Bollywood Footslave

Part 1 – Hooray for Bollywood!

The taxi driver transporting Sameena through the chaotic traffic of downtown Mumbai seemed to be under the impression that she was in a hurry.

But she wasn’t in a hurry. In fact she had plenty of time to get to her destination – the luxury apartment of one of the most beautiful female stars to emerge in the Indian film industry (affectionately referred to by its fans as ‘Bollywood’) – the 37 year old, all-singing and all-dancing actress who went by the name of ‘Rupa’.

18 year old Sameena was herself something of an Indian beauty – even though she was born and brought up in the North of England. This was her first trip to the land of her foremothers, and she was truly excited.

She was excited for two main reasons. Firstly, it was an all expenses paid trip – the tab being picked up by her employers. Sameena had only just started working as the ‘entertainment correspondent’ for a Bollywood fanzine back in England, and yet her editor had been the one to suggest that such a post really required the incumbent journalist to have at least one trip per year out to Mumbai (formerly Bombay) – the capital of the Bollywood film industry. It seemed suspiciously generous of him to entrust her, such a junior member of staff, with the task – but there was no way she was about to turn down an opportunity like this!

And secondly, Sameena was especially excited about her specific assignment – to interview one of the biggest female stars on the Bollywood stage – Rupa. The stunningly beautiful Indian actress was something of a role model for Sameena for, although she liked her new job working as a journalist, she too had aspirations of being a film actress. Sameena could sing and dance with the best of them, having taken lessons in Indian dancing back in her home town, and there can be little doubt that, secretly, she was hoping that Rupa might be able to open a few doors for her – perhaps introduce her to some Bollywood directors and producers.

As she sat in the back of the Mumbai taxi cab, the wind pleasantly blowing her long dark hair through the open window, Sameena started dreaming again – dreaming about living the rich and lavish lifestyle of a successful Bollywood actress; a life like Rupa’s. For Sameena had heard that Rupa not only owned several plush homes, both in India and abroad, but that she also had several servants constantly at her beck and call.

Yes, Sameena, ever the efficient and well-prepared journalist, had done her research. She knew that Rupa had something of a reputation for being somewhat spoilt and arrogant, both on the film set and off, and that she had a low opinion of men - particularly subservient men. It was even rumoured in some of the gossip columns that the famous Bollywood film actress Rupa kept male slaves, and that she occasionally beat them! There was certainly a lot of speculation about this in the Press, and the fact that Rupa was, unusually for an Indian woman, divorced, only served to fuel the rumours and gossip to the effect that she now totally hated and despised men!

Sameena laughed quietly to herself as she thought of this. Ha! Ha! If only it were true Rupa kept male slaves! Sameena would quite like to own a male slave herself. She shared Rupa’s low opinion of men – especially since the break up of her latest relationship with her boyfriend, Narinder (they had split up in part because Narinder had objected to Sameena travelling to Mumbai without him, and had actually given her an ultimatum – Mumbai or me!).

Yes, having a male slave would be fun, Sameena thought to herself – as a vision of a naked male slave tied helplessly to a whipping post and begging her for mercy as she hovered behind him with a long, leather bullwhip coiled up in her soft, feminine hands suddenly sprang into her pretty Indian head.

A sudden swerving of the taxi, and some expletives uttered at another driver by the irate taxi driver, brought Sameena back to earth. Part of her wished she could whip her driver. He had certainly seemed to lech disrespectfully at her when she had flagged him down, but he was far too old for her. He must be in his thirties!

But to be fair, he got her to the Bollywood star’s apartment block in one piece, so instead of whipping him she had to give him a tip.

Sameena looked stunningly beautiful as she walked up to the door of the apartment. Dressed in a loose fitting, long white blouse which came down to her shapely, 18 year old thighs; tight-fitting, white leggings which came down to the tops of her equally shapely, dusky brown calf-muscles; and gold-coloured sneakers with the elasticated tops of a pair of low-cut, plain white sneaker-socks just peeping over the tops of her shoes – she already looked every bit the glamorous, young Bollywood starlet herself. She even had the dark sunglasses to go with her long, straight, dark hair. A gold-coloured shoulder bag containing her digital recorder and interview notes completed the English-Asian journalist’s outfit.

She rang the doorbell of the posh Indian apartment somewhat nervously. It was funny how meeting somebody famous always makes you nervous, even if you’re really looking forward to it!

But, needless to say, it wasn’t Rupa herself who opened the door, but rather a uniformed, Indian maid in her early forties:

‘Good afternoon. Miss Sameena?’ enquired the rather diminutive maid politely in a heavy Indian accent.

‘That’s right – Sameena from England; here to see miss Rupa,’ responded Sameena, somewhat taken aback at the sight of a uniformed maid – frilly, white blouse, black knee-length skirt, white apron, black nylons and shiny, black court shoes. The works! There were no such uniformed maids where Sameena came from – in Bradford – at least, not in the circles she moved in!

But if the uniformed maid was a bit of a culture shock, what happened next as Sameena stepped into the hallway of the plush apartment almost gave her a heart attack! A semi-naked, heavily built, middle-aged Indian man, clad only in what appeared to be a white loincloth, suddenly crawled over to where she was standing and started kissing her sneakers!

Sameena screamed and stepped back!

The maid just burst out laughing:

‘Ha! Ha! Miss Sameena should not be worrying please. This is being slave Muneer. Muneer is being miss Rupa’s personal footslave. Muneer is having to greet all miss Rupa’s female guests this way. He is having to be kissing miss Rupa’s female guests’ feet, isn’t it?’

Sameena was still too shocked to answer the maid. She was shocked, however, not just by the actions of the male ‘footslave’, but equally by the fact that the rumours and gossip were clearly true – miss Rupa did own male slaves!

‘Miss Sameena is not liking? Miss Sameena is wanting Chadna to be kicking slave Muneer?’ continued the uniformed maid.

Sameena, her heart still racing from the shock, was just trying to take it all in. A personal footslave?! What the hell was that? And was the petite and slightly-built, uniformed maid, whose name appeared to be Chadna, really offering to kick the burly, male ‘footslave’ with her maids-uniform, shiny black, court shoe on her behalf? To kick him for frightening her, even though he was, apparently, only carrying out his mistress’s orders?

The injustice that such a kicking would represent was the first thing that struck Sameena’s ‘western’ sensibilities. The second thing that struck her, however, and it struck her just a split second later, was that it would be quite nice to witness the petite, female, uniformed maid kicking the burly but cowering, dirty, semi-naked male footslave.

Of the two emotions, her innate female dominance seemed to win out:

‘Oh…er…yes please, Chadna. Kick him, please. He gave me a terrible fright!’

Sameena could hardly believe the sound of her own voice. Just a few minutes ago, in the back of the taxi, she had been happily fantasising about whipping a naked, male slave. Now, in reality, she was about to witness a male slave actually being kicked on her behalf by a uniformed maid – and all for doing nothing wrong.

Something stirred deep inside Sameena’s innermost being; something primeval - and she found herself biting her lower lip as the maid laid into the kneeling ‘footslave’s’ bare ribs with her right foot – not just once, but several times:

‘Stupid, dirty slave!’… kick; kick… ‘The stupid slave is frightening miss Rupa’s esteemed guest!’…kick; kick; kick…’The slave should not have been running at esteemed lady guest miss Sameena like a dirty dog!’…kick; kick…’Chadna will be telling miss Rupa; miss Rupa will be having the slave whipped!...kick; kick.

