The Glamorous Gwalior Gladiator

 

Naked. That's how I get to afford what I eat & drink ,  where I sleep and live my life. 27 years before in a simple Gwalior scene, I was delivered to a loving couple who were blessed with good looks and physical fitness and whose physical description ticked the modern boxes of Beauty Standards. Good genes and sheer destiny got me into this business , not that I regret about it , but I never get to talk about this to anyone honestly due to its sensitive undertones and the imminent danger it poses to my career. You see , people in the modelling industry , are supposed to appear ruthless and empty on the inside. If we begin to show our humaneness, it takes away the glam. We want to play with the sensory temptations of people, not tug at their heart strings. After surviving schooling and a jittery graduation phase, people coming and pushing me to take up a career in Modelling became a norm. I got immune to people looking at me , objectifying me for my physical appearance like I was a piece of something they can chew . It did reasonably feed my ego , you know , looking down on the rest of the world, or at least the majority who don't "look" good and here I am, strutting my egotistical body around creating unnecessary sense of remorse in them for not being a treat to the eyes. Gym happened , somewhere after my 12th grade, a hormonal adrenaline decision, like boys of that age, I signed up for the gym and started adjusting the fat on my body adding some more definition to my physical self. People in the family often didn't connect with me for some strange reason, as though they had a hunch that I wouldn't somehow settle for a regular life and there is no point connecting with me and that probably I would fly away to some place afar where I will create a Life of my own. Scarily though, their alleged hunches aren't distant from reality. Because, right now , I am baring all for the cameras , to show the world my nude body for costly magazine covers . I am Dwanith and I am a Nude Model. 

I did enjoy all the attention initially, you know the joys of people hanging out with you , when all they have in mind is to get themselves some attention banking on your sparkle. I did fall for it in the beginning, when I used to assume my boys were good friends , they cared about me and what not. But , through conversations and experiences , I could infer that they were simply "there with me" , not "for me". It was a mere band aid friendship to my charm. When this goes away, they  would go. But the money kept coming. I started posing for salon shops banners and local ads, which usually had popular Boy artists from the Western world. Some generous local businessmen dared to invest on me , as I had a different look. I don't appear Indian nor western , I am what you call a Donut Dosa. I am here and I am there , and as though destiny approved off my choices, my photos clicked with the audience and people began to take notice. Until that day came, when a popular Model Hunter came to our neighborhood by sheer chance , as he was working for another established artist. Word travelled and in a few hours, I was in a room with this guy, making propositions to me ,to take my profile sky-high for he claimed he saw something in me that the world hasn't seen already. As I write this, I stare at the irony of it, as now everyone has seen it all and I have nothing to hide. A few tough conversations with my parents and siblings, but in the end, I did manage to accompany the guy for a few shoots. I was actually changing my outfits in a room , when I came out for the next shot and this guy suddenly comes up to me and says "I think I got what I wanted - we will be in touch with you ! Here is my card, and when you call , tell Brown Gold as a code and they will put to me." It sent a chill down my spine, as the idea of going global tickled my senses a few hours ago and now everything became ambiguous suddenly. I simply nodded , and walked back to my place unclear on what's about to happen. 

Sheethal, one of my college exes suddenly called me one evening, she was a SEO Analyst for a Company and goes "You sexy bitch, You never told me !.". I had no clue what the heck she was talking about when she sent me a link to that month's subscription of the magazine and somewhere in the middle, there it was. A photo of me, changing my dress, my face was buried in the Tee as I was trying to get it out through the neck and a short trunk below almost giving away my dignity. They had actually placed cameras in the Changing room and with the help of some good lighting and camera tricks, they managed to make me look like 5X times Sexier. I immediately grabbed my phone, sent an email to the company asking for an explanation and demanded a call from the agent ASAP . As though, they were expecting this reaction, a man with a heavy baritone dialed me from an international number and asked for the code word. BrownGold.  I shrieked. Then it hit me, apparently , the agent assigned some codes to such kind of model finds and we were also tagged with a price for our worth. The guy on the other side of the line patched me to the Agent, whose voice I could instanlt recognize. He said " Hey buddy. Look at you. You were not a failure after all. You got the goods honey. I want you here. I need you here . You will make a living out of yourself , you will see some good dough . You will see it all and the world too , will see it alllllllll ". He dragged the last word weirdly. I managed to get some more details from him, work out a plan where I was slotted to travel with a plus one , to accompany me ( I called in my cousin , Shaman ) to the West . 

