Attendant #4 returned to his friends on the concrete stoops before the pumps.
“Really, it is one thing to add a one-rupee coin, but one whole dollar?” said Attendant #3, the only attendant without the ashy blue uniform. “For birthdays, on anniversaries, and I have four sisters I am having to give money to on Rakhi. It adds up, man. The exchange rate is not favorable for carrying over such a tradition.”
They contemplated a silky black Mercedes as it glided into the station and up to a pump. Attendant #1 pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead. Attendant #2 folded a temple flyer into a fan and waved it at his face. Then, in a move that Attendants #1–3 and Abdul Rashid would regret for years, they coaxed the ever-coaxable Attendant #4 into attending to the waiting Mercedes.
Attendant #4 still had the question of one dollar in his head when he walked over to the tinted-windowed car stopped at the farthest pump from where he’d been sitting. The driver, a jovial Indian who had dyed his hair to what some might argue was too jet a shade of black, made an enthusiastic attempt to explain the meaning of the extra dollar, but found himself stumbling on his answer. “Why don’t we ask my good friend Bachchan here?”
For decades to come, Attendant #4, Prem Kumar, the hero of our story, would replay this scene again and again in his mind until the image became scratchy over time, just like the videotapes of his favorite movies, Sholay, Don and Amar, Akbar, Anthony, all of which starred the “The Big B”—Hindi cinema’s first action hero, its “Angry Young Man,” the brooding actor who performed his own stunts and sometimes even sang his own songs, the “one-man industry,” the lanky king of what the world would one day refer to as “Bollywood,” whose bouncy, graceful dance moves and romantic big-screen interludes with all the leading ladies caused millions to swoon, the erstwhile member of Parliament, who had by then achieved demigod status not just amongst Indians but also Kenyans, Fijians, the Thai, citizens of the Soviet Union, and residents of any nation that imported Hindi films, presumably pirated, which is to say in every corner of the globe. Amitabh Bachchan, the too dark, too gangly, entirely unlikely megastar whose poster had hung in Prem’s childhood room, stepped out of the car.
“The question you ask,” he said, in that baritone voice laden with gravitas that Prem knew so well, “is a good one.” He folded his arms on the hood of the car. He turned his head and took in the crowd of riveted gas-station attendants at a distance. When he returned his gaze to Prem, whose thin, tall frame mirrored his own, the driver had also emerged from the car and was mopping his forehead with his sleeve. Amitabh Bachchan said, “I have wondered about this myself. The answer is this—”
For Prem it was a moment outside of reality, like a dream sequence from a Hindi movie. He tried, awestruck and trembling, to absorb the words of his idol on the other side of the car. Later, Prem would be grateful that Amitabh Bachchan was not interested that day in engaging in complicated conversation, but instead delivered a sort of monologue—not unlike his powerful monologues in Sharaabi—to which Prem was more witness than participant.
“One extra rupee, one extra dollar,” Amitabh Bachchan began. “There are many who believe this is given for the purpose of avoiding something bad. They are mistaken; the extra one is for bringing something good. It is for luck. It means, ‘May you add to this money I have given you. Here is one rupee for you to begin building on.’ When we give an extra one on the occasion of a wedding, we are giving the couple a lift toward their journey to prosperity; when we give a young man an extra one on his birthday, we are wishing the same. It means keep going. It is one to grow upon.”
The gas nozzle clip clicked, as if signaling the end of the speech. Amitabh Bachchan removed his arms from the hood of the car and turned and leaned against it, looking out at Oak Tree Road as though there were something there to see. Prem removed the nozzle, replaced the fuel cap, and brought the credit card slip to the driver. And when his work was properly completed, drenched in sweat and the scent of gasoline, he hurried around to Amitabh Bachchan’s side of the car and uttered what was in his heart. “Sir, thank you, sir. I am hoping you will be winning a Filmfare award for Shahenshah.”