For his part, the confused slave Muneer thought it best just to curl up into a cowardly bundle and whine for pity like a wounded dog. He was frightened of the superior maid, miss Chadna. She, in common with all the females in Miss Rupa’s household, had absolute power over him. He was as much the personal footslave of the diminutive, uniformed maid as he was of the tall and elegant miss Rupa herself. For example, earlier that day he had dutifully tongue-polished the maid’s very same black, court shoe that was now painfully belabouring his ribs.

He still wasn’t totally sure what he had done wrong. Most of miss Rupa’s female guests liked having their feet kissed by him! Perhaps it was because this new guest was a foreigner, from England. He knew that much – even though the young woman was clearly of Indian ethnic origins.

She certainly wasn’t dressed like a traditional Indian girl – no sari or sandals; but tight, elasticated leggings and sneakers. Slave Muneer actually liked that! He didn’t often get to kiss young women’s sneakers. His own mistress Rupa, and her Indian friends, never seemed to wear them. He had therefore enjoyed the unfamiliar rubbery taste and smell, before the wearer had screamed and pulled back from him.

Miss Chadna’s final kick winded him and brought the full horror of his current predicament back to the forefront of his slavish mind. ‘I hope miss Chadna doesn’t report me to miss Rupa; please don’t have me whipped, miss Chadna. I will apologise to the esteemed young mistress from England – kiss her sneakers properly, if it pleases you miss Chadna!’ he thought to himself.

Actually, his luck was in, for miss Sameena was thinking the selfsame thing! It wasn’t the act per se of having her feet kissed that had spooked Sameena; it was just the fact that the dirty slave had grovelled at her feet with no prior warning. Now that she could see that he was absolutely no threat to her – indeed that he was very much in her vicarious power – she quite liked the idea of having her dusty, gold sneakers kissed by him. She decided to pose as the one who was at fault, the ‘ignorant foreign guest’ so to speak, who was unfamiliar with the local customs:

‘I’m sorry, Chadna, you can stop kicking him now. It’s my fault really – I just wasn’t expecting him to suddenly kiss my feet like that…please, if that is what my host, miss Rupa, wants, please let him kiss my feet again. I promise I won’t run away this time!’

‘Ha! Ha! Please, there is being no need to apologise, miss Sameena! Miss Sameena can be doing no wrong! Miss Sameena is being a woman; a woman is being better than a male slave. That is why the dirty slave is having to kiss miss Sameena’s feet!’ she smiled reassuringly at the confused, foreign guest.

The maid then clapped her petite, Indian hands and barked miss Sameena’s orders down at the still cringing and whining pathetic footslave on her behalf:

‘Be kissing esteemed guest miss Sameena’s feet properly this time, slave! Be kissing her feet slowly and respectfully, not like some rabid dog. Move!’ she shouted, reinforcing her command with yet another kick from her shiny, black court shoe to the footslave’s now bruised and tenderised ribs.

Slave Muneer, as we have already established, was only too pleased to have the opportunity to make amends and to kiss the strange and exotic footwear of the young English guest again, and so he was soon kneeling over her feet once more, this time being facilitated in his humble task as the young English woman of Asian origins had now kindly stretched forward her right, sneakered foot for him to respectfully kiss.

And he was respectful as he lowered his lips to the dusty, rubbery, golden toe of miss Sameena’s right sneaker, for he was fascinated by the whole new experience of kissing a young woman’s sneaker. Her white, below-the-ankle-length sock equally fascinated him.

Again, being in India, he did not often get to see young women’s socks close up. The hot climate meant that the local women nearly always wore open-toed sandals or shoes on their soft, bare Indian feet. His own miss Rupa had an extensive collection of shoes and boots it was true, but, precisely because of the hot Indian climate, she nearly always wore sandals when she was here in Mumbai where he served her. He would have dearly loved to have accompanied her abroad as her personal footslave on one of her foreign trips, but, hitherto at any rate, he had been permitted to serve her only in the privacy of her Mumbai apartment, or on a few film sets in and around Mumbai in front of her most trusted friends and fellow Bollywood-workers.

And so, just about the only ‘hosiery’ he ever got to see were the dark nylon tights of the uniformed maid, miss Chadna, inside her shiny, black, uniform court shoes, and the expensive, finest denier stockings of miss Rupa herself before and after she attended some film premiere or show business do in a pair of expensive, strappy designer sandals.

On the actual Bollywood film sets it was nearly all bare feet or sandals. His mistress Rupa sometimes permitted him to kiss the chorus girls’ feet, but they were all, ordinarily, bare footed when dancing, and wore ubiquitous brown, leather, open-toed sandals on their pretty Indian feet in between takes. It was really only the different shapes, sizes and smells of the individual chorus girls’ soft, brown, Indian feet, together with their personal tastes in ankle jewellery, that helped to distinguish them from each other. No tights; no nylon stockings; no socks.

Of course, he liked kissing the chorus girls’ brown, leather sandals and soft, bare feet, but these golden sneakers and soft, white sneaker socks of miss Sameena from England were just something different – even if they were covered in the same Indian street dust and dirt as his mistress Rupa’s sandals. Miss Rupa, rather like the Bollywood chorus girls who supported her, just wasn’t the kind of woman to wear sneakers and socks! And so slave Muneer was truly fascinated by the sight of the elasticated tops of miss Sameena’s short, white sneaker socks as he humbly kissed each of her proffered, golden-sneakered feet.

Miss Chadna, who was a clever little maid, guessed what slave Muneer was thinking. She knew he would be just itching to kiss the tops of the young, female guest’s white socks as she had observed how much he enjoyed kissing her own dark, nylon tights.

Chadna was not a cruel woman, and so she did her best to persuade the young female guest to grant slave Muneer his pathetic wish:

‘Ha! Ha! Chadna is thinking that the dirty slave is liking miss Sameena’s pretty, white socks. Would miss Sameena be liking the slave to be kissing her socks as well?’ she enquired on behalf of her fellow (but much lower down the pecking order) servant.

Now it was Sameena’s opportunity to laugh out loud:

‘Ha! Ha! Kiss my socks?! I’m afraid they might be a bit sweaty! I mean, it’s a very warm day and my feet are terribly hot and sticky inside my sneakers! Still, I suppose the tops of my socks mustn’t smell too bad – he can kiss those if he likes!’ graciously condescended miss Sameena, now feeling much more relaxed in the presence of a humble and powerless footslave.

‘Ha! Ha! Miss Sameena should not be worrying about her sweaty feet! Slave Muneer will soon be washing miss Sameena’s feet, cleaning away all the dirt and sweat. This is being another of his functions!’ replied the maid, before turning her attention once again to the kneeling footslave and conveying her orders to him:

‘Slave be kissing the tops of esteemed guest miss Sameena’s socks! The slave is not to be touching miss Sameena’s bare skin with his dirty lips – otherwise miss Chadna will be whipping the slave, isn’t it?’ she snapped.

It really was quite remarkable how the maid’s tone of voice could change from being so polite, when addressing the female guest, to being so curt and abrupt, when addressing the downtrodden slave. I suppose he must just have to get used to being shouted at and bossed about by women, thought Sameena to herself - and get used to being kicked and whipped by women by the sound of things!

As slave Muneer’s lips pressed themselves against the elasticated rim on the top of her right sock she noticed, for the first time, the whip marks on his bare back. Once again, something deep and primeval stirred inside her womanly soul as the whipped slave humbly kissed the top of her sweaty, white, feminine sneaker sock while she was still wearing it inside her equally feminine, gold-coloured sneaker.

At this moment a rustling, bright red and yellow sari heralded the arrival of miss Rupa herself in the hallway:

‘Ah, you must be Sameena! I see you are making the acquaintance of my footslave Muneer,’ said the softly spoken Indian voice, instantly recognisable to Sameena from the 37 year old Bollywood star’s many film appearances:

‘Oh…miss Rupa! I am so pleased to meet you!’ exclaimed miss Sameena, temporarily forgetting about the grovelling male footslave at her sneakered and socked feet and, if truth be told, feeling somewhat star struck.

