“From MPK and more recently HAHK.”
“And then this Aamir was in 1942: A Love Story?”
“No, 1947 Earth.”
“And they are at JFK?”
“No, sir, Newark.”
“Okay, then I can make a few calls,” Hemant decided. “Also, I will alert the newspapers and TV stations.” He was inclined to help not because of the detainees’ celebrity status, but because of the gravity of the backlash toward South Asian Americans. Though more than a month had passed, things only seemed to be getting worse for his community. And he was the person in Edison and the surrounding areas to whom everyone turned for leadership—even Prem Kumar. The ugly episode with Prem’s pompous yet distinguished father was still very much on his mind. He hadn’t told Leena anything about it, mostly because he himself did not know what to think of the whole thing. On the one hand, Prem had been duplicitous with him and his daughter, disloyal to his own family, and had worked in a gas station for a really long time. On the other hand, he had apparently stayed true to Leena all these years, built what seemed to be a legitimate business, and, most bewilderingly, was from a well-to-do family. How wonderful it would be for Leena to marry into such comfortable circumstances. She would no longer have to clip the toenails of rude women or do whatever it was she did with their body hair. He did not know if she still thought about Prem at all or if she was really interested in marrying Mikesh. He really ought to talk to her sometime, he thought. In the end, all he wanted was for her to achieve the dream for which they had come all the way to this country. Like all loving parents, he wanted her to have more than he had had. But she was expanding her business into an eyebrow empire, and it was clear she did not need a rich husband to support her. He knew that she would be the one to choose. Funny how that happened, he thought.
But why shouldn’t it have? Leena was from Edison, and the story of Edison was the story of progress. Of risk takers, path breakers, Thomas Edison, and possibility. Of Laxmikant Chakravarti, who opened Chuck’s Sports Collectibles though he’d never seen a baseball before coming to the United States; of Vaishali Variyar, who converted the First Fidelity Bank into a sari shop. Of Mahatma Gandhi Plaza and Krishna Auto Repair at the Gulf station. Of the Indo-American Senior Center, taking more than a thousand nanas and nanis, ajis and ajobas from Edison on fun beach and temple outings. Of Metropark station, whose platform and stairwell billboards advertised Dish Network’s Hindi Megapack and Lufthansa flights to Delhi, making Indian Americans feel right at home.
Some, however, did not view all this progress as addition, but rather as subtraction. They felt their town had become “a maze of charmless Indian strip malls” and didn’t appreciate the presence of Indian immigrants because of the “amount of cologne they wear.” They made light of the 1980s Dotbusters hate crimes and said they could have come up with better racist insults “for a group of people whose gods have multiple arms and an elephant nose.” For a while, they had assumed all Indians were geniuses, but when “the doctors and engineers brought over their merchant cousins,” they were no longer sure about that. They started “to understand why India was so damn poor.” At least, this was how one particular former resident described it some years later in Time magazine.
Prem turned to leave, knowing a handshake was out of the realm of possibility.
“Pumpwalla, wait,” Hemant called. “What were the names again?”
By that evening, the actors were released. Because of the publicity that Hemant generated during the course of the day, a massive crowd of fans gathered at baggage claim to catch a glimpse of the Khans. The stars emerged, weary and disheveled yet handsome and chiseled as ever, their five-o’clock shadows causing grown aunties to swoon. The three men smiled and waved, then put on dark shades though indoors to deflect the flashes of the cameras. No one could believe they pulled their own luggage. Flowers were offered and autographs were signed, and the next day the US ambassador to India apologized for the detentions, promising that authorities were working to ensure it would never happen again.
Lights, Camera, Indian!, mounted at the historic, newly renovated Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, was a tremendous success, surpassing all previous shows in grandiosity. Five-hundred-dollar tickets sold on the secondary market for one thousand, and the headliners attracted enough people to fill the 14,000 seats: Preity Zinta, Karishma Kapoor, and, for the first time on one stage, the three unrelated Khans, Shah Rukh, Salman, and Aamir, who was fresh off two hits—Lagaan and Dil Chahta Hai—and an age-defying makeover. It was widely hailed as the over-the-toppest show yet, with Shah Rukh and Malaika dancing astride a train cutting across the hall à la Dil Se while Preity and Aamir lip-synched and danced dangerously close to a pyrotechnical display. In a brief moment of solemnity, the special contingent from the Red Cross Gujarat Earthquake Relief Fund made a plea for donations. The only glitch of the evening occurred late in the show when Karishma Kapoor’s feet began hurting and she flung her high heels at the fog-machine operator.
