A Game of Gods: The End is Only the Beginning (The Anunnaki Chronicles Book 1) Read Online Free Page A

ass underworld . This was the second time she was going to see the man who had produced all Manav Gandhi films, the last time she had met him at a party where Manav introduced the two. That was a good meeting, but not this one. The tables had turned and the moods had swung around, Pakhi prayed for the best while taking deeper breaths as she stood in front of the door that led to the room where Khalid Abdullah was supposed to be. She pressed the door bell and waited.

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    Miah opened the door for the reporter to come in. Pakhi had never missed Miah on television or cinema, her graceful moves, long nose, thin lips, fish like eyes and skin as smooth as silk had been an inspiration for the naive reporter since the first time she had seen Miah dancing to a folksong on top of a train in a south Indian movie way back when Pakhi six. A smile sprang on her face instantly, but the seasoned diva hardly bothered to smile back, for her the reporter was not a fan but a bug she would rather crush under her toe. Miah turned around and went inside leaving the door open for the pest to come inside.
    ‘Shut the door when you come in.’ the diva commanded as she walked past her husband who was sitting on the bed.
    Pakhi stepped inside the room, saw the other two big personalities seated on the bed and a chair respectively, one of whom she had met earlier. The same person she was here to interview. She greeted the two with a pleasant smile. The superstar Kapoor responded with his signature smirk which had robbed the hearts of an entire generation of girls, while Khalid Abdullah ignored the gesture like his wife. Miah went and sat in front of the mirror on the dressing table and feigned getting ready for the evening. Pakhi gently pushed the door behind her making sure that the sound of door hitting the latch did not get any close to a disturbing thud . Khalid showed her the couch, Pakhi sat on it.
    ‘Good evening Mr. Abdullah,’ she said trying to adjust to the hostile circumstance that was thrown at her by the hosts, ‘We have met earlier at the party org...’
    ‘...come to the point girl, I do not have the whole evening.’ Khalid interrupted nonchalantly ‘the questions please!’
    ‘Of course, I have prepared few questions for you. Twenty to be precise.’
    ‘You have fifteen minutes!’ Khalid looked at his wife and made his excuse, ‘we have to get to an inauguration at Bandra.’
    Pakhi quickly took out her notepad and ran through the questions she had prepared while she was in the car with Narendra. She knew the important ones that dealt with his relation with Manav Gandhi. She cleared her throat to ask her first question.
    ‘How long have you associated with Manav Gandhi?’ she asked as she punched in the record button on her voice recording device.
    ‘About twelve years now. I met him during the launch of his second novel at a mall in New Delhi.’ Khalid replied in an adroit manner.
    ‘You partly funded his first film and then went on to produce his later films,’ she closed in on the producer and looked sharply into his eyes and interrogated, ‘ why? ’
    ‘I saw the storyteller in him, he was no ordinary author. His stories had a divine touch that had the power to move the masses as well as the class audience. I read his novels, liked them very much. My manager rang up the publisher and scheduled a meeting with the author, we met again after the book signing and this time I offered to buy the film rights of his first novel...’ Khalid paused losing himself in the sands of time.
    ‘...and?’ Pakhi asked.
    ‘And it turned out that he himself was a struggling filmmaker. He was willing to give away the rights to me on the condition that I would help him finish his earlier feature film that was shelved in between due to lack of funds. The film was in Marathi. I agreed and he finished the film in three weeks and later when the film released it generated a below average opening owing to lack of any known faces