“Petrol knows every song!”
“Every song?”
“All of them!”
People sat down in place, and Prem sat down too as the debate about where to divide the room continued. He should have been basking in the limelight of being in demand, but instead he averted his eyes and tried to hide behind Tony. He had never before been bothered by the nicknames but now was acutely aware of how derogatory they must sound to Leena. Sweat began to issue from multiple quarters and dribble down Prem’s chest, which lacked the hairs to stop them. Maybe she wouldn’t have to know he was the Petrol in question.
“Petrol, what is your opinion?” Tony said, slapping him roughly on the shoulder.
Prem dropped his head and shook it with incredulity at the nature of his luck. He pushed his tongue against the inside of his cheek and considered his options. At last he lifted his head and said, “This side, I think.”
There was uproar from both sides and the game began. He had placed himself on the team opposite Leena, and they started with “Mere Saamne Wali Khidki Mein” from the movie Padosan. Her teammates clapped along with the song, swaying and falling over each other, becoming rowdy, but Leena remained vertical, enjoying herself within reasonable bounds. He could easily isolate her voice in the crowd as it turned out she was quite a loud person. She had the straightest, whitest teeth he’d ever seen, and they put him in such a trance he hardly noticed when the other team ended on H and his own team commenced with “Hai Apna Dil To Awara.” There was whispering on the other side in anticipation of the last letter of the current song, followed by nodding as they settled on their next move, which turned out to be the romantic crowd-pleaser “Gaata Rahe Mera Dil.” That sent both teams down a 1960s Dev Anand spiral that led to a Raj Kapoor spiral, followed by a songs-about-the-rain run, ending exultantly on S.
It was Prem’s team’s turn, and they were stuck. “Sab Kuch Seekha Humne” had been used, and so had “Sau Saal Pehle.” Jarred from his reverie by the sudden silence, Prem noticed all eyes were on him.
“S, Petrol, S,” Deepak said.
“Sawan ka Mahina?” Prem said.
“Sawan ka Mahina!” everyone on his side said.
He hoped Leena had noted his swift and celebrated contribution to his team’s survival and that she had consequently attributed to him a short list of impressive qualities, including but not limited to depth of knowledge, quick-wittedness, affability, coolness under pressure, and the ability to think with the lights off. But probably she didn’t register any of this, he thought, as his teammates sang on. Even if she did, it hardly meant that she was now ready to run off into the lukewarm American sunset with him. Prem’s team ended on R, and Leena’s team countered with “Rasik Balma,” an unbearably depressing ballad from Chori Chori that reminded Prem of the many appalling ways in which love can go wrong.
A waft of cool air through the front window caused all the candles to flicker. As the song was winding down, Prem noticed that Leena had stopped singing. She seemed to be trying to get her father’s attention, possibly to assess whether he wanted to stay longer or go, and Prem was dejected by the thought of her leaving. He wanted her to stay and to notice him and to choose him from among the horde. He knew his chances to win her above all the more eligible, more suitably employed suitors were bleak, but when he watched her wiggling her head and eyebrows at her father as if to convey, If you are tired, I am ready to go, but if you want to stay longer, I can do that too, a feeling of longing welled up in him. His hands began to shake, and he took a deep breath. He had to make an impression before she left. It seemed the time for drastic action might be now. “Rasik Balma” would be ending on M, and he would think of a passionate song that would convey his emotions while showcasing his slightly above-average singing ability. As soon as the other team finished, he stood up.
There are moments in every life that bear the sheen of glory, that are recognized as unmistakably shining, vital points on a timeline. Prem didn’t just sing “Mehbooba Mehbooba” that night in the dark, the room aglow in the warm light of flashlights and candles, mirroring the song’s nighttime campfire setting in Sholay; he performed it. For her. He gesticulated dramatically in her direction, opening his arms wide, swaying and gyrating when appropriate. His nervousness fell away and he became the nimble and flexible rabab-playing Jalal Agha, bouncing around on his knees while warbling a soulful jingle, and at times he even became the sultry mononymous screen siren Helen and shimmied his hips. He sang well past the requisite two lines, and when Leena’s eyes met his, it was the second time he fell in love with her that week.
Unfortunately for Prem, this was not one of those glorious, shiny moments. When he was breathless and done, the room was quiet. Prem looked around and found people staring. Beena Joshi’s jaw was hanging open, and the elderly were shifting in their lawn chairs.
Finally, Gopal whispered to Prem: “The letter was Y, man. Maybe you should sit down now.”
The power came back abruptly, and King’s Court was plunged back into light. The children blew out the candles, Mistry Uncle resumed his solo concert, and Tony turned the cassette music up. Prem could not decide if this had been the most humiliating incident of his life; there were so many to choose from. Leena was standing now, exchanging goodbyes. Prem got up and headed outside to have his paan and hide near the bushes.
