The void smelled faintly of bitter popcorn and crushed hopes.
Suspended in the dark expanse of his subconscious.
Rudra stared at the flickering cinema screen playing the premiere cut of Baaghi 4.
As the credits rolled to agonizingly flat background music.
His liquid-gold eyes burned with pure, theatrical fury.
“You absolute, incompetent bastard, Sajid…” Rudra snarled, running his hands over his face in pure exasperation.
“Just because S.S.
Rajamouli creates visual thunder doesn’t mean every director from the South possesses the Midas touch!”
“Why the hell didn’t you stick with Sabbir Khan?
The man practically built the commercial spine of the franchise!”
“First that catastrophic disaster Ganapath, then the unholy mess of Bade Miyan Chote Miyan, and now this?!”
Rudra threw his hands up, pacing the empty void.
“Ten whole years, Tigey…
Ten fucking years in this unforgiving industry, and you never dared step outside your gilded comfort zone because studio executives kept you terrified!”
“You had Nawazuddin Siddiqui right beside you across Munna Michael and Heropanti 2, and you never once sat down to absorb a single shred of his craft!”
“You had the immense potential to rule cinema, yet you settled for being a glorified human trampoline!”
Rudra dropped his shoulders, letting out a long, defeated exhale.
“If I had your body, your lineage, and your platform…
within a decade, I’d have the entire global entertainment industry bowing at my feet.”
A soft, melodic giggle broke through the silence.
It wasn’t Suniti’s teasing academic purr.
It was an older, infinitely sacred tone.
A voice woven from summer rain, jasmine blossoms, and the haunting ache of a half-finished symphony.
“Hehe…
my sexy, sinful hubby…
Now the stage is yours.
Go and take it.”
Rudra’s golden eyes went wide.
His heart seized.
That voice.
He could never forget that voice even if he lived ten thousand lives.
“Sati—?!”
GASP!
Rudra’s eyes snapped open.
He shot upright, his lungs dragging in a sharp breath of salty, humid ocean air.
He didn’t find himself on the hard, sunlit lawn of IIT Delhi.
Nor was he lying in the sterile, antiseptic ward of an emergency clinic.
Beneath his fingers were four-hundred-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets, resting on a king-size, carved teakwood bed large enough to sleep four men comfortably.
“What the hell…?” Rudra muttered, blinking against the sharp coastal glare.
“At worst, I expected a creaky stretcher and an IV drip at Safdarjung Hospital…
Who the hell owns a bed this massive?”
He swung his long legs over the edge of the mattress, rising to his feet.
Stepping across the polished Italian marble floor.
He reached the floor-to-ceiling glass panelling and froze.
Stretching out toward the golden horizon was the shimmering, restless blue expanse of the Arabian Sea.
The morning tide crashed against the rocky shoreline of Bandra, sending white sea spray into the humid Mumbai air.
“Mumbai…” Rudra breathed, his mind reeling.
“The City of Dreams…”
KRAAAACK!
A blinding, concussive migraine tore through his skull!
Rudra collapsed to his knees, clutching his temples as two entirely separate timelines slammed into each other like freight trains.
Decades of forgotten memories, childhood tears, media flashbulbs, and the weight of a legendary surname flooded his neural pathways.
When the storm finally subsided.
Rudra pushed himself up, resting his hands on the cool glass.
His golden eyes flared in utter disbelief.
“No fucking way…” Rudra hissed under his breath.
“Jai Hemant Shroff?
March 2nd, 2010…
My twentieth birthday?!”
He took a slow, steadying breath, parsing through the newly integrated consciousness.
The boy whose vessel he now inhabited bore no resemblance to the swaggering action star the media would one day manufacture.
Jai was quiet, paralyzingly introverted, and terrified of the paparazzi.
He had spent his teenage years hiding behind thick, oversized glasses, baggy hoodies, and silence.
The trauma of the Boom distribution leak in 2003 had nearly bankrupted the family, forcing his father.
The legendary Jackie Shroff, to sign every B-grade script that crossed his desk just to pay off the distributors and keep a roof over their heads.
