statues lining my dark ebony shelves. And I would have enough money to retire at age thirty, marry another rich guy, and have cute babies.

But three rejected scripts later, I'm twenty eight, broke, and filming the ripoff version off the Bachelor aimed at elderly Desi aunties who live with their engineer sons and watch this as they chop bhindi for the night's dinner, judging every girl for their too short skirts, their too thick thighs, and their scandalously low V-necks.

The fact that they're making out with the latest rich, spoilt Desi brat does not help matters.

I have yet to see this new bakra, the one that's been put into a modern version of the Swayamvar. The first guy who was supposed to be the Bachelor backed out when Mummy threw a hissy fit, claiming that the girls were not on par with her ladla beta.

And so this one was picked to replace him.

I squint into the lens, attempting to focus in on Shyam's primping face as a tall, broad shouldered shadow covers the light, ready to make his grand entrance.

"And... Action!"

The man steps out from underneath the glare, and my hand slips, unfocusing all that I had so carefully set up. My mouth falls open as I stare at the man in front of me.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't little miss Chashmish."