Things would have it, once I was there, we checked-in to a hotel and then went to the site where the next shoot was going to happen. This guy walks up to me and gives me a cheque for 1000USD and says that's my cut from the last shoot and to cash it in soon before they went bankrupt, followed by a guffaw.  Stunned as I was, from this sudden Money heist, a lady in a single piece came near me, patted my bottom and slid her finger all the way from my bottom to my spine to my neck and whispered in my ears #509 and winked . I was exploding from within. My man Shaman, beside, was equally intoxicated and disturbed, as all sense of morality seemed to drop off from us. He showed me the calculator app on his phone, converting the 1000 USD to INR and we both ate our eyes out. I asked for a break and we both went into a room and let out a huge cry , hugging each other and slapping each other's face and jumping and hugging again. He was about to slap me again, when I told in pure vanity - "Shaman , this is a 1000 USD face, no one touches it . Be my manager brother. Let's make this happen !" Again we shouted and after we had come to our senses, stepped out to see a world lost in their own trance.  As though this sudden Mood spike was not enough, a guy waltzed in wearing nothing and did a chin-up to me and goes " Vince, Delta . Welcome !" . We were both stupefied to encounter another man in his birthday suit as it was a jolt to our our comfort zone. I managed to chitchat with a few people at random and gather a perspective of what on earth was going on here.  I messaged Sheethal, that I was about to strike it big and whether she would care to be my publicist. I gave her the details she needed to hear and after a few months, Sheethal-Shaman-Dwanith became the BrownGold Brand. Sheethal , was a free spirited chick with liberal parents and good amount of money. So, it was not a challenge to bring her here for this role. But it took a good amount of speech, drama and convincing to make my parents approve of my temporary stay abroad for a few months . 

A few months turned out to be a year and then now , we are here for good. I have become used to a certain level of luxury and lifestyle, that it was sometimes not possible for me to mix with people from my past even if I wanted to. I had to maintain my dainty choices, act and speak in a certain manner, I also gently got my banners from the local salons removed , back in India as it would harm my reputation to be put up in projects with no money earned from it. I began to see my everyday as a reason to make money. I live to make money . That became my motto.  We purchased ourselves a condo , good enough for the 6 of us , incase we found a special someone for each other.  My life became their life. Sheethal and Shaman, transformed around me, we grew as a brand. My days would be spent in following trends, experimenting products and my nights would be exhausted in staring at the lens with or without clothes, and sometimes an occasional passionate encounter. I enjoy this life. I didn't purposefully want or plan for this, but I just kept humoring the choices and opportunities that came my way. As I built myself here, I made sure my folks back in India were also well attended to. Due to the kind of business I was in, I couldn't afford to go to my previous life in the past. I had to sneak out of airports, ensure any public place I was at had no cameras, or hidden voyeurs in an attempt to get leverage for some saucy tabloid content on my name. My parents live comfortably and peaceful, or at least, I like to think so. We connect once in a week , over a video call, when I make sure no one disturbs me as I get to have real conversations , in my realest self with my parents who rain such love on me, as I look back at them with a sense of buried Guilt, in the corner of my mind, wondering If in some way I have failed them by my choices. But that guilt is usually short-lived. Thanks to my camera commitments , as I said, I live to make money and Naked is how I have my honey on my bread.......