‘Ha! Ha! The pleasure is all mine, my dear! I hope you are satisfied with my footslave’s performance of his duties in welcoming you to my humble abode?’

Sameena glanced down again at the humble, middle-aged, loin-clothed slave, still respectfully kissing the tops of her white sneaker socks:

‘Oh, well, to be honest I’m afraid he rather frightened me at first, but I was alright once your maid Chadna took control of him!’

Chadna smiled a grateful smile back at the esteemed foreign guest for the kind words of praise in front of her mistress. She liked this young woman from England.

As did slave Muneer.

‘Oh! Well, I’m sorry about that, my dear, but you can rest assured I shall have the slave soundly whipped for frightening you,’ replied the glamorous Bollywood star, suddenly adjusting her sari over her right shoulder and clapping her hands together in order to summon yet another male servant, this time fully clothed, but who again seemed to appear out of nowhere!

‘Ah, Ghulam! Take the footslave down into the punishment room and beat him for disturbing my honoured guest, miss Sameena!... Would 12 lashes be enough punishment for him, my dear?’ queried miss Rupa turning to her journalist-guest. ‘Ghulam is exceptionally skilled with the slave-whip and has a very strong right arm! Isn’t that right, Ghulam?’

‘Yes, Madame!’ responded a seemingly proud Ghulam.

‘Oh…Well…er…yes! 12 lashes should be sufficient, I would think!’ replied Sameena in answer to her host’s question, trying to sound as though having a slave flogged by another male servant was an everyday occurrence for her, but failing miserably. The main thing she didn’t want to do, however, was to sound ungrateful. She knew from her research that miss Rupa could be quite temperamental if she didn’t get her own way!

But Sameena needn’t have worried, for Rupa had already taken a liking towards the young English journalist of Indian origins. And besides, being interviewed for an English Bollywood fanzine could only help to boost her profile abroad where she already had quite a large following amongst the Indian expat communities.

As slave Muneer was roughly dragged off by the brutish-looking Ghulam down the stairs towards the basement ‘punishment room’, Sameena was escorted by the host herself into a spacious and opulent living room – the walls of which were literally festooned with dozens of pictures and publicity shots of the glamorous Bollywood star:

‘Please be seated, my dear. Make yourself at home – for you are a very long way from home, aren’t you?’ chuckled the glamorous, film-star host.

‘Yes, It’s all very exciting, miss Rupa. It’s actually my first time in India!’ replied Sameena as she settled herself into a comfortable white armchair which matched he white blouse and leggings.

‘Oh please, Sameena darling, just call me “Rupa”. There is no need for you to address me as “miss Rupa”. I mean, it’s not as if you are one of my servants or something! Ha! Ha!’

Sameena laughed too. A servant? So far I’ve been treated like a queen! I’ve already had my feet kissed and a slave is about to be whipped at my behest; and I’ve only been here 10 minutes, thought Sameena to herself. Wait until I tell my mum and sisters!

‘Chadna…some tea, please!’ ordered miss Rupa.

‘Yes, miss Rupa. At once, miss Rupa’ said Chadna, curtsying respectfully before her mistress who was now seated on the matching white sofa opposite Sameena.

Mmm… poor old Chadna clearly has to address Rupa as “miss”, and yet the other servant Ghulam seemed to have addressed her as “Madame”, thought Sameena to herself, still trying to sort out all the protocols of this unique household in her head.

The next thing she was aware of, however, was the sound of a whip whistling through the air, followed by a loud crack and a howl of male pain!

Rupa looked over at her young guest:

‘I hope you won’t find the sound of Muneer being punished too distressing, my dear? I’ve often thought about having the basement soundproofed but then, to be perfectly honest, I quite enjoy hearing my slave suffering. Ha! Ha!’

Sameena laughed too, partly because it was always polite to laugh at your host’s jokes, but partly also because, as the second whip-stroke fell and a second howl of anguished pain rang out, she too had to admit to herself that it was a pleasing sound to listen to! She subconsciously bit her pretty lower lip again.

‘Ha! Ha! I’ll have him take off your shoes and socks and wash your feet just as soon as he’s received his dozen lashes, my dear! That way you’ll get to see his sores close up!’ commented Rupa, clearly convinced from her guest’s positive facial reactions to the sound of the whipping that she wouldn’t exactly be upset by the sight of the after effects on Muneer’s back either!

‘Gosh! Will he bit fit enough to do more work so soon after a whipping?’ enquired Sameena, genuinely surprised that slave Muneer would, seemingly, not be given any recuperation time after his punishment.

‘Ha! Ha! Of course, he will, my dear. His back is well used to the sting of the whip! Besides, you have such pretty feet I just know he’ll be dying to get his hands on them. He lives for women’s feet, you know! Don’t feel sorry for him, my dear!’

‘If you don’t mind my asking, where did you find him, Rupa? I mean, where does a woman find a personal footslave in India? Ha! Ha!’

Rupa was laughing too, and not just because it is always polite to laugh at your guest’s jokes, but because it was, actually, quite a funny story:

‘Actually, my dear, he found me! He’s quite a wealthy man, you know – or rather he was! But he leapt out of some bushes one night as I was returning home from a premiere, threw himself down at my feet, said he was my biggest fan, and begged me to let him become my personal footslave!’

‘No?...’ exclaimed Sameena incredulously.

‘…Yes, I kid you not! He literally threw himself at my feet and started slobbering all over them! He even offered to hand over all his money and property to me, if I would do him the honour of becoming his owner and mistress! So, I did! Ha! Ha! After all, a slave under foot is worth two in the bush, so to speak!’

‘Ha! Ha! What a wonderful story!’ exclaimed Sameena. ‘Would you mind if I used it in my article?’

Rupa, for the first time, appeared a little uneasy:

‘Erm..actually, my dear, I’d rather you didn’t. You see, some of my fans might not understand or approve of my keeping a pervert as a footslave. I’d rather you didn’t mention it in your article – but I’ll tell you what, I’ll do a little deal with you. If you help me to keep slave Muneer as our little secret, I’ll introduce you tomorrow to my friend Ravi who is one of our top film producers here in Bollywood. Your editor told me that you are interested in perhaps breaking into the movies yourself and, my dear, you look to me like you could be just right for a part in Ravi’s forthcoming movie! I’m already going to be starring in it and, believe it or not, there’s even a part for slave Muneer – not that he knows about it yet! Here, come over here and sit beside me and I’ll tell you all about it!’

Sameena couldn’t believe her luck: her sneakered feet had just been kissed and worshipped; the pathetic male slave who had worshipped her feet was currently being whipped and would soon be kneeling in front of her again, this time with a sore back to add to his sore and kicked ribs, and would be bathing her hot and sweaty bare feet; and, on top of all that, she was seemingly about to be offered a film part – and she had only touched down in India about 12 hours ago!

Hooray for Bollywood!

Part 2 – Plotting

The sounds of the ongoing slave-whipping in the background only served to inspire 18 year old miss Sameena from England as she sat beside her Bollywood screen idol, 37 year old miss Rupa, on the comfortable leather sofa in the latter’s opulent Mumbai apartment and listened to the plot that had apparently been hatched between the film star, her Bollywood director friend, and Sameena’s own editor back on the fanzine in England.