The attendants, who had remained silent as if to keep from breaking a spell, erupted into pandemonium as the Mercedes pulled out of the station. In the din of his friends’ cheers and the glare of the day’s severe heat, Prem felt as though he were Vijay Verma from Deewaar—the role that established Amitabh as the preeminent tragic actor of his day—emerging from the warehouse after single-handedly defeating the bad guys, sunlight reflecting off his badge, a hero in the truest Indian sense. Attendant #2 and Abdul Rashid were approaching a state of agitation in their desire to learn what Amitabh Bachchan had spoken of, and when Prem related the facts of the encounter, that the most famous actor in the world, the man who would be declared the most popular movie star of the millennium by a 1999 BBC poll, spoke to him about the significance of adding “one,” the attendants were stupefied.
“This is what you asked? Not ‘Did you almost die during filming of Coolie?’ or ‘Who is prettier, Zeenat Aman or Parveen Babi?’ You should have asked, ‘Was it difficult to dance on a motorcycle in Muqaddar ka Sikandar?’” Attendant #1 said, then spat on the ground to remove the bitter taste of missed opportunity from his mouth.
Attendant #3 expressed a far more benign sentiment, saying simply, “It was God’s intention that I come to the station on my off day so that I might behold Amitabh Bachchan.” After the discussions about what was said and how it was said and what Amitabh Bachchan was wearing and how tall he looked were exhausted, Attendant #1 raised the possibility that it wasn’t Amitabh Bachchan at all. After all, it was argued, what would he be doing in Edison, New Jersey? For this was before Edison had become what it is amongst us, before one Indian grocery store became ten, then twenty, and eventually all of Oak Tree Road was lined with Indian jewelry stores, grocery stores, video stores, and restaurants; before thousands of Indian people from surrounding areas flocked here to shop and eat on weekends, before Indian American brides from up and down the state and across the country began coming here to shop for their weddings, before a full-fledged India Day parade launched itself down Oak Tree Road every August, to the delight of some and the disgust of others. One day, Indian movie stars would be an unexceptional sight in the USA because they would appear at parades as guests of honor, and they would lip-synch and perform elaborately choreographed dances in colossal stage shows that packed Giants Stadium, and they would shoot Kal Ho Naa Ho and Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna and many others on location in New York, and Aamir Khan would attend the Academy Awards in support of Lagaan, and Anil Kapoor would join the cast of 24, and Priyanka Chopra would star in Quantico, and power couple Abhishek Bachchan—the “Little B,” as it were—and Aishwarya Rai would be guests on Oprah, and Madhuri Dixit would marry a doctor and move to Denver, and Continental Airlines would unveil a nonstop flight from Indira Gandhi International Airport to Newark Liberty, and the lines would blur between there and here. But these things had not yet come to pass.
As the years went on, the attendants would increasingly doubt whether they had really seen Amitabh Bachchan at the Exxon gas station. But Prem always knew it was real. And furthermore, he remembered every word just as Amitabh Bachchan had spoken it. The reason for this was that Prem was a man preoccupied by love. After Amitabh Bachchan talked to him about luck, Prem thought not about the miraculous fact of Amitabh Bachchan talking to him about anything, but rather of his sapno ki rani, his beloved, the queen of his dreams, and the way in which the wise words of the film icon related to her. He thought of all the extra dollars and rupees he’d been given in his twenty-five years and was struck by the enormity of the good wishes for prosperity that had been conferred upon him. Before leaving, Amitabh Bachchan pulled his wallet from the pocket of his impossibly long, white slacks. “For you to add upon,” he said and presented Prem with a stiff dollar bill on which he scribbled his signature before handing it over. In that instant, with an Amitabh Bachchan dollar in his hand, Prem was overcome with the suddenly renewed possibility of building himself into someone in this country, a man worthy of Leena Engineer, a man of action, an entrepreneur, a success story, a viable suitor, an extraordinary immigrant in a town of immigrants, a visionary, a husband, a real American hero.
