The morning tide of Juhu beat a rhythmic, silver cadence against the private seawall of the Nadiadwala Grandson Palace.
Inside the sprawling, wood-panelled executive sanctuary of the estate.
Forty-four-year-old Sajid Nadiadwala sat behind a massive desk carved from solid burled walnut.
In March 2010.
Sajid was one of the undisputed merchant princes of mainstream Hindi cinema.
Dressed in a sharply pressed Italian linen shirt with his sleeves rolled to his forearms.
He possessed a heavy-set, commanding presence.
A sharp, square jawline framed by a neat salt-and-pepper trim, thinning dark hair swept back with aristocratic discipline, and keen, calculating dark eyes that measured the box office value of every breath drawn in this city.
Yet right now, his hands were motionless over a stack of distribution ledgers.
His eyes were locked in profound, dazed disbelief upon the full-bleed, high-gloss Filmfare print spread across his blotting pad.
Rudra standing beneath the Worli moon, tears of diamond rolling down his bronze cheeks while arterial blood scattered across the black acoustic strings.
His golden irises burning through the laminate.
“I promised Jackie Dada that I would launch his boy…” Sajid murmured into the quiet room, his voice raspy with awe.
“I knew Jai had the raw genetic foundation to eclipse the three Khans if he ever stepped out of his shell.”
“But this…
How does a boy who hid behind a grey hood for three years turn into an apex titan overnight?”
His mind drifted back to yesterday early evening.
His wife, Warda, had called him to the master lounge, pointing to the MTV Coke Studio replay with a breathless, knowing smirk.
When Sajid had stared into the singer’s piercing golden gaze.
The heavy spectacles of the introverted star kid had vanished from his memory, replaced by the terrifying realization that Jackie’s hidden son had unleashed a national storm.
And then—the call on his iPhone 3GS.
The caller ID had read Jai Shroff.
But the deep, velvet baritone that had echoed through the speaker had carried the commanding, unshakeable gravity of an emperor.
“Sajid uncle…
I need you to secure the intellectual property rights to the title of Aashiqui.”
“Don’t worry about the songs or the narrative bones.
Just buy the name.
Trust me, uncle…
you will never regret this.”
Warda had stood beside him, nodding with fierce, unblinking certainty.
And Sajid, acting on thirty years of unyielding trade instinct, had mobilized immediately.
(Flashback: Yesterday Late Evening — T-Series Headquarters, Andheri)
The penthouse boardroom of T-Series was an altar built of pure commercial avarice.
Sitting across the polished granite table were two of the most polarizing figures in modern Bollywood.
Thirty-two-year-old music mogul Bhushan Kumar and sixty-one-year-old provocateur Mahesh Bhatt.
Bhushan sat with his designer blazer unbuttoned, sporting spiked gelled hair and gold-rimmed aviator frames, tapping an expensive fountain pen against an empty ledger.
Beside him.
Mahesh Bhatt leaned back like an unhinged, cynical prophet.
His bald crown framed by wild white wisps, his hawkish face lined with decades of scandalous excess, sipping black coffee with theatrical detachment.
They had looked at Sajid Nadiadwala with sharp, guarded curiosity.
NGE was an older, heavier commercial empire than T-Series.
A titan like Sajid did not walk into a competitor’s boardroom after dark without blood in the water.
“The title of Aashiqui?” Bhushan had asked, his thin lips curving into a dry, condescending smirk.
“Sajid bhai…
are you losing your mind in your middle age?”
“Five crore rupees,” Sajid had countered without flinching, sliding two cashier’s cheques across the granite.
Three crores allocated to T-Series, Two crores to Vishesh Films.
“I don’t want your master tapes.
I don’t want Kumar Sanu’s vocals or Nadeem-Shravan’s old stems.”
“Keep the music rights.
I only want the exclusive cinematic trademark for the title: Aashiqui 2.”
A heavy, mocking silence had fallen over the room.
Bhushan and Mahesh had exchanged wide, incredulous glances before bursting into low, patronizing chuckles.
To the corporate trade of early 2010, pure musical romance was clinically dead.
The catastrophic box office bloodbath of Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Saawariya had permanently terrified studio heads, cementing the industry consensus that modern youth rejected earnest love ballads.
Audiences were flocking to pulse-pounding, erotic crime thrillers.
The exact formula Mahesh Bhatt had perfected through Raaz and Murder.
Furthermore.
Bhushan Kumar held zero interest in musical dramas centered on singers.
The era of playback legends like Kumar Sanu, Udit Narayan, and Alka Yagnik crossing over to demand equal footing with film stars was a corporate nightmare he refused to revive.
T-Series operated by keeping musical artists on strict, disposable work-for-hire contracts.
“Five crores for a rotting corpse of an IP…?” Mahesh Bhatt had mused, his gravelly voice dripping with poetic mockery.