Miss Rupa was explaining all to her new ‘protégé’:

‘Sameena, my dear, I’m about to appear in a movie called ‘Indian Warrior Princess’ which is set in medieval India – way before the time of the Raj. I will be playing the title role of the beautiful warrior princess who rescues an equally beautiful young Indian woman from an evil slave trader, and helps her to turn the tables on her erstwhile captor, turning him into her personal slave.

Oh Sameena, my darling, we’re all convinced this new film is going to be a major Bollywood hit, and my friend Ravi, who will be directing the film, has asked me for help in finding the girl to play the rescued slave-girl. My dear, your editor back in England has already suggested you – that’s the real reason why he sent you over here – and, having seen you in the flesh, so to speak, I have to agree with him – you’d be just perfect for the part! There is such a sweet and innocent look about you; and yet I can tell you are a strong young woman inside.

My darling, your editor assures me that you can sing and dance like an angel, so please say you’ll agree to take on the role!’

Sameena was flabbergasted! It all started to make more sense now! She had thought it a bit odd that such a junior member of staff as herself would be sent out alone to Mumbai – all expenses paid, and entrusted with interviewing one of Bollywood’s biggest stars on behalf of the fanzine!

But her editor had evidently had an ulterior motive – to get his newest, youngest and prettiest fanzine writer a part in a Bollywood movie! Now that would be an article worth writing!

If Sameena had any transient doubts about accepting the offer, the sudden crack of another lash across slave Muneer’s bare back coming from the basement punishment room, followed by his anguished howl of pain, banished those doubts – Sameena wanted to live like miss Rupa: to live the life of a Bollywood goddess; to own her own footslave, whom she could have whipped for frightening her guests!

‘I…I don’t know what to say, Rupa…of course I’d be delighted to take up your offer! I can’t believe this! It’s more than I could ever have dreamt of – a starring role alongside you in a Bollywood movie!...’ gushed a genuinely ecstatic Sameena.

She really hadn’t expected to break into the Bollywood movie scene quite so quickly and easily!

‘My dear, that’s absolutely wonderful – and I haven’t even told you the best part yet! Ravi has suggested that we use my slave Muneer to play the part of the evil slave trader who gets his comeuppance – or at least, that we use him as a stunt double for the actor who will play the slave-trader in the final scene of the movie – the climax – when you get to tie the evil slave trader to a wooden, whipping post and whip him in front of myself, the warrior Queen, and my female cohorts!

Ravi wants the whipping to look real – so how better to achieve that than for you to actually whip a real slave on camera! Yes, Sameena darling, you will get to whip Muneer for real in front of the entire cast and crew – and we won’t even need any special effects to produce the whip-marks on his back! They’ll be the actual stripes you inflict upon him with the leather whip! Ha! Ha!’

Another swish, crack and howl from the basement presented Sameena with an appropriate soundtrack to the image that was now flickering in her mind – the image of herself, dressed in a flimsy, sexy, Bollywood costume consisting of a traditional sari and brown, leather sandals, and gleefully flogging a naked slave Muneer who is tied up to the whipping post with his back exposed to her mercy.

It was an image that was pleasing to her! Bollywood really was a marvellous place for a bright, young ‘Indian’ woman to be!

As Sameena and Rupa discussed some of the finer details of the proposed contract – Sameena’s remuneration etc. – the uniformed maid Chadna arrived with the tea and buttered scones, all designed to make Sameena feel at home, not that she normally partook of afternoon tea and scones back home in Bradford. Sameena preferred burgers and fries!

But she politely sipped on her tea in its posh china cup, as a freshly whipped and sobbing slave Muneer was eventually dragged into the living room by miss Rupa’s chief slave-whipper, Ghulam, and was unceremoniously thrown down onto his knees in front of Sameena’s golden-sneakered and white-socked feet.

The slave’s back looked very red and sore, but Sameena didn’t feel any pity for him. Her only concern now was about her forthcoming part in the new Bollywood blockbuster ‘Indian Warrior Princess’:

‘Erm…won’t those fresh stripes on the slave’s back get in the way of the filming, Rupa? I mean, He can hardly appear to have stripes on his back before I start whipping him on the set of the movie!’ she commented.

Miss Rupa just laughed:

‘Ha! Ha! Don’t worry my dear – our Bollywood make-up artists can hide even the deepest of blemishes. I can assure you his back will look pristine before you get to work on it!’

Slave Muneer had absolutely no idea what the two superior ladies seated on the sofa above him were talking about. He was just trying to regain his composure – dissipated by the stinging pain in his back – and was awaiting the inevitable order from his mistress Rupa to offer his apologies to the young guest from England whom he had earlier frightened with his overenthusiastic greeting of her feet.

It was a given. A whipped slave always has to apologise to his mistress for requiring her correction, and must then thank her for taking the time and energy to have him corrected.

Sure enough miss Rupa soon barked the anticipated orders down to him:

‘Slave, you will now apologise to our esteemed female guest from England for your earlier brutish and lascivious behaviour towards her pretty, sneakered feet; you will then thank her for having you whipped for your unacceptable behaviour, and for showing you sweet, feminine mercy in having your punishment restricted to only 12 lashes; and then you will beg her for permission to pay your proper, humble respects to her feet and footwear by humbly and reverentially kissing her superior, feminine feet. Begin!’

Mistress Sameena (for that was how she now thought of herself – as a Bollywood ‘slave-mistress’ just like her new friend and mentor, miss Rupa) sat up straight beside her host on the comfortable sofa, her tea cup resting on its saucer on her lap, and took a large bite out of her buttered scone as she somewhat indolently and arrogantly stretched out her right, sneakered foot under the kneeling and sobbing, freshly whipped, slave’s nose for him to apologise to.

Sameena, somewhat carried away by the whole scene in miss Rupa’s opulent living room, already very much wanted to get into character for her forthcoming film role, and found herself actually despising slave Muneer all the more because he had captured her and tried to sell her into slavery. My God she would make him pay for that!

She cocked her pretty, dark head to one side as she literally looked down on him from her seated position of absolute power and listened unsympathetically to his whining and pleading at her sneakered feet in his thick, Indian accent:

‘Oh pray, miss Sameena, if it is pleasing to you, miss Sameena, this dirty slave – the personal footslave of the divine mistress Rupa – is humbly begging your forgiveness for frightening you with his arrogant and presumptuous slave tongue when he earlier was seeking to lick the dirt off your most beautiful sneakers, most beautiful, young mistress from England, and is blessing you for acceding to having him justly whipped for his brutish and loutish behaviour.

‘Oh pray, mistress Sameena, this dirty, whipped slave is begging you to be permitting him to now kiss the toe of your most beautiful, feminine sneaker in a manner befitting a footslave paying homage to his mistress’s superior footwear. Oh pray, mistress! Oh pray, mistress!’

The gracious and magnanimous mistress Sameena wiped some crumbs off her pretty lips and granted the humble, whipped footslave his pathetic wish:

‘Very well, slave…you may kiss the toe of my right sneaker, but don’t raise your eyes above the top of my white ankle sock !’ she mumbled through her scone, conscious of the fact that the slave might get a cheap thrill out of staring at her shapely, bare calf muscle as he applied his blubbering lips to the leather toe of her golden sneaker.

‘Ha! Ha! That’s right, my dear..you tell him! Really get into your part! Treat him as if he was already your slave and at your mercy!’ exclaimed miss Rupa, encouragingly.

She too was alluding, of course, to Sameena’s forthcoming film role, but slave Muneer, in his ignorance, thought mistress Rupa was just indicating that he was to treat her English guest as if she were his own mistress – something he had actually been trying to do from the moment the beautiful, young woman had walked through the front door of the apartment!