1
Much earlier on in the story of his life, when Prem Kumar was a boy in Delhi enjoying a childhood ruled by self-doubt and the pressure to succeed, he began a lifelong, rapturous relationship with Hindi cinema. In the way of most children stricken at birth with shyness, Prem accumulated and hid behind a vast knowledge. His obsession kicked off with Zanjeer (1973) and went backward from there: Chhalia, Jewel Thief, Pyaasa, Awaara, all the way to Kismet. By the time he reached adolescence, he had made himself an expert and at the same time, a social outcast. True, he had a few similarly awkward friends, but no one he particularly liked, and he was too crippled by diffidence to make any new ones. He plodded through secondary school and university, finding escape in dream sequences and dance numbers and trying not to attract attention. But as is often the case with those who find difficulty in maneuvering the world, he longed secretly to break free of his nonspeaking role, to bask for a moment in the hero’s spotlight.
The heroes with whom Prem grew up—Rajesh Khanna, Dharmendra, a bevy of Kapoors beginning with Raj—were debonair, confident, and popular with women. Prem was none of these things. He excelled as a student, but only because schoolwork came easy to him, not because of any special value he assigned to hard work, his lack of interest in his own progress staggering. He was quick-witted, but few people knew this, and from a young age he drank too much tea. At six-foot-one, he was taller than most people around him, and the flicker of confidence he possessed sparked from this fact. He feigned indifference but was flattered when people pointed out his resemblance to the milky-complexioned, absurdly handsome Shashi Kapoor, Hindi movie heartthrob of the 1960s to the early 1980s, and to bolster this comparison, he boldly adhered to prominent sideburns, even though the time for prominent sideburns had long passed. He longed to use his height and supposed good looks in service to his enduring hunger for romance but put forth no effort to speak with any girls, though more than one girl had put into circulation rumors of her interest. The youngest in a large family of great wealth, he bristled at the presumption that he would someday join the family business. Offices, presentations, meetings, people—these were not for him, he professed, citing an inclination toward a more creative and nebulous path. Even in the privacy of his own mind, he did not admit to an overpowering fear of his own future.
Essentially, even upon completing college with excellent marks, Prem was aimless. No one in May 1986 could have foreseen his future passage to America nor the meteoric rise of Superstar Entertainment, certainly not his father who entered the third-floor drawing room two years after Prem’s college convocation, interrupting his movie to arrange his marriage. It was not often that Ashok Ratan Kumar, head of Kumar Group, a telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, and alcoholic-beverages conglomerate, was home on a Tuesday afternoon. There had to be an unsavory reason. So when Prem heard his father’s footsteps approaching from the end of the hall, he pressed pause on the VCR and leaped behind the drapes.
This was not his first time behind the curtains. He had spent time there when he was supposed to be participating in team sports, and again on the occasion of his Class Eight speaking competition, and when he had wanted to skip a Kumar Group banquet for visiting heads of state. This time, it was for the purpose of avoiding a conversation, long overdue, about his future prospects. As Prem stood enveloped by his own hot breath, his father seemed to be surveying the room. A dishoom! then two dishkiyaoons! burst forth from the television, and it sounded like his father was settling into an armchair to watch Muqaddar ka Sikandar, which had resumed itself mid-fight. The door squeaked open and a tray clinked on the table. The servant exited. Two scenes later, there was a long, loud slurp of tea, and his father said, “Why this engagement party is so depressing?”
Prem smacked his teeth. “Because Vijay misses his mother who died, and though he has made a lot of money and has everything, he just wishes he still had her.” He realized too late that his father had tricked him into revealing himself, but what else could he have done in the face of an affront to Muqaddar Ka Sikandar?
“Son, there is no need for hiding,” Ashok said. Prem’s father was not an unkind man, and Prem was not afraid of him, per se. He comported himself in a regal manner and had a flaccid, grandfatherly face with sympathetic eyes. He wore strictly business suits and was typically accompanied by two assistants and a secretary, yet was not as distant from his children as perhaps he could have been. When the demands of the Kumar empire compelled him to miss his children’s milestone events—Prem’s Class Three harmonium recital or his Class Seven Math Olympiad—he could be counted on to compensate with watches, electronics, the latest moped, or cash. Still, Prem did not wish to face his father’s inevitable questions.