“Why resurrect an innocent ghost, Sajid?
Who are you planning to put on screen to sing sweet lullabies to the multiplexes?”
Sajid had held their gazes, offering a calculated fragment of the truth.
“I promised Jackie Dada that I would give his boy his launch.”
“I believe the mantle will elevate him.”
Bhushan had snorted, struggling to conceal his laughter.
The entire industry knew about the Shroffs’ post-2009 financial and scandal scars.
They knew Jackie’s son was an agoraphobic recluse who hid behind oversized spectacles and pulled hoodies over his face at family gatherings.
The idea of that trembling nerd fronting a multi-crore romantic franchise was the funniest corporate suicide either man had ever heard.
Bhushan had signed the release forms in five seconds flat, grinning like a butcher who had just sold rotten mutton for the price of gold.
With Sajid wasting his capital on a dead IP.
T-Series faced one less competitor as Bhushan prepared his own aggressive expansion into feature film production.
“Best of luck, Sajid bhai,” Bhushan had sneered with slick, hollow courtesy, pocketing his three crores.
“Give Jackie Dada our warmest regards.”
(Flashback Ends)
Sajid rubbed his temples, staring out the floor-to-ceiling glass doors leading to the palace lawns.
“What happened, hubby?
Still chewing on yesterday’s gamble?”
A soft, intoxicating fragrance of jasmine and French vanilla brushed against his collar.
Sajid turned as his thirty-four-year-old wife, Warda Khan Nadiadwala, walked into the study.
She was breathtaking.
A voluptuous, statuesque former investigative journalist draped in an emerald-green silk kaftan that accented her lush, hourglass curves and the proud, heavy swell of her bosom.
Her olive skin glowed in the morning light.
Her dark feline eyes carrying the sharp, unyielding intellect that had once broken high-profile political scandals.
Sajid exhaled a heavy sigh, resting a hand over hers.
“I haven’t given you or the boys enough time lately, Warda…
Between Karan’s meteoric run with My Name Is Khan and Yash Raj’s distribution grip”
“NGE is slipping into third position.
He looked out toward the sunlit grass, where his six-year-old twin sons.
Subhan and Sufyan, were running in wild circles, clutching plastic guitars and wearing cheap paper masks modeled after Rudra’s concert photos.
“MTV is running that concert broadcast twenty-four hours a day,” Sajid remarked, shaking his head.
“Rudra could sue them for unlicensed commercial syndication and bleed them dry.”
Warda crossed her arms over her chest.
A sultry, amused purr leaving her lips.
“Perhaps MTV wants him to sue them, darling.”
“It forces the young titan to walk into their boardroom to negotiate.”
Sajid looked at her curiously.
“Why were you so adamant that I buy Aashiqui yesterday, Warda?”
“You didn’t even ask to see a treatment note.”
Warda’s eyes darkened.
An carnal, simmering hunger flashing behind her gaze as she recalled the sheer, suffocating virility of the youth bleeding over the strings on her television screen.
“Because I know how to read eyes, Sajid,” Warda answered, her voice low and steady.
“I spent ten years interviewing politicians, murderers, and stars.”
“Most men in this town have ambition; a rare few have talent.”
“But that boy carries an unholy, primal fire.”
“He isn’t asking for a favor; he is offering us a seat at his banquet.”
“He is our golden ticket to the absolute throne of this industry.”
Before Sajid could reply, a sudden scream of pure terror tore across the lawn!
“SUBHAN!
WATCH OUT!”
On the grass, six-year-old Subhan had pulled his Rudra paper mask completely over his eyes while playing tag, sprinting blindly at full tilt toward a heavy, decorative wrought-iron light stanchion!
“SUBHAN!” Warda shrieked, lunging toward the glass doors!
Sajid’s heart seized—
SWOOSH!
A blur of dark charcoal moved across the lawn with the blinding, imperceptible velocity of a hunting falcon!
An iron-dense arm shot out, scooping the six-year-old boy into the air half an inch before his skull could shatter against the cast-iron post!
The kinetic momentum was absorbed in absolute, silent perfection.
“Whoa there, little rockstar!” a deep, velvet baritone rumbled with rich, melodic warmth.
“A true king always keeps his eyes on the horizon before he charges the stage!”
Subhan gasped, pushing the paper mask up onto his forehead.
Looking down at him with a brilliant, roguish wink were two piercing, radiant liquid-gold irises!
“RUDRA BHAIYA!” Subhan screamed in pure, ecstatic worship, throwing his small arms around the giant’s neck!
Ten feet away, Sufyan froze.
His plastic toy guitar slipping from his paralyzed hands to clatter against the flagstones.
His jaw hanging completely slack: “B-Bhaiya…
You’re real?!”
Rudra threw his head back.
His rich baritone laughter echoing across the palace gardens.
“Of course I’m real, champ!”