As his lips gently – and this time ultra-respectfully – made contact with the leather toe of the young woman’s gold-coloured sneaker, slave Muneer felt some particles of dust and street dirt coming off the shoe and onto his lips. He wondered, as he focused his eyes on her shoe dirt – taking great care to avoid looking at the top of her short, white sneaker sock or her pretty, brown, bare calf-flesh above the elasticated rim of the sock - whether it was Indian street dirt or English street dirt – transported on the toe of her sneaker all the way over to Mumbai from Bradford! As he humbly swallowed the young woman’s shoe dirt it certainly tasted like Indian dirt, but then, for all he knew, young women’s shoe dirt tasted the same the world over!

As we have already established, slave Muneer didn’t get out much – mainly because his mistress Rupa wouldn’t let him out much!

It quickly became apparent, however, that she was determined to have the slave pay full homage to her young guest’s feet, as she uttered her next order:

‘Slave, you’re going to remove our guest’s shoes and socks and wash her pretty feet…Ghulam, fetch the foot bowl and fill it with some nice, warm water!’

‘Yes, Madame,’ responded the burly overseer – clearly a superior man in every way to the lowly slave Muneer, even if he too was a woman’s servant.

Slave Muneer braced himself. Washing a guest’s feet was always fraught with danger. There was enormous potential for upsetting the mistress concerned – especially such a ‘sensitive’ young mistress as this 18 year old English girl! What if he inadvertently scratched her foot with his dirty, slave fingernails? What if he accidentally hurt her?

You can just imagine the severity of any punishment that would ensue!

For her part, miss Sameena, having earlier been somewhat worried at the prospect of having to take off her shoes and socks as she feared her feet might be a bit sweaty and smelly after her long journey from England, was now very much looking forward to having her bare feet washed. She actually hoped her feet would be sweaty and smelly and that the pathetic, whipped slave at her feet would find the smell of her dirty feet unpleasant – for it was no more than he deserved, being an evil slave-trader of innocent, young women!

She finished her scone, washed it down with the last of her tea, and readied herself for the footslave’s humble task of having to wash her pretty, brown feet as the handsome and manly manservant Ghulam smilingly brought in the white, porcelain bowl filled with clean, lukewarm water and placed it at her feet directly under the kneeling Muneer’s face.

‘Order the footslave to take off your sneakers and socks just as soon as you’re ready, my dear,’ prompted miss Rupa, still seated beside Sameena on the sofa, but now having kicked off her own brown, leather, open-toed house-sandals from her feet and tucked them up under her on the sofa.

The message was clear to slave Muneer – concentrate on the young guest’s feet and footwear; do not be distracted by your own mistress’s feet!

Sameena cleared her throat and again indolently ran her tongue around the roof off her mouth and on the insides of her cheeks in order to remove any last vestiges of scone, before snapping her orders, mistress-Rupa-like, down at the kneeling footslave:

‘You, the footslave, take off my sneakers and socks and wash my bare feet. Make sure you sniff the inside of each shoe and the bottom of each sock after you take them off!’

Rupa squealed and clapped her pretty, bejewelled Indian, hands with superior, feminine delight:

‘Ha! Ha! You truly are a natural, my dear!’ she exclaimed approvingly.

Sameena, the former dance student from Bradford, beamed proudly back at her.

Slave Muneer began humbly to untie the young English girl’s shoe laces, first on her right foot, then on her left, loosening them fully before gently pulling the gold-coloured sneakers off her pretty, white-socked feet. The sneakers came off with a whoosh of warm, feminine foot-air which immediately invaded his nostrils, causing him to involuntarily flinch.

The young woman’s feet and socks stank! The snowy white socks were definitely not so pristine-looking on the soles and around the toe areas. Yellowy-brown sweat stains were a visible manifestation of the sweaty, female, foot odour that was now enveloping him.

But it was only a momentary flinch, for slave Muneer knew that his mistress Rupa was watching him intently from her position seated beside her guest on the sofa - and so he hesitated no further in obeying the young woman’s orders in first sniffing the warm and ‘fragrant’ insides of each sweaty, golden sneaker, then literally peeling off each sweat-drenched, short, plain white, feminine, cotton sneaker-sock and sniffing the undersides of the yellow-stained toe areas before placing them inside their respective, discarded, gold-coloured, feminine sneakers on the living room floor:

‘Phew…I do apologise for the state of my feet, Rupa! I’m afraid these bitches really do stink!’ exclaimed miss Sameena, turning up her pretty, Indian nose in a most unladylike way.

Her candour just tickled miss Rupa:

‘Ha! Ha! Your pretty feet are not bitches, my dear! They’re goddesses, and my slave will now worship them in the manner they truly deserve by humbly soothing and bathing them.’

Slave Muneer was fascinated to see the vestiges of cold-coloured nail varnish on miss Sameena’s toenails – gold, presumably, to match her sneakers, even though her toenails would never be on public display inside her golden sneakers and white sneaker socks! Such is the curious mind of a fashion-conscious young Englishwoman!

He wondered momentarily if some of the yellowy staining on the toes of her white sneaker socks could be explained by the gold toenail paint chipping off, but quickly dismissed that theory. The socks had definitely smelt of sweat – not toenail varnish!

He therefore got on with his demeaning chore and gently and respectfully kissed miss Sameena’s rather large and podgy big toes on her otherwise shapely feet before lifting her sweaty, bare feet into the refreshing bowl of lukewarm water.

As he then lovingly cradled her soft feet with his left hand, and scooped the refreshing lukewarm water over the tops of her feet with his right hand, he noticed how the water was almost instantly turning dirty, with little pieces of dead skin, toe jam and sweaty, white sock lint coming off goddess Sameena’s feet and floating around inside the bowl.

Sameena had noticed it too:

‘Ha! Ha! Make sure you get off all that dirt and toe jam, footslave. I want my dirty socks to be going back onto nice, clean feet when you’ve finished!’

This was, of course, her way of adding to the slave’s sense of humiliation and degradation, for, in reminding him that he would be having to put her still sweaty and dirty white socks back onto her bare feet when he had finished washing them, she was reinforcing the message to him that his foot-washing task amounted to nugatory work. All the good he achieved in cleaning her bare feet would be cancelled out as the sweat from the insides of her socks once again soiled her pretty, Asian feet. She was emphasising to him, therefore, that the only purpose in his washing her feet was to humiliate him – not to actually clean her feet.

She knew it; slave Muneer knew it; and mistress Rupa knew it:

‘Ha! Ha! That’s right, my dear! Remind the stupid slave of your sweaty socks and the fact that he’s going to have to touch them again after washing all the dirt and sweat off your pretty feet! Ha! Ha! What a loser he is! What a simpleton! What a buffoon!’

Spurred on by her mentor and idol, miss Rupa, Sameena couldn’t wait to have the slave perform the humiliating task of putting her sweaty, white socks and still warm, golden sneakers back onto her freshly washed feet. Under instructions from miss Rupa, she duly dried her feet on the pathetic, kneeling footslave’s hair, before ordering him to dress her again:

‘Put my shoes and socks back on my feet, slave, and make sure my socks are on straight – I want to be able to see the tops of my white socks above the tops of my sneakers!’

It is, of course, humiliating and degrading for a slave to have to perform any demeaning task for his mistress which she is more than capable of carrying out herself. Miss Sameena, no doubt, would have put her shoes and socks on herself when she was setting out on her long journey to India just a matter of hours ago. But now, it seemed, such things were beneath her. She had her very own footslave underfoot, and it was his task to take off her shoes and socks and then put them back on her pretty, superior, Bollywood-goddess feet.

And my God he’d better do it properly and in exact accordance with her instructions, or else she would have him whipped again!