All of it would have taken Prem’s breath away had he been in the mood to have his breath taken. The truth was that the stars, the shows, and the glamour of it all had lost their luster; it had become just a business for him. He watched from the wings as Salman took off his shirt while being doused with water, aware that he felt nothing. The crowd roared at the final number, eventually simmering down and beginning the slow stream out, heading to the Trump Taj Mahal to gamble in a gaudy, utterly un-Taj Mahal-ish environment. They would enjoy the slots and tables, have one or two scotch-and-sodas, stop by the gift shop to browse the large selection of eponymous merchandise—Trump natural spring water, Trump Success signature fragrance—then head home to somewhere in New Jersey with their loved ones.
33
The Sassy Salwar, Lucky’s small but upscale boutique on Oak Tree, had quietly thrived all these years. Like Prem, Lucky chose to continue living on a mattress in a crowded apartment to save money, but also because—and he would never admit to this—he liked the company. He enjoyed the camaraderie of it, the we-are-in-this-together aspect of his unconventional living arrangement. When Mohan and Yogesh began to consider leaving their mattresses behind and moved to situations with actual beds, Lucky was deeply affected. He tried recruiting replacements—an upbeat Urban Thali waiter who might liven things up, a couple of gas-station guys out of a sense of nostalgia, a Jalal’s Halal Groceries stock boy with an effervescent mango air—but they all turned him down.
Amarleen tried to comfort him. “They probably just thought you were a dirty type of desperate guy. Why would these young fellows want to sleep on the floor with a forty-year-old man?” This made sense, so Lucky looked for fulfillment beyond the apartment, frequenting bars and other people’s homes, crashing graduation parties, and finagling invitations to his clients’ wedding receptions. When he got tired of the usual amusements, he began manufacturing his own vehicles for entertainment, spending obscene amounts of money on hosting bowling tournaments, and chartering party buses to Atlantic City. He became known in King’s Court and surrounding complexes as Lucky the Good-Time Guy or That Bengali Guy Who Pays for Everything. Everyone assumed he wasn’t looking to settle down because, after all, why ruin the fun? But the truth was he chased these festive diversions to fill the wife-shaped hole in his life.
He had spent many years cultivating a reputation as a ladies’ man, bragging to his roommates about the throngs of women constantly accosting him. Over the years, there had been the occasional woman who looked in his direction; a few even met him for chai and samosas at Delhi Garden, but no one lasted for any significant amount of time. Lucky attributed this to his razzling-dazzling wardrobe and overwhelming virility as showcased by his lush chest hair. They found it intimidating, he deduced. He was correct in his estimation that The Sassy Salwar would open up a whole new avenue for meeting women, but they tended to be married or on the verge. So he continued to enjoy his bachelor life until one day, the woman of his dreams walked through the Sassy doors.
“Sushila. Sushila Mukherjee, Century 21,” she said and aggressively offered her card.
For years to come, Lucky would repeat the story of how, when he saw Sushila enter his store that day, the background Bollywood music surged and engulfed the entire room and Sushila’s brown pantsuit metamorphosed into a sky-blue chiffon sari, the pallu billowing in the inexplicable wind.
“Oh, come on,” Sushila would say whenever Lucky recounted their origin story to people. “Don’t be so dramatic, my love.”
“And then,” Lucky would continue, “my customers suddenly became sideys, dancing on both sides of her, not with so much grace, but still knowing all the steps.”
“Really, darling, they don’t want to hear this.”
“They do.”
He loved repeating this story, which invariably ended with “she had me at ‘Century 21,’” which Sushila took as her cue to distribute more cards. It wasn’t long before they were inseparable, admired as the “it” couple around town, a regular real estate–women’s wear super team. If pressed to name one minor, miniscule flaw in the otherwise delightful couple’s aura of glory, friends would without hesitation point to Lucky’s and Sushila’s excessive public displays of affection. At social events, they found ways to continuously touch each other, even when engaged in separate conversations. During the grand opening of No More Work, Indo-American Assisted-Living Community, they buried their hands in each other’s back pants pockets and began kneading, causing everyone to slowly step away from them until a four-foot-wide buffer ring surrounded the couple, who didn’t notice a thing. And on a chartered bus to Six Flags Great Adventure, no one dared look in the direction of the last row, where the happy couple had claimed all four back seats.
So, when Sushila turned up pregnant a few months later, no one was surprised except her mother. They expected Mrs. Mukherjee to be furious and to throw Sushila out of the apartment, as was standard for that corner of Edison under those circumstances. Instead, when Sushila approached her, she said, “Really? Great! Now that storewalla will definitely have to marry you.” Mrs. Mukherjee ordered Lucky, through Sushila, to come over the next day to formally ask for her permission to marry her daughter.
