“My agent and I felt it was important that I start my film career with a small role,” she said, swerving the car into the valet parking line of the five-star hotel. “He’s been so kind to me, loaning me his car and paying me in advance for films they haven’t even written.” She stepped out of the car, pulling the hemline of her short, black dress down a quarter of an inch in a feigned attempt to cover her long, smooth legs. “Honestly, I don’t know how I could ever repay him,” she said before handing the keys to the gawking valet.
“Oh, and if anyone should ask,” she said to Jason, adjusting her purse so that it hung between them, “you’re from Paramount.”
A short walk—the sidewalks still alive an hour before midnight—brought them to the front of the Palace Theater. Standing shoulder to shoulder, the movie’s stars towered over the street. Two muscled men, arms crossed over tight, white tee shirts, grinned while between them the raven-haired female lead rested her elbows on their rocky biceps. The colors were several shades too bright and their legs seemed out of proportion with the rest of their bodies as if, halfway though the billboard, the artist realized that his initial vision was far too grand for his canvas.
Under the flashing marquee two clumps formed near the ticket windows. The first was filled with men—auto-rickshaw drivers, porters, day laborers, and the unemployed—pressing forward while reaching a twenty-rupee note through the pack, shouting at the men ahead of them and thrusting an elbow into the ribs of those behind, a few waving to their wives and sisters who waited near the gilded doors. Inside the ticket window the teller moved in slow motion, holding each note up to the light before poking tickets out under the glass.
At the other end of the entrance a smaller crowd waited, the hundred-rupee ticket price ensuring more dignity. Husbands and wives stood together and groups of single women, giggling into the scarves of their shalwar kamiz, eyed pockets of single men on their best behavior. None of the young people appeared to be on dates, but by the way glances were being exchanged up and down the line it was clear that, in the darkness of the theater, the rigid norms relaxed.
Inside, they were directed up the sweeping staircase to the special lobby for balcony patrons, their tickets checked twice en route by club-toting security guards. Going to the movies in Corning meant driving to the nearby town of Painted Post where a twin-plex cinema featured a two-hundred-seat theater for blockbusters and a fifty-five seater for second runs. As he stepped out on to the balcony Jason realized that movies were a bit more important in Mumbai.
There were three sections to choose from, each with over a hundred seats. Single men filed into the one on the left, single women to the right, and couples in the center. Over the railing Jason watched as hundreds of people filed into the cheap seats, climbing over the backs of chairs to claim choice spots, sneaking a cigarette before the lights went down. Below the screen he could see mounds of spilled popcorn and paper cups, swept to the front of the theater between shows and, after looking at the acre of red fabric that hung in front of the screen, he made a mental note of the closest fire exits.
Yashila tugged on his shirt and led him to a row of seats towards the front of the balcony. She sat down and flipped open her cell phone to check her messages.
“I can’t believe the size of this place,” Jason said, squinting to see the ceiling in the theater’s half-light.
Yashila gave an embarrassed grin. “My agent says many hit movies start off in smaller venues like this, until they catch on. This one is going to be a smash, I just know it.”
The theater darkened and a whistle-filled cheer rose up from the main floor. He flinched at the sudden movement on his left, lone single men cutting through the couples’ section for secret back-row rendezvous. Ahead the red curtain parted to reveal a drive-in-movie sized screen while concert speakers trumpeted the coming attractions. Ten minutes later, with the patrons still streaming in, shouting into cell phones or yelling across aisles to friends who stood on their seats to wave, the movie began.
“Mera Bhai, Meri Jaan. My Brother, My Life,” Yashila explained as the title splashed across the screen in a huge, curlicue script.
“What’s it about?” Jason tried to whisper, the people around him talking and laughing so loud he said it again in a normal voice.
Yashila opened her mouth, holding it open as her eyes looked to the ceiling and her tongue ran along her bottom lip. “It’s about a lot of things,” she said finally. “I play the younger brother’s friend’s classmate’s sister. I’m after the fourth song.” The first chords of Ode to Joy reverberated from her lap and she flipped her phone back open, the pale blue light illuminating her face. He half-turned in his seat to mime an apology to the people nearby but they ignored him, busy in loud conversations of their own or on the phone with their hard-of-hearing friends.