Unfamiliar though he was in handling young women’s delicate, feminine socks, slave Muneer ensured, under pain of the whip, that miss Sameena’s socks were gently pulled over her freshly-washed and dried toes, and were then pulled smoothly and straightly onto her bare feet until they reached just below her shapely, brown-skinned, ankle bones. He was gratified to observe that, when he placed each of her sweaty, warm sneakers back onto her feet and secured the laces, the elasticated tops of her white cotton sneaker socks were clearly visible above the gold-coloured upper rims of her feminine sneakers – just as the young woman had ordered.

Nevertheless, miss Sameena twisted and turned her freshly sneakered and besocked feet in the air directly under the kneeling footslave’s nose, seemingly inspecting them and attempting to find fault with them:

‘Hmm…the sock on my left foot is a bit creased just below the ankle,’ she complained.

Slave Muneer felt like retorting in his defence that that was only because she had been flexing and twisting her pretty foot so much! He felt like saying it – but, of course, he didn’t. Instead he apologised to the superior, young woman and begged her for mercy:

‘Oh pray, mistress Sameena, if it is pleasing you mistress Sameena, please be forgiving this dirty slave for creasing your sock and be permitting him to straighten your sock for you, if it is pleasing to you, sweet merciful young mistress! Please don’t have me whipped, young mistress!’

Miss Rupa was chortling with glee at her slave’s evident distress. This young Englishwoman was so much going to enjoy whipping him on set!

‘Mmm…you may straighten my sock – but make sure you don’t touch my sock with your slimy, slave fingers. You may only use your slave nose!’ snapped miss Sameena, inventively.

Slave Muneer was just grateful for the chance to put right what he had done wrong, and duly lowered the tip of his nose to the elasticated top of miss Sameena’s left sneaker sock in an effort to ‘smooth out’ the tiny crease that had developed in the cotton material.

The feminine, white sock felt nice and soft on the sensitive tip of his nose. It didn’t seem to smell any more, but presumably that was because the smelly parts were now safely ensconced inside the mistress’s shoe. He was truly grateful to the young woman for granting him this unusual honour of nose-straightening her sock!

Miss Rupa, meanwhile, was laughing almost hysterically:

‘Ha! Ha! Look at the dumbass-slave nuzzling his young mistress’s sock like a jackass! Ha! Ha! What a knucklehead!... Are you satisfied with his work, Sameena darling? Has he smoothed out your sock to your satisfaction, or would you like him whipped again?’

Sameena may have quickly developed into a natural slave-owner, but she wasn’t an unnecessarily cruel girl. The top of her left sock was now smoothed out to her satisfaction, and so there was no point in having slave Muneer whipped again – especially as, whatever miss Rupa said about the skills of the Bollywood make-up artists, she didn’t want slave Muneer’s back to be damaged any more prior to her big scene with him at the whipping post on the set of the forthcoming movie –‘Indian Warrior Princess’!

She therefore reassured her host that all was well:

‘Erm…yes, everything is okay now, thank you. My sock looks nice and straight!’

‘Ha! Ha! Very well, my dear, if you say so…but please, you must also now decide if slave Muneer has earned some refreshment! Do you think he is worthy to drink your dirty foot water, or should we just have Ghulam throw it away down the drain?’

Sameena chuckled inside! How perverse! Drinking her dirty foot water, with all the bits of dead foot skin and sweaty toe jam floating about in it, is considered a reward for the slave! Ha! Ha! It would seem churlish not to reward him after all his efforts!

‘Erm…I think he should be allowed to drink my dirty foot water, Rupa. After all, it consists of toe jam that I have brought all the way with me from England!’

Slave Muneer’s heart leapt with joy! Drinking young English woman dirty foot water and toe-jam! This was indeed such a rare treat for an Indian footslave such as himself. Yes, miss Sameena was of Indian origins, but her toe jam must surely taste different from that of his usual Indian mistresses, mixed in as it was with white sock lint and ‘manufactured’ inside a warm pair of golden sneakers!

He therefore lapped up the dirty foot water like a grateful and thirsty puppy dog, savouring every little lump of feminine English toe jam that he could find by rolling it around on the taste buds of his slave tongue before swallowing it.

It’s thirsty work, being a Bollywood footslave!

Part 3 – Lights…Camera…Action…Cut!

A few days later and Sameena once again found herself sitting in the back of car speeding through the chaotic streets of Mumbai – only this time it wasn’t a humble taxi; it was a stretched limo, driven by a uniformed chauffeur, and seated in the back with her, behind the tinted glass, was the famous Bollywood actress, Rupa.

Furthermore, Sameena had something to rest her feet on in the back of the car – slave Muneer, who was lying on his stomach on the floor with both miss Rupa’s bejewelled and brown-sandalled feet, and miss Sameena’s golden-sneakered feet, resting on his whip-marked, bare back.

Slave Muneer, because he was nothing more than a stupid, ignorant slave, assumed that this was just to be another of those happy occasions when he was permitted to accompany his mistress Rupa to the set of her latest, Bollywood blockbuster movie – ‘Indian Warrior Princess’. He was anticipating, therefore, that he would, as usual, soon be required to kiss the feet of the Bollywood chorus girls at his mistress Rupa’s behest, by way of a ‘public’ demonstration of her wealth, her power, and her magnanimity in sharing her footslave with the ‘lesser’ female members of the film cast. If truth be told he really enjoyed his little trips to the movie sets, even if he was under enormous pressure to ‘perform’ well as a humble footslave and not to show up his mistress in front of her fellow cast members and the film crew.

Little did he know, however, that this time he was going to be ‘performing’ in the movie itself – as the stunt ‘whipping-boy’ for the actor playing the part of the evil slave-trader!

But the superior young, 18 year old journalist and would-be Bollywood actress from England mistress Sameena - whose gold-sneakered, right foot was currently resting on the upturned left cheek of slave Muneer’s stupid face – knew exactly what was about to happen, and she was both excited and nervous about it. Not because she was concerned for slave Muneer’s welfare or felt sorry for him. She couldn’t care less that he was about to be whipped, for real, and for no good reason other than the director’s wish to avoid the need for costly special effects during the whipping scene!

No. Sameena was excited and nervous because she too was about to make her own Bollywood debut, as the rescued slave-girl who gets her revenge on her evil would-be captor, played during the whipping scene by the unaware slave Muneer who was currently serving as her footrest in the back of the limousine. In fact, she would be the one whipping him – and for the past 3 days she had been receiving secret lessons from miss Rupa and her slave-overseer, Ghulam, in exactly how to wield a whip across a man’s back!

They hadn’t wanted to practise on slave Muneer himself as, despite miss Rupa’s confidence in the abilities of the Bollywood make-up artists, he already had enough whip-marks that would need concealing before the whipping scene actually began. And so miss Sameena had been practising on another of miss Rupa’s male slaves (whose name was ‘Anwar’ or something), and she now felt rather confident in her ability to give a slave a nice, stripy red back.

That didn’t stop her being nervous, however. Whipping a man in the privacy of miss Rupa’s punishment room was one thing; whipping a man under the full glare of the Bollywood movie cameras, and in front of the huge and experienced Bollywood film cast and film crew, would be quite another prospect!

She was looking forward to it, nevertheless.

She had also been exercising her vocal chords over the past few days as she had one or two big numbers to sing in which she thanks the ‘Indian Warrior Princess’ – miss Rupa – for rescuing her from the evil slave trader. Her feet too, currently residing inside her gold-coloured sneakers, had been practising several Bollywood dance moves over the past few days, for she was required to participate in several of the big dance scenes, including the film’s climax where she dances around the whipped and wounded slave Muneer as he lies exhausted in the Indian dirt and she ends up placing her dusty, brown-sandalled, Indian foot on the small of his whipped back in a feminine victory pose. Again, for her ‘rehearsals’, they had used that other slave (‘Anwar’?).