“I am not hiding.”
“Then?”
“I am looking for something,” Prem said with unwarranted indignation.
Ashok tried again with a more authoritative tone. “I have come to discuss your life plans.”
“I don’t really have time for that. I have to find this thing.”
His father sighed. He had structured Kumar Group in such a way that Prem could not receive a salary unless he was an active and effective contributor to its success. Since his son contributed nothing, at most he would get an inheritance, but that might not be for decades, as Ashok was a sturdy man who walked regularly on a treadmill and stayed away from butter chicken. “We must think about your future,” he said.
“That sounds fantastic, Papa, first-class.” Prem knelt down and slapped around at the floor, making a great display of looking for something. “But now is not a good timing.”
“You see,” his father continued in his booming industrialist tone, “there is a time in a young man’s life when he has to take the most important decision of all.” He was pacing the room now, and Prem got the feeling he wasn’t leaving. “When a young man must seize the opportunity before him and move boldly ahead.”
“Can you pause the movie?”
“When he must take action and do what is right for himself and for his family.”
“Is there tea for me?”
The curtain flung open. His father stood before him with a grim expression. He was wearing his typical uniform—black suit, no tie—but the top two buttons of his shirt were open instead of the usual one, which signaled to Prem that a miracle may have occurred. His father’s frown underwent a slow and terrifying transformation into an enormous grin. “A marriage proposal has come for you,” he said. “From the Aswani family!” He threw up his arms and wrapped them around Prem, thumping him on the back the way he’d once done to Prem’s brother Akash after he won the Intercollege Table Tennis Tournament, Delhi branch.
“Wait, what?” Prem wriggled out of his father’s embrace.
“Congratulations, Son! Many blessings!” The evergreen song “Salaam-e-Ishq” began just then, and father and son turned their heads to look at the TV, then swiveled back to each other. Prem slinked past his father and plopped down on the couch. His father’s estimation of him stood in stark relief before his eyes: a dependent who would never be independent, a problem that needed fixing, a delicate flower bud that would probably never bloom, but would instead sit at home its whole life and watch movies. He would have preferred a job offer; at least there was some dignity in that. Yet—and this was what stung most—he knew it was his own fault. He stared at drunken Amitabh singing to a sex worker and descended into profound self-loathing.
In the course of the previous two years, Prem’s father had periodically thus entered the drawing room as his son was mid-movie, dismissed his assistants and secretary, sat down, and exhaled loudly through his nose. He would proceed to question his inactivity and general lack of aspiration. It was always, “Look at Anshul, he was promoted,” or “Look at Vanisha, she was in India Today.” Later it became, “Look at Anmol and Anshul, transforming us from a supplier of pharmaceutical ingredients into a manufacturer of pharmaceutical products of our own with the launch of our ulcer and reflux esophagitis medication, Kumarizine,” or “Look at Vanisha and Akash, selling so much of beer.” His father never stated outright that Prem did not show the same promise as his well-spoken and aggressive siblings, but he felt it all the same. While watching Parvarish, he learned he was a huge disappointment. During the pivotal roti-feeding scene of Yaarana, he caught on that his entire family doubted he would ever do anything with his life. And during the interval of Mashaal, he understood at last that his father was embarrassed by him.
“Are you talking about Malveena Aswani?” Prem said.
“You know the girl?” Ashok said. “Wonderful!” In the realm of wealthy and offensive Indian industrial families, the Aswanis were the wealthiest and most offensive. The heiress in question was a mainstay of the over-the-top, too-much-money Delhi social scene and she was frequently found in Page 3, the gossip-and-glitterati section of the venerated Times of India, Delhi edition. At a jungle-themed extravaganza, the only poolside college soirée he had attended, Prem had come across her wearing a revealing zebra-print number and carrying a spear with which she poked alleged gatecrashers. He recalled her going on about her hairdresser’s egg yolk hair treatment (“You must try it, Pramesh”).
“She is horrible.”
“She is well-educated and sophisticated.”
“She smells like eggs.”