And then had come the recent media storm.
The vicious, manufactured tabloids in 2009 regarding his mother, Ayesha Shroff, and a fitness entrepreneur Sahil Khan.
The media had weaponized financial fraud into dirty scandal, staining his mother’s public image and driving the family deeper into seclusion.
Last night, on the eve of his twentieth birthday, the family had sat together over dinner.
Jai had kept his hands hidden beneath the table.
His fingers clutching an official acceptance letter from the All India Football Federation.
A national selection draft for the Indian under-23 soccer squad.
It had been his dream, his sanctuary.
He wanted to run across the pitch, leap through the air, and bring India to the FIFA World Cup.
He had wanted to show the letter to his father as a birthday surprise.
Instead, Jackie Dada had looked at his boy with tired, bloodshot eyes, placing a weathered hand over his shoulder.
“Films sustain our lifestyle, Bhidu…”
“Sports in this country won’t even buy your mother her dignity back.”
“Think about it, Jai.
For the family.”
Seeing his mother’s tired smile, hearing his little sister Krishna’s quiet hopes.
Jai had choked on his own words.
He had smiled, excused himself to his room, and torn the football acceptance letter into tiny, jagged pieces before burying his face in his pillow, sobbing until exhaustion claimed him.
“I just wanted to win the World Cup for my country…
I never wanted to be an actor…”
Rudra stood before the full-length mahogany mirror, examining his reflection.
The face staring back at him was not Tiger Shroff’s boyish, sharp-angled profile.
It was his own face.
The Olympian symmetry, the razor-sharp jawline, the thick obsidian waves of hair, and those unmistakable, primal liquid-gold eyes.
He stood at an imposing 6’3″, broad-shouldered and long-limbed.
In this reality.
Jai had always hated his massive height, believing it made him look awkward and intimidating, which only fueled his desire to hide behind baggy clothes.
Rudra traced his knuckles over his chest.
The physique was athletic from years of football and basic gymnastics, but it lacked the dense, carved-from-granite eight-pack core and the kinetic density of his original body.
A dark, roguish smirk touched Rudra’s lips.
“Don’t worry, Jai,” Rudra murmured softly to the mirror.
“Your dream was noble, but naive.”
“Between the bureaucratic corruption, the political rot in the sports federations, and the commercial dominance of cricket, they would have chewed you up and left you penniless.”
“Your father was right about the industry…
But you won’t be playing a coward anymore.”
Rudra turned back toward the vast Arabian Sea, resting his forehead against the cool pane.
The salt air caught his senses, and the lingering frequency of that voice from his dream tugged at his soul, dragging him back to the darkest afternoon of his past life.
(Flashback: AIIMS New Delhi — The Oncology Ward)
The rhythmic squeak of sneakers against sterile linoleum sounded like gunfire in the hallway.
Rudra sprinted past the nurses’ stations.
His lungs burning, tearing through the double doors of the Intensive Care Unit.
The frantic phone call had shattered his world:
Her condition has deteriorated.
Multi-organ failure.
The malignant cells have spread.
A senior oncologist stepped out, his surgical mask hanging loose, his eyes heavy with clinical defeat.
He placed a hand on Rudra’s shoulder, his voice dropping into a solemn whisper:
“She doesn’t have much time left, beta.
The cancer has overtaken her vital systems.”
“Go inside…
Say your goodbyes before she falls asleep for eternity.”
Rudra stood frozen, his limbs turning to lead.
He wanted to scream.
He wanted to tear the hospital down brick by brick, to throttle the doctors and demand they fix her.
Instead, he forced his trembling hands to push the heavy glass door open.
Lying on the narrow hospital bed was a girl.
Her skin was pale as parchment, her once-thick tresses hidden beneath a simple cotton headscarf, an oxygen cannula resting beneath her nose.
She was a final-year acting prodigy from the National School of Drama(NSD).
A brilliant, fiercely talented artist whose stage presence had once silenced entire auditoriums.
Hearing his footsteps, she turned her head.
Seeing his massive, trembling figure, a faint, teasing smirk touched her cracked lips.