“Did you think your King wouldn’t come visit his favourite princes?!”
Rudra bent his knees, scooping Sufyan upward in a single, effortless motion!
With one twin seated comfortably on each massive, cannonball shoulder.
Rudra strode across the manicured lawn toward the terrace veranda.
The boys squealing with delight as they gripped his thick obsidian hair like royal reins!
Standing by the glass doors.
Sajid Nadiadwala stood utterly, completely paralyzed.
‘My God…’ Sajid’s mind short-circuited, his pupils blown wide.
‘This is Jai…?!
The 6’3″ frame…
the broad, Olympian V-taper…
the sheer physical gravity…’
‘He doesn’t even look like the same species as the boy who sat in my living room last Christmas!’
Beside him.
Warda’s breath caught in her throat.
Her dark feline eyes drank in the sight of the young titan approaching in a tight black henley and faded denims.
The heavy, sculpted ridges of his eight-pack core pressed against the thin fabric.
His massive forearms were corded with thick veins.
‘He is twice as gorgeous in the flesh…’ Warda thought, an electric, scalding heat violently flooding her inner thighs, her nipples stiffening instantly beneath her silk kaftan.
‘The red-haired singer didn’t stand a chance on that stage.’
‘If he touched me like that, I would let him tear my clothes to shreds right on the grass…
God, he’s an absolute beast.’
Rudra reached the terrace, gently lowering Subhan and Sufyan to the stone floor.
“Go show your nanny those guitar solos, troops.
The grown-ups have an empire to discuss.”
“Yes, King Rudra!” the twins cheered, scrambling inside the house.
Rudra stepped forward, extending his massive, bronzed hand toward the producer.
“Sajid uncle.
It’s good to see you.”
Sajid ignored the hand.
Overcome with a wave of deep, paternal emotion, remembering the brutal decade of financial humiliation Jackie Dada had suffered.
Sajid lunged forward, wrapping his arms around the young titan in a fierce, trembling embrace.
“Look at you, my boy…
Look at what you’ve become!”
“Your father must be walking on the clouds!”
Rudra smiled warmly, returning the hug with measured, respectful strength before stepping back to face Warda.
“Warda aunty,” Rudra greeted softly, offering a polite, respectful bow of his head.
Warda closed the distance, wrapping her arms around his broad torso, pulling her voluptuous, silk-clad frame flush against his rock-solid chest!
Her fingers dug into the dense, stone-like muscle of his upper back, her nose burying into his neck.
The devastating, concentrated fragrance of dark vanilla, wild mountain honey, and burning cedarwood rushed into her senses, nearly buckling her knees with wanton delirium.
‘Pure carnal bliss…’ Warda groaned internally, forcing her expression to remain composed as she stepped back, offering a sultry, breathless smile.
“Welcome home, Rudra.
You’ve kept us waiting far too long.”
Rudra offered a polite nod, but his golden gaze didn’t linger on business or flattery.
His eyes drifted past the lavish marble foyer, locking onto a quiet, sunlit alcove nestled beneath the grand bifurcated staircase.
His warm smile faded, replaced by an ancient, solemn stillness.
Sajid paused, watching him.
Warda’s playful demeanour softened into quiet reverence.
Rudra strode into the palace hall, his heavy boots clicking rhythmically against the Italian marble until he stopped directly before the private alcove.
Mounted on an easel of carved teakwood, framed in polished gold and draped with fresh, fragrant garlands of white jasmine and red hibiscus, was a life-sized oil portrait of a young woman.
She possessed a timeless, ethereal beauty that had once eclipsed every reigning star in the nation-large, luminous almond eyes brimming with wild, untamed innocence.
Full, perfectly sculpted lips curving into a breathless, mischievous smile; and a halo of soft, dark curls framing a face of pure, divine grace.
She was the brightest star to ever burn across the Indian sky.
The woman whose tragic, unsolved death in 1993 at the age of nineteen had broken Sajid Nadiadwala’s soul forever:
Divya Bharti.
The Lost Goddess of Bollywood.
THUD.
Rudra dropped to both knees upon the cold marble.
He pressed his forehead flat against the stone plinth before the portrait.
His massive shoulders trembling as a quiet, sacred whisper tore from his chest:
“Shukriya, Didi…
Meri jaan bachane ke liye.
Aapke bina…
main aaj yahan khada nahi hota.”
(Thank you, elder sister…
for saving my mortal life; Without your sacred hands…
I would never have lived to stand upon this earth today.)
(Flashback: 1993 — The Nadiadwala Poolside)
Four-year-old Jai Hemant Shroff had been a strange, hyper-perceptive child.
Even in toddlerhood.
He had possessed the soul of a deep observer, watching the glittering parties of Juhu with quiet, mature detachment.
He had been standing near the deep end of the swimming pool when a four-year-old girl, distracted by balloons, had stumbled toward the edge.