Jason settled in and watched the movie. With an armload of architectural drawings and a pair of briefcases, and dressed in a blue suit and tie, one of the male leads was trying to negotiate a rush-hour sidewalk. The crowd howled as first one, then a second, then all of the rolled-up plans slipped from his grasp and cartwheeled down the long set of stairs he had just climbed. Predictably the briefcases followed and, as he scrambled to pick it all back up, he knocked over a woman too beautiful not to be the lead.
“Boy meets girl,” Yashila said as she punched in a new number.
For a half hour Jason tried to follow the plot, leaning over to whisper questions to Yashila that she would sometimes answer, sometimes ignore, giving up after a second lip-synched, high-pitched solo by the female lead left him confused about which brother the heroine really liked. Besides, musicals made him uncomfortable—a guy walking down the street, all of a sudden bursting into song? In public, with strangers looking? For an instant he was back in fourth grade, a packed auditorium waiting for him to start the grand finale of the Christmas concert, eight tiny classmates dressed as reindeer pawing at the stage floor, the jingling-bells intro starting up for the third time. No way.
He focused his attention on the background details from each shot—the expensive furnishings in the million-dollar homes and the modern glass and steel skylines from the sweeping outdoor dance numbers. Jason wondered how the cameraman managed to miss the run-down buildings and the beggars, the dented cars and the whirlwinds of litter that was kicked up with every gust. Like Disney World’s America, Bollywood’s India was a place where everybody visited and nobody lived.
In the dark, feet up on the back of the empty seat in front of him, Jason watched the action on the screen while he thought about his so-called vacation.
He had two weeks this year and he had spent it all on a favor for a friend who neither asked for his help nor, he feared, deserved it.
He missed the Sriram he thought he knew, missed his sense of humor, the way his face lit up when his wife walked into the room, the way he always handed Jason a cold Odenbach, the cap twisted off, the way he had left for work early every morning that winter just so he had time to brush the snow off Jason’s car, how he called computers magic and had Jason believing it, how he handed out fat handfuls of candy on Halloween and delivered twenty frozen turkeys to the food bank at Thanksgiving.
It was hard to like the Sriram he was meeting now.
Next to him, Yashila pulled out a second cell phone, text messaging with the tip of her long, painted nails while she babbled on in a mix of English and Hindi, the small phone lost in her thick hair.
He watched her out of the corner of his eye. She was beautiful and sexy and easy to flatter and he thought about how simple it would be to find a way into her bed—no isolating blanket maneuvers, no bench seats on a moving train—and he was surprised at how disappointed that made him feel.
It was all Rachel’s fault. The tour group, the hours on the train, the throbbing in his left arm where the knife had dug in. It all came back to her. She liked to lie and she was good at it, more believable than the actresses in the movie, never confusing her stories, selling
it all straight and earnest. He wondered if anything he knew about her was true. For some reason he knew it didn’t matter. He liked to watch her as she stood in the open doorways of the trains, when the sun caught her hair just right, and when she slept, curled up and quiet on the wide railway window seat.
Tell the people what they want to hear, she had said. But was that a lie, too? He was still waiting.
On the screen the heavy had been shouting at the two brothers, tossing their blueprints around in their Euro-style office, but was now leading a chorus of twenty men in multicolored jumpsuits in a complex dance number near a public fountain, everyone waving giant, blueprint banners. As they rippled past in choreographed unison, Jason’s eyes widened.
They were there on the banner. The right-angled lines and cryptic symbols of a technical drawing, the mechanical precision of a well-planed schematic.
Just like a real blueprint.
Just like the pattern on the sari he carried for Sriram.
Chapter Thirteen
“Out of all the cultural influences India has absorbed from the west,” Laxmi said, holding her fork above her plate, “none is as important as the American Style Breakfast.”
Narvin stabbed at his pile of hash browns. “More important than representative democracy?”
Laxmi curled her nose at the suggestion.
“More important than freedom of speech?” Jason said, pouring himself a second glass of orange juice.
“Overrated,” she said with a wave of bacon strip.
“More important than Elvis?” Rachel said.
Laxmi considered the idea then shook her head. “Close. But no. To quote the seventeenth-century Mughal emperor Shah Jehangir, ‘If there be heaven on earth, it is this, it is this, it is this,’” she said, gesturing with both hands at the morning meal.