A weak, breathless giggle escaped her throat.
“Oh, Rudra…
please don’t be so melodramatic now…”
Tears spilled over Rudra’s cheeks.
He dropped to his knees beside the bed, burying his face against her cold, fragile fingers.
“You can’t leave me, Sati,” Rudra choked out, his voice cracking into jagged sobs.
“You promised me.
You promised we’d get married, that we’d have a home full of laughter.”
“I have no one in this world except you…
What am I supposed to do without you?!”
Sati didn’t weep.
Using every scrap of her fading vitality.
She lifted her other hand, resting her palm against his chiselled jawline.
Her thumb brushed away the warm tears burning on his skin.
“I am sorry, my love…” Sati whispered softly, her dark eyes clear and steady.
“My body cannot walk this road with you anymore.
But I will live right here…
in every beat of your heart, in every breath you take.”
She leaned forward, pressing her trembling lips against his forehead with boundless, sacred reverence.
“Promise me you will keep walking, Rudra.
Don’t you dare close your heart to the world.”
“Women need you, handsome…
There are so many souls out there trapped in the dark, carrying invisible wounds.”
“Make them laugh.
Make them smile…
just like you did for me.”
Rudra nodded frantically through his tears, pressing his forehead against her knuckles.
“Who is going to win the Filmfare now, Sati?”
“Who is going to lift the National Award and the Oscar while I stand in the front row, screaming to the world that the greatest actress alive is my wife?!”
Sati smiled.
A radiant, breath-taking smile that eclipsed the sterile hospital room.
Seeing another tear roll down his cheek.
She coughed softly, leaning in to whisper Rajesh Khanna’s timeless dialogue in a raspy, playful tone:
“Pushpa…
I hate tears re…”
A wet, broken laugh slipped from Rudra’s lips.
Sati pulled his head down, pressing her lips against his in a deep, lingering farewell kiss.
“You will become the God of Bollywood, Rudra…” Sati whispered against his lips, her voice fading to a delicate thread.
“I have never seen anyone with your spark.
Live the dream for both of us.”
“The stage belongs to you, my sexy, sinful hubby…”
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.
The heart monitor flattened into a continuous, hollow tone.
Her hand slipped from his cheek, falling gently against the white linen.
Her eyes closed, her lips frozen in an expression of eternal peace and contentment.
Rudra didn’t scream.
He didn’t tear at his clothes.
He sat in the silence, letting the unbearable pain sink deep into the marrow of his bones, locking it behind his ribs.
He leaned down, kissed her cold forehead one last time, and stood up, absorbing the grief to keep the light alive.
(Flashback Ends)
The bedroom overlooking the Bandra coastline was dead quiet.
Rudra stood before the glass.
The morning sun fully cresting over the horizon, painting the waves in brilliant shades of molten gold.
A single tear tracked down his jawline.
He didn’t wipe it away.
Instead, a rich, resonant chuckle rumbled in his chest, growing into a confident, dangerous laugh that filled the quiet penthouse.
“Thank you, Sati…” Rudra murmured softly to the sky.
“Thank you for the golden ticket.”
He raised his right hand, his fingers pressing firmly against the glass pane.
His liquid-gold eyes burned with raw intensity, stripping away every ounce of Jai Shroff’s introverted hesitation.
“Sati, yeh mera vaada hai…
main iss duniya ka sabse bada superstar banoonga, aur tumhara sapna poora karoonga.”
(Sati, this is my solemn vow…
I will become the biggest superstar this world has ever seen, and I will fulfill your dream.)
Rudra spread his arms wide, stepping back from the glass to address the sprawling metropolis of Mumbai waking beneath him.
His deep, velvet baritone resonated through the room with absolute, unyielding finality:
“Main Bollywood ka Bhagwaan banoonga…
aur raaj karoonga iss duniya par!”
(I will become the God of Bollywood…
and I will rule over this world!)
His hands clenched into fists.
His knuckles cracking with explosive energy as a fierce, roguish smirk spread across his lips:
“God of Bollywood.”
[ Chapter End ]