Fiction: An actor is at the centre of an obsessive artistic gamble that promises eternal glory

Vikram Rai, superstar of tomorrow, leans against the ancient brown-black walls of Bandra Fort (as seen in Dil Chahta Hai), face at a three-quarter profile angle, white shirt open, displaying his freshly shaved chest and entirely surprising-to-me muscles. There isn’t enough sea breeze to make his shirt ripple, but his abs – a thing Indian men are supposed to know about in the post-Hrithik universe – are certainly going for it. He was wearing sunglasses before, but now the morning sun has considerately retired behind a cloud, so they are hanging out of his shirt pocket, and it’s just him, the fort and the endless sea behind them.

Well, not just him: a little to his right, out of shot, my new friend Swapnil, Alwar’s all-purpose henchman, stands with a big thermocol board, apparently bouncing light on our larval-stage matinee idol. It just looks like daytime to me. There’s also a stray couple who had come to the fort to get some early-morning romance in, now hovering behind Swapnil, fascinated by this developing masterpiece. They’ve already been warned twice not to make creative suggestions.

“Passion!” Vishal Alwar yells. “Sex! Danger!”

He’s been at this for a while: he’s shot at least 50 photos of Darpan already, both...

Read more