Because of all her exertions in practising her dance routines Sameena’s poor feet were quite tired and sore. She was, therefore, wearing a pair of thick, soft, snowy-white towelling socks inside her gold-coloured sneakers as she made her way to the film studio in the stretched limo. The thick, white socks may have been making her feet a bit sweaty inside the sneakers, but they equally soothed and comforted her tired feet. Besides, they looked good against her shapely, brown, lower-calf muscles, and the rest of her outfit – a crisp, white, loose-fitting blouse and bright, red leggings that came down to just below her shapely, feminine kneecaps, combined with her obligatory, dark, designer sunglasses - made Sameena feel every bit the glamorous, Bollywood film starlet that she was about to become. She would change into her ‘slave-girl’ outfit of sandals and sari when they were on set.

For his part, the ignorant, soon-to-be Bollywood villain, slave Muneer, was admiring miss Sameena’s thick, white, towelling sock on her left leg close up as her left foot was resting on the floor of the limo directly in front of his face. He had never seen such pretty, feminine sports socks before, and he was, pathetically, admiring the thick stitching in the side of the white sock, wishing he could bury his slave nose in the creases and folds of the young, English guest’s sweat-sock. He really had no idea of the impending suffering that awaited him at the hands of the female wearer of these soft, white sports socks.

Ignorance is bliss, slave Muneer!

When they eventually arrived at the film studio on the outskirts of Mumbai, slave Muneer, who would normally be expected to humbly crawl into the film studio on his hands and knees behind his mistress Rupa’s bejewelled, sandalled feet under her expensive, designer sari, was instead instructed to crawl behind the sneakered and socked feet of miss Rupa’s honoured guest, miss Sameena.

Rupa wanted to demonstrate to the other cast members and film crew on set that Sameena was very much her protégé – entitled to have the footslave crawling behind her sneakered feet as that was miss Rupa’s wish. Everybody on the set fawned over miss Rupa and pandered to her every whim, for she was the undoubted star of the film and would determine whether or not the film was a success and they all got paid! So if she had decreed that her personal footslave Muneer should crawl behind the young Asian-Englishwoman’s feet, then the young Asian-Englishwoman must be afforded their respect too, even if she was the most junior ‘actress’ on set – untried and untested!

Slave Muneer was just glad to be able to follow miss Sameena’s snowy-white socks close up. He was fascinated by the way her thick, white towelling socks creased and folded at the back as she walked. Such a contrast to the rigidity of the gold-leather heels on the backs of her sneakers. And the bright Mumbai sunshine seemed to make both her golden sneakers and her white socks shine and glow. The glare from her white socks was almost blinding him!

Soon enough, however, they were inside the film studio itself, on the set of ‘Indian Warrior Princess’, and he was helping miss Sameena to change out of her smart, western-style sneakers and socks into a traditional, if rather tatty, outfit consisting of a somewhat plain-looking, ‘slave-girl’, yellow sari and cheap-looking, scruffy, brown leather, open-toed sandals. He watched fascinated as a female make-up artist even smeared traces of dirt onto miss Sameena’s otherwise clean, if slightly sweaty, bare, brown feet. He hadn’t realised until now that miss Sameena was taking part in the movie! Presumably she would be just one of the chorus girls. Miss Rupa must have arranged it for her. How kind his mistress Rupa was to their honoured guest from England!

Miss Rupa came over to see how miss Sameena was getting on with her costume, and peremptorily dismissed slave Muneer with a disparaging wave of her feminine hand, ordering him to ‘attend to the feet of the chorus girls.’

‘What about miss Sameena’s feet – isn’t she one of the chorus girls?’ thought slave Muneer somewhat sullenly to himself. But actually, he was quite pleased to have at last received the order he had been anticipating – that of paying his humble respects to the bare feet of the many, giggling chorus girls on the set.

He had done this several times before and, although he didn’t know any of the girls’ names, he recognised some of them by the distinctive shapes and smells of their pretty, bare feet. Sometimes their individual ankle jewellery also gave a clue as to their identity, but curiously he found the distinctive, individual aromas of the young women’s feet easier to recognise and remember than their pretty, feminine anklets or toe-rings. He was convinced he could identify some of the feet by smell even if he were blindfolded.

One young woman, for example, had the strongest-smelling feet he had ever encountered. He knew it wasn’t that she was careless about her foot hygiene; it was just that the poor girl had permanently sweaty feet! He therefore nicknamed her ‘superior mistress Stinkfoot’ in his own mind – since he didn’t know the superior, young woman’s real name – and he meant it as a complement; because, being a humble footslave, slave Muneer liked nothing more than a soft, sweaty, stinky, feminine foot to kiss, sniff and worship.

Similarly, there was ‘superior mistress Stumpy-toes’; ‘superior mistress Bunion’; ‘superior mistress Chapped Heels; ‘superior mistress Verruca’; and ‘superior mistress Rough and Chipped toenails’. He adored them all! (Of course, make-up always made sure such tiny foot-imperfections didn’t show up in the final shots!).

It was customary for the Bollywood chorus girls – there were about 20 of them in total on this particular film – to kick off their ubiquitous, brown leather sandals, and then line up in order to walk past the kneeling footslave Muneer in their bare feet – stopping only to raise the hems of their light, cotton saris and extend first their right, then their left, foot for him to humbly pay his respects to by placing a respectful, slavish kiss on the arch of each proffered, feminine foot.

He would have liked to have done more – to lick the Indian dust off each and every, pretty bare foot; to soften every little area of feminine, hard skin with his slave-saliva; to remove with his slave tongue every vestige of Indian-girl, sweaty toe-jam; to humbly soothe every small corn or bunion with his slave lips – but quick, respectful kisses were all that he was allowed to the Indian chorus-girls’ feet.

Each girl reacted differently to his humble foot-ministrations: some giggled, and appeared to find his slave-lips ticklish on their soft, bare feet. Some stood over him arrogantly, hands on their sari covered hips, more like divas than chorus girls, and clearly enjoying the feeling of absolute power that they derived from having a humble, ‘lower-caste’ male grovelling at their dusty feet. Still others seemed somewhat embarrassed by the whole process of having their feet kissed in front of their fellow-chorus girls.

However, whatever their attitude to having their feet kissed in public, not one of the young women ever suspected that miss Rupa’s personal footslave Muneer had once been a successful, wealthy, Indian businessman! They all regarded him, quite literally, as nothing more than dirt under their pretty, Indian-dancers’ feet.

Once every chorus girl had had her dusty feet kissed, slave Muneer had to assist them all to put their equally dusty, brown leather, open-toed sandals back onto their feet. Again, some of the young women seemed to relish having a kneeling, male slave putting their sandals on for them. Others, he sensed, would have preferred to put their sandals back on themselves, but were nevertheless complying with convention in order not to appear too ‘soft’ in front of their more diva-like colleagues, or indeed to appear ungrateful to miss Rupa for loaning them her footslave.

For his part, slave Muneer just admired the various chorus girls’ ankle jewellery as he strapped the plain, brown leather sandals back onto their feet. Some of the more exotic ankle chains even brushed against his slave-forehead as he adjusted the sandals, and the top of his head was continuously brushed by the soft, flimsy material of the hems of their saris.

