Oh lord forgive me, for I am a bi**h.

Forgive me please, for in retrospect I will repent.

Ah now I have asked for forgiveness…I can bi**h!!

We have shoot coming up and I was asked to take this renowned model for lunch (just see if she will charge us less huh!). She being female and me belonging to the same weaker homo sapien species was reluctantly dragged in. I protested massively - I like my two rotis and simple sabji for lunch. Who wants to eat more and fall asleep. Guaranteed I will do no work after I come back…and so on. But it all fell on deaf ears. “Deepa you have to!” said the boss. And so I did.

I reached there early and found us a table for two. (Damn! Couldn’t I have been a handsome male model – at least this would have been less of an ordeal. Must remember to write my next script with a male model as the hero!). There was a massive buffet spread. Just looking at the spread my tummy was full. There were some seven varieties of salads. 6 varieties of raitas, then some ten types of veg and non-veg gravy, pulav, biryani, Chinese fried rice, rotis, naans, vegetable au gratin, crepe…and so on and on and on. The model breezed in fashionably late by 25 minutes. Dressed in formal purple trousers and flowery white shirt and Gucci glasses, she brought in with her a swirl of perfume. I felt downright dowdy in front of her. I was simply not dressed for this semi formal lunch! So me in Jean and yellow crushed T shirt smiled politely, we exchanged handshakes and the formalities done with – I invited her to order lunch. She squealed – oh god you know this buffet I can’t eat. I will just have a salad. I have to watch my weight you know. I sympathetically nodded – yeah that one thing I do know.

So we ordered salad – me green salad and she Greek salad (!!). But when they did come both our salads looked the same – except that hers had pieces of feta cheese and mine did had one extra piece of cucumber. We daintily nibbled through our lunch. I had to restrain myself from not eating my cucumbers crunch crunch crunch like a rabbit (I usually play this game with my daughter just to make her eat salads). The girl was still stuck up on the topic of weight. She droned on and on about how she finds time to go to the gym – despite her heavy schedule you know. Somehow I cut through her monologue and briefed her on the film, shoot dates and so on. She listened half heartedly I thought – he eyes drifting here and there as she gave people a once over with her heavily eye liner lined eyes.

We reached the end of the meal. Thank God. I could now scurry back to my burrow. Politely asked her if she would like dessert – knowing that someone as weight conscious as her would probably run a mile. But to my surprise she went “ummm why not!” And the desert menu as called for. She selected Blueberry cheesecake, fruit salad AND Tiramisu. Now I know my jaw dropped open and reached the floor. But don’t blame me – I had spent the last 30 minutes listening to her monologue on weight watching. I was totally unprepared for this. Suddenly I felt hysterical. I had to escape and laugh. I excused myself, rushed to the ladies room, called my colleague and laughed. Laughed, laughed laughed so much that tears started flowing down. I went back and watched her devour it all – while I sipped fresh lime juice and tried hard not to burst out laughing and send a shower of fresh lime on to her.

Oh Lord why do I get stuck with such creatures? Why do you make me do this? Now see I had to write a DP on this. I mean, such a weird experience…how could I not?