Acting on raw, innate protective instinct, four-year-old Jai had lunged forward, shoving the girl safely onto the grass- only for his own small feet to lose purchase on the slick tiles!
SPLASH!
The dark water had closed over his head.
The toddler’s lungs had burned, sinking into the chlorinated blue—
Until a pair of slender, warm, and frantic hands had plunged into the water!
She had hauled his dripping, choking frame onto the warm lawn, gathering the trembling boy into her lap!
Jai had opened his eyes, sputtering water—
And had gazed upon a face of such staggering, celestial divinity that his breath had locked in his small throat.
Nineteen-year-old Divya Bharti had looked down at him.
Her huge almond eyes glistening with panicked maternal tears, before showering his wet face with breathless, frantic kisses!
“Oye hoye, mere sunehri aankhon waale hero!” Divya had laughed through her tears, hugging him tight against her chest.
“Aise kaun kisi ko bachata hai?!
Mujhe toh abhi se tere se pyaar ho gaya!”
“Kaash tu meri umar ka hota…
toh main Sajid se shaadi na karke, tere se shaadi kar leti!”
(Oh my heavens, my golden-eyed little hero!; Who on earth saves someone like that?!; I have fallen completely in love with you!; If only you were my age…
I wouldn’t have married Sajid, I would have married you instead!)
Four-year-old Jai had reached up with a chubby hand, touching her wet cheek, whispering in dazed, sacred awe.
“Goddess…”
(Flashback Ends)
Standing in the archway.
Sajid Nadiadwala covered his trembling mouth with both hands, hot, silent tears streaming down his weathered cheeks.
In seventeen years, not a single star, not a single director, and not a single friend had ever knelt before Divya’s portrait with that kind of pure, unblemished reverence.
Beside him.
Warda stood in absolute silence, her dark eyes glistening.
She carried no petty feminine jealousy toward the ghost of the former wife; as a journalist.
She had written extensively on Divya’s extraordinary life, honouring her memory as The Lost Goddess of Bollywood.
Rudra kept his forehead pressed to the marble plinth.
A wave of cold, apocalyptic fury flared in the depths of his soul.
His jaw setting into an iron, unbreakable vow as he whispered into the shadows beneath the portrait:
“Yeh mera vaada hai aapse, Didi…
Agar aapke saath uss raat kuch bhi galat hua tha…
toh main unn haram ke pillon ko pataal-lok aur jahannum se nikaal kar, unki bali aapki tasveer ke saamne doonga.”
“Unka khoon aapke charnon mein arpit karoonga…
taaki aapki pavitra aatma ko antim shanti mil sake.”
(This is my sacred vow to you, Didi…; If any foul injustice was committed against you on that dark night…; I will drag those motherless bastards out from the deepest depths of the underworld and hell, and slaughter them as a blood-offering before your portrait.
I will consecrate their blood at your feet…
so that your pure, divine soul may finally find eternal peace.)
Rudra slowly rose to his feet.
When he turned back toward Sajid and Warda, the grief had vanished.
His liquid-gold irises burned with the terrifying, absolute clarity of an emperor preparing to redraw the borders of the Bollywood world.
He looked at Sajid.
His velvet baritone ringing through the palace halls like a bronze war-gong:
“Sajid uncle…
The rights to Aashiqui are in your hands.”
“Now…
let us show this industry how a true God claims his kingdom.”
[ Chapter End ]
Author Note
Well, this chapter was deeply emotional for me to write because it is my tribute to her.
The title “The Lost Goddess of Bollywood” was given by my father, who adored Divya Bharti in his youth and wept when he heard of her tragedy.
Like him, countless admirers were captivated by her ageless beauty.
I know that almost 99% of readers today may not even know her name, but for that 1% and especially for my father.
I wrote this.
I was never drawn to celebrities, especially modern actresses, but like my father I had a childhood crush on Divya.
I remember watching her films with my mom and elder sister while my dad sat beside us, and even then it was clear: no one in today’s era can match her.
My parents have long discarded Bollywood, saying it has become nothing but corporate business.
Divya Bharti ji never received justice, but in my story she will – just as Rudra will deliver justice for Sushant Singh Rajput, Disha Salian, Jiah Khan, and many more.
Everyone complicit from politicians to corrupt officers, from radicalization to sports corruption that humiliates even our male and female gold medallists, forcing them to sell vegetables on the road will pay the price.
Rudra will slaughter thousands and offer their blood to Goddess Kali.
That is why women in my saga feel carnal madness for him: because he is not just a man.
He is a God among men.
This chapter is for her, for my father, and for that timeless grace which will never fade.
I hope you all feel the same power I felt while writing it.
Thank you, and may Divya Bharti’s memory live forever.
This is her image.
If you wish to honour her timeless grace, give it a like as your tribute.