Lucky put on his best crushed-velvet shirt and even buttoned it almost to the top, stifling his ordinarily unfettered chest hair. He had been to the apartment many times when Sushila’s mother was not home and was familiar with its dismal atmosphere and lack of natural light. The drawing room was sparsely decorated, with just one woeful painting of a swan and unnecessarily heavy blue velvet drapes that were always drawn. Mrs. Mukherjee was as dreary and unappealing as her home, dressed in a gray salwar, her hair pulled back in a severe bun. Thinking back on that day, Lucky would not be able to recall Mrs. Mukherjee giving him a chance to say anything, let alone ask for her daughter’s hand in marriage. After a stern lecture about responsibility and the modern man, Mrs. Mukherjee—who stated upfront that she preferred to be addressed as Mrs. Mukherjee—handed Lucky a list of demands, neatly typed and formatted.
The Path Forward: How to Marry My Sushila
By Mrs. Mukherjee
1. Marry immediately. We must avoid a scandal with Indian relatives, who shall remain uninformed of the pregnancy.
2. Pay for most of wedding.
3. Expand the Jazzy Panty store and earn more money.
4. Move to proper apartment as soon as possible.
5. Or I will beat your brain out with my rolling pin.
Lucky felt like vomiting. How could he possibly do all these things? Was she crazy? Why did she think his store was called Jazzy Panty? Had that rolling pin on the coffee table been there the entire time? Where was Sushila? He folded up the paper and put it in his back pocket, which visibly irked Mrs. Mukherjee. So he pulled it back out and unfolded it, trying to smooth it out on the table, at one point using the rolling pin, to no avail. “Perfect list, first-class, absolutely,” he said. “No problem, I will take care of everything, do not take any tension. Can I talk to Sushila?”
That night, Lucky tucked the list under his mattress. He lay awake for a long time, thinking. If they had a modest wedding at the Swaminarayan temple, with no flowers and a small amount of food from Beena Joshi, he could cover much of it. He could find out tomorrow if there were any one-bedroom apartments available in King’s Court, and he could find a few paying guests to help cover the rent, hopefully with more luck this time. Maybe they would trust him more with a wife and baby. But no one too noisy or too handsome; maybe a couple of those guys who unloaded trucks at Sudha and Niranjan’s Grocery Emporium near his store. But they might have too big muscles. Maybe some computer guys. But expanding the store and making more money were no easy tasks. To make money, he would need money—a lot of it, quickly. No bank was going to lend him anything because of his abysmal credit rating, which had plummeted after the fifth party-bus rental. After a quick rundown of his relatives, he realized he needed wealthier relatives. At 3:00 a.m., he shook Deepak, who was fast asleep on his mattress. “Hey. Deepak. Do you have any money?”
“What? Stop shaking me. Are you crazy? I will give you five dollars in the morning.”
Lucky turned then to Prem’s mattress. It had been vacant for nearly two weeks as Prem worked long hours and slept in his office again in advance of the big Giants Stadium extravaganza, Masala in the Meadowlands: An Intimate Evening in a Huge Stadium, or something to that effect. The show had been sold out for weeks. Lucky tried to calculate how much money Prem must make from ticket sales but gave up when it came to estimating the number of VIP and VVIP tickets, floor seats, etc. But he knew the number was big. Everyone knew Prem had become a highly successful man, though it was easy to forget because of his bicycle and his mattress. He must have accumulated a gold mine. Under ordinary circumstances, Lucky would not have thought of borrowing money from friends; it was like getting a tattoo on the face or renting five party buses in one year—a bad idea. But a baby was involved, and Mrs. Mukherjee had turned out to be quite scary. In a few weeks, the show would be over. After that, he would ask.
34
“I am so sorry, sir. I cannot understand how all of these people found out,” the driver said to Amitabh Bachchan. A mass of fans were assembled on that late spring afternoon in the arrivals area at Newark International to behold the biggest movie star in the world. A hundred cameras flashed and a multilingual clamor rose up in adoration at the sight of him, tall and exalted, distinguished with an air of humility. “It is quite all right,” he said.
The scene was not surprising for him; it was what he encountered every day. For hours they waited, hoping, praying for just a glimpse, and he was in their debt. He rarely felt the annoyance or burden he had heard other actors complain of. The unthinkable egotism of them! Amitabh refused to lose sight of the great blessing of success in this astonishing profession.
