A beautiful Sunday morning in the park with the boys, and my mind drifted to nipples. No, I do not make Polanski look like a Sunday school teacher. We were teaching Luca to ride his bike on his own, and as Hanan and I jogged alongside him like a couple of extras from 'Run, Fatboy, Run', we went past the spot where we shot the final scene of I Can't Think Straight with Tala and Leyla on the bench. We'd had a very rough day before, shooting the first love scene. It had started, as so many days did during that shoot, late and stressed out thanks to the first (so-called) financier. With all the charm of an irritated Nazi, he called me in, waved Lisa Ray's contract at me and growled.
'This has a 'no nipple' clause,' he grunted.
This wasn't news to anyone. I like a nipple as much as the next woman, but I didn't need them in this movie. I kept quiet and waited.
'I want nipples. Go find Lisa and make her show them, or the shoot is off.'
I exited and found Hanan who was busy scaring Indian lighting crew into working faster. She saw the look on my face.
'What is it?' she asked.
'He wants nipples.'
She considered a moment. 'Do you want nipples?'
'Not really.'
Hanan rolled up her metaphorical sleeves and went to take on the So-Called, Unethical Movie guy (maybe I should shorten that to, SCUM, gosh that's an unfortunate acronym) while I went to see Lisa. She was waiting to start shooting, drinking herbal tea.
'What's the delay?' she asked.
'I've been told to convince you to give me nipples.'
Lisa sipped meditatively at her camomile. 'You want nipples, Shamim?'
I looked at her. 'It's terribly good of you to ask, but no. I don't want them'
We sat there for a while, passing the time, and chatting till Hanan came down stairs.
'He wants Sheetal's nipples too.'
One thing I am is an equal opportunity employer. If I don't want Lisa's nipples, I don't want Sheetal's. All for one, and one for all. Suffice to say that Hanan's unique combination of persuasion and firepower enabled the shoot to continue and we enforced the closed set rule, meaning that only 7 crew were allowed in, and all of them women (except for Aseem, the DP, who despite having a face covered in hair and a propensity for calling Lisa 'Dude', is an honorary girl). Anyway, that's where my mind was as we let go of Luca and he flew down the road, riding on his own. don't know where Hanan's mind was, but she was out of breath and had to sit down. I hope it was just from the bike ride...