Outside was not as secluded as he had hoped. The party had leaked out past the hallway and onto the steps and into the yard, where on one side, an impassioned discussion of India’s dismal Cricket World Cup chances was taking place, and on the other, a group of ten or so aunties—Prem’s biggest fans—was lounging as though they were in Shalimar Gardens and not a scruffy bit of King’s Court grass. As he unwrapped the foil, which was sticky and wet on the inside, Prem counted six of his country’s twenty-two official languages being spoken, as well as two unofficial ones. Soon he was being summoned in three of these tongues by his dear older friends who would certainly not sit back and allow Prem to sulk in the bushes. He popped the paan in his mouth and walked over.
“Tell us, where is your chest hair?” Nalini Sen was a good-natured mother of unruly twin boys who came to Edison by way of Kenya and landed a conveniently located and therefore coveted job as a fabric-cutting associate at the Rag Shop. She regularly said the wrong thing at the wrong time without meaning any harm.
“Don’t make him feel worse!” Shanta Bhatt said. “He already must be feeling like a fool. Right, Prem? Come, sit. Such good singing.”
Prem scratched his forehead. “Was it really so embarrassing?”
“Yes,” Nalini said.
Shanta gave Nalini a sidewise rebuke then turned to Prem. “You sang nicely. Wrong letter, but so what?”
“Ya!” Amarleen said. “Such dancing, such style. Absolute hero, hundred percent.” With a flick of the back of her hand to the air, she considered the issue settled.
“Uh, okay, thanks,” Prem said, trying to lean away from Amarleen’s attempt to lean toward him.
“Now,” the widow Urmila Sahu said, “let’s have another song.” The nearby rumble of a freight train caused someone to suggest they sing songs on the theme of trains, and after a brief discussion of the parameters—only songs in which the singer is on the train for the entire duration of the song; no train-station platform songs or songs in which the singer rides alongside the train in a jeep—Lucky, who had joined the camp along with the other roommates, began with “Apni Toh Har Aah Ek Toofaan Hai” from Kala Bazaar.
Prem wished he could sing to Leena on a train, but the chances were slim now. How could he come back from such a deficit? He felt inside him the familiar sinking and the usual threat of tears, though the tears never came. Beena Joshi came to sit with them and was hawking paan and soliciting gossip, which was a comfort. A few feet away, the talk was of Kapil Dev and India’s pitiful test-series loss in March at the hands of Pakistan at M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore and then, just that month, another wretched defeat to Pakistan at Sharjah Stadium in the UAE. Prem noticed Hemant still there on the lawn, mired in the cricket conversation. Leena could not be far, he thought, and when he turned, he saw her on the sidewalk chatting with a friend.
“Prem, what next?” Urmila said.
“Nothing, why would I do anything? There is no need for me to do something,” Prem said.
“She meant what song should we sing next,” Gopal said.
“Oh.”
“Not what pathetic move will you inflict on that poor girl next,” Mohan said.
“Got it. I think I’ll go home to sleep now.”
“Nothing doing,” Shanta said. “We have at least seven more songs to sing.”
Gitanjali Vora from 5B, diminutive and frail with a kind heart, joined them on the lawn, saying she was feeling suffocated inside the apartment, what with all the people and perfume and Styrofoam. Everyone welcomed her in the sensitive and supportive tone reserved for those who had recently been through something. The thing she had been through, about which all of King’s Court was aware, was the illness and recent death of her father in India. She had longed to be by his side in his final days, but the ticket had been beyond her reach. Besides, she could only take two days off from her job at the A&S department store at Woodbridge Center Mall. She had called every night and spoken with her mother and the doctors in that loud and resonant voice universally reserved for talking on the phone to India, which meant that all the neighbors heard the call and the sobbing afterward. A group of them organized a collection to try to raise the money for the ticket, and though most people gave what they could, it wasn’t enough. Gitanjali had walked around to each apartment to thank everyone and return the contributions. The next week, her father was no more.
Prem had been inordinately saddened by this sequence of events. He had spent hours holding Gitanjali’s hand—which her husband found strange yet nonthreatening—and folding her laundry, even ironing her saris, and he had contributed the largest amount to the collection, causing a considerable dent in his savings. When she joined them that night in the yard, Prem did the only thing he could think to do to lighten the mood and cheer her up: he sang a song from the 1968 Jeetendra-Mala Sinha film Mere Huzoor, which takes place on a train.
By the refrain, he was on his feet and making grand flourishes with his arms. He circled the group with a silky glide and sang so beautifully in the light of the moon and the Quicker Liquor sign that even Mohan, Gopal, Lucky, and Deepak had to admit he was kind of dashing. And during the entire performance he looked only at one woman, Gitanjali Vora, serenading her right in front of the other women who didn’t mind since they knew she was in need of a good serenade.
What happened next Prem would play over in his head again and again for the next sixteen years: From her place on the sidewalk, Leena Engineer called over in his direction. “Hey!” Everyone in the singing camp looked up. “Nice singing.”
Prem opened his mouth but no words came out, just a guttural “Uhhhh” sound that impressed nobody. “Say something,” Beena urged, but before he could, Leena turned away. He thought perhaps he’d seen a smile and, he wasn’t sure, maybe even a slight wink, but that was hoping for too much.
“She wasn’t talking to Pumpwalla, she was talking to me,” Lucky said as Leena tried to extract her father from his cricket discussion.