Part of the reason why the chorus girls’ feet were so dusty, and why the female make-up artist had been carefully and deliberately ‘dirtying up’ miss Sameena’s bare feet, was that the scene they were filming today was taking place in the ‘Indian Warrior Princess’s’ camp, supposedly situated somewhere in the Himalayas, and so, for once, the chorus girls were required to look less than glamorous. They were female rebels! Amazon warriors! Outcasts! And it was only now that slave Muneer was about to find out that he had to be prepared by make-up for his own ‘stunt’ role in the movie – as a male prisoner brought back to the female warriors’ camp for a flogging!

The first he knew that something unusual was up was when the female make-up artist, dressed in a black blouse and black leggings with plain, soft, black ballet flats on her bare, brown Indian feet, came over to him as he knelt in the corner of the film set awaiting his next orders from his mistress Rupa, and started painting some flesh-coloured concealer on his bare back. She appeared to be attempting to conceal his old whip-marks! But why?

At last slave Muneer’s mistress Rupa came over with her friend, the director of the film, whom the slave knew only as ‘master Ravinder’, and enlightened him as to what was going on:

‘Ha! Ha! Just look at you, stupid, gormless slave! You look so frightened and confused! Ha! Ha! And well might you be frightened!...You see, my friend Ravi here needs a stunt double for the big whipping scene in the movie. He can’t be bothered to pay for expensive special effects – it will only cut back on our profits –and so he asked me if I wouldn’t mind having you whipped for real on film, since you’re a real-life slave anyway. Ha! Ha! …Of course, I immediately agreed, and the upshot is, my darling slave, that you are about to be whipped, on camera, by our esteemed guest miss Sameena! She will be whipping you with my blessing because you kidnapped her and attempted to sell her into slavery! Ha! Ha!’ laughed miss Rupa (temporarily seeming to confuse the fantasy of the film-plot with reality!)

‘Sameena, darling, come over here and show Muneer the whip you’ll be using on him!’

At this point Sameena came smilingly over to where slave Muneer, the director Ravi, and miss Rupa were gathered, carrying in her pretty hands a coiled up, nasty-looking, single-tailed, brown leather whip.

Miss Sameena was not alone. She was accompanied by the handsome actor who would be playing the role of the evil slave-trader – the actor for whom slave Muneer’s bare back was to act as a stunt-double.

As miss Sameena kindly and slowly dragged the leather tail of the punishment whip across the kneeling slave Muneer’s bare shoulder blades, in order to give him a sense of the whip that would soon be striking him, the actor who would be playing the evil slave-trader laughed:

‘Ha! Ha! I’m glad that whip won’t be landing anywhere near my bare back! It must sting like mad!’

‘Ha! Ha! Yes, Narinder, I believe it does, especially when wielded by our new cast-member here, the delightful miss Sameena…at least, that’s what my other slave Anuar tells me! Ha! Ha! You should just see the state of his back!’

The free, Indian men and women all laughed. Sameena, in particular, beamed with pride!

‘Ha! Ha! Well, if she can sing and dance as well as she can whip, I’m sure the scene will be excellent!’ opined the handsome actor, Narinder.

Sameena now blushed – completely flustered and flattered by the handsome Bollywood actor’s vote of confidence in her.

‘OK, folks, lets get the scene set up now please!’ declared the film director, master Ravinder, in an authoritative tone. ‘Durva…Zeenat…would you please string the slave up to the whipping post?’

Two of the chorus girls leapt eagerly forward and suddenly grabbed the still stunned slave Muneer, hoisting him up off his knees, and dragging him over towards a wooden post in the centre of the stage. He felt the softness of their delicate, feminine hands as they secured his own rough, slave hands into some shackles at the top of the whipping post, tested the chains to make sure his hands were securely fastened, and then stepped back from the whipping post leaving him well and truly alone – his bare back exposed and vulnerable to miss Sameena’s whip!

Slave Muneer could sense the chorus girls, miss Rupa (the ‘Warrior Princess’), and miss Sameena (the freed ‘slave-girl’) gathering behind him in a semi circle, clearly preparing for a big dance number.

Meanwhile he braced himself for the whip!

‘Okay…Quiet everyone please…and lights…camera…action!’ barked master Ravinder.

Some traditional Indian music blared out and slave Muneer could hear the shuffling feet of the chorus-girl dancers as they danced around and behind him. Although he couldn’t see them, he could also hear the unmistakably melodious voice of his mistress Rupa, and another unfamiliar female voice, presumably that of miss Sameena from England, singing to each other in Hindi.

Ominously the words of the song could be translated as follows:

Miss Rupa: ‘Akhbar, the evil one is now at your mercy, Hansika my dear! Here, take my whip – the whip of the Warrior Princess’

Miss Sameena: ‘Oh great and good Warrior Princess, my saviour; my light. I am indebted to you and your fellow-warriors for saving my soul! May the screams of pain of the evil one Akhbar mirror the cries of joy and laughter from my heart at my sweet liberation!’

And with that slave Muneer suddenly heard the director, master Ravinder, shout ‘Cut!’

However, to slave Muneer’s shock and surprise, the action, the singing and the dancing didn’t stop. Instead the scene went on, and above the happy, joyful, triumphant music Muneer heard the swish of a leather whip flying through the air and suddenly felt a wave of searing pain cut across his left shoulder blade!

He screamed – in tune with the music!

‘…and cut!’ shouted the director again.

Swish! Crack! Scream!

‘…and cut!’

Swish! Crack! Scream!

And so it went on – 15 times – with slave Muneer involuntarily joining in with the chorus girls as he added his high-pitched notes to the Bollywood song in line with the director’s ‘cuts’.

When they eventually cut him down he lay on his stomach on the dusty ground of the Indian Warrior Princess’s ‘camp’ and the chorus girls (the ‘warriors’) ; their leader (miss Rupa – the ‘Warrior Princess’); and, of course, the freed slave-girl (miss Sameena aka miss Hansika) all circled around him for the final victory scene.

Slave Muneer winced as he suddenly felt the dusty sole of miss Sameena’s brown, leather sandal digging into one of the freshly-raised stripes on the small of his back.

Once again miss Rupa was singing in Hindi to miss Sameena:

Miss Rupa: ‘Hansika, my darling, take your victory over this whipped wretch. Place your pretty, sandalled foot on his whipped back and salute your sisters and fellow-warriors! For you are now one of us – a daughter of the great and mighty Warrior Princess – and he is but the dirt under your feet!’

Miss Sameena: ‘Oh Warrior Princess, oh sisters in power, see how my erstwhile tormentor cowers under my feet! Victory is ours! The whip is ours! All hail to the Warrior Princess! All hail to superior, Indian womanhood!’

‘Dig your heel into his back, Sameena!’ shouted the director. ‘Make him moan and wail!’

Sameena dug her heels into the defeated slave-trader’s back and slave Muneer duly moaned and wailed!

‘…and cut!’

This time the scene really was over. The music stopped, the chorus girls applauded, and miss Sameena, overwhelmed with excitement, removed her foot from slave Muneer’s back and walked into the congratulatory arms of her friend and mentor, miss Rupa, the director, Ravinder, and the handsome actor, Narinder.

Out of the corner of his eye, as he lay face down in the dust, slave Muneer could just see the tip of miss Sameena’s coiled-up, brown leather whip dangling beside her plain yellow sari, and her right, dusty-sandalled foot raise up behind her in the air, as she appeared to kiss the ‘evil slave-trader,’ who had sought to imprison and enslave her, lovingly on the lips!

Meanwhile, the evil slave-trader’s vicariously whipped body-double just remained lying in the dirt, forgotten about and ignored now that the filming was over. He certainly would not be invited to the after-filming drinks party! His place was to remain lying in the dirt – the Bollywood dirt – for he was just the Bollywood footslave.

And if you think the plot of this little story has been somewhat fanciful, just wait until you see the plot of the next Bollywood blockbuster movie!

The End