“He was talking about his palace in Delhi, my sweet,” Narvin said. “Not a ham and cheese omelet.”
“He misspoke,” Laxmi said, an eyebrow raised.
After ten songs, a thirty-minute intermission, and an hour ride through the frantic late-night traffic, Jason had arrived back at Narvin’s home, Yashila tooting the horn as she drove off to another party, surprised that he didn’t even try for a kiss. The security guard buzzed Jason through, matching his face to the image on the computer screen. The house was dark, but enough light filtered through the room-sized windows to show the way to the guest suite. Inside he expected to find the door to Rachel’s room shut but it stood open, the bed still made. He nodded off on the couch watching a pre-recorded cricket match on the plasma screen TV, not hearing Rachel when she came in or waking up when she covered him with a blanket from her bed.
It was well past noon when they met for breakfast.
Across the dining room table, Rachel watched as Laxmi finished off the last of the bacon. “I remember reading somewhere that people in India were vegetarians.”
“Depends on which India you mean,” Laxmi said between crunches. “Do you mean the Hindu, Muslim, or Christian India?”
“Or perhaps the Sikh, Jain, or Buddhist India?” Narvin added.
“Don’t forget the Jewish Indians. Or the Zoroastrians.”
“I guess I thought I meant the Hindu one.”
“Fine,” Laxmi said. “Now which version? There are eight hundred thousand to pick from.”
“Okay, now I’m confused,” Jason said, setting down his buttered whole-wheat toast.
Laxmi dabbed at her mouth with the linen napkin. “In Hinduism you are free to develop your own relationship with God….”
“Or gods,” Narvin cut in.
“…choosing the form of expression and set of beliefs that you determine is true for you. You want to worship Lord Vishnu? Go right ahead—and hundreds of millions will join you. You prefer to seek the assistance of a black-skinned goddess with a necklace of skulls? Have at it, friend. Are your spiritual needs best met by an elephant-headed man with four arms? Ganesh awaits. And when it comes to forms of worship, well then the options really open up. In a temple, on a mountain, in a river, alone, with a thousand others, wearing your richest finery or hanging around with the lads, nude but for a fresh coat of dust—you name it and I guarantee someone in India does it.”
“As usual, my dear fiancée oversimplifies everything, but essentially what she says is true. There is no centralized authority that says do this, don’t do that. The word Hinduism implies an orthodoxy that just does not exist. But curiously, the way that the word was originally used thousands of years ago is still quite accurate—the beliefs of the people on this side of the Indus River. And as for eating meat,” Narvin said, snatching the last sausage link off of Laxmi’s plate, “to each his own.”
Rachel picked up her fork and returned to her meal. “Well then, they really need to update all those videos we had to watch in high school. Remember the ones Mr. Ray used to show grade nine?” she said to Jason, who nodded as if they had been classmates. “They’re not at all like the India we’re seeing.”
“Again, which India do you want? The world seems most comfortable with the poverty-stricken, dhoti-wearing, non-violence spouting Indian, happy as a clam behind his spinning wheel. They are not as comfortable with high-tech Indian millionaires and nuclear weapons. For some reason they can grasp the concept of three hundred million people earning less than a dollar a day but can’t fathom the idea of a hundred million middle-class Indians.”
“Or the seventy thousand millionaires,” Laxmi said, pointing her fork at Narvin.
“Look, I’m not saying India doesn’t have its problems—half our population can’t even read about our space program in the papers, our drug manufacturing plants ship worldwide while people die from the same diseases not fifty meters from the factory gates. It’s a crazy, chaotic madhouse, but it works. We spend far too much energy trying to define India and not enough just accepting it.”
“And the best way for you to accept it,” Laxmi said, winking at Rachel, “is by doing some serious shopping.”
“Her forte,” Narvin said, adding a shrug.
“I want to get a sari,” Rachel said. “What size do you think I am?” She stood and held her arms out to her sides, giving a quick turn, Jason and Narvin taking the opportunity to stare.
“One size fits all,” Laxmi said. “Some better than others. But with saris, size is not the issue. It is all style—the color you choose, how you wear it, when you wear it. No article of clothing says as much about a woman as a sari. Her status, her history, her role in the family—see it all with one peek in her wardrobe.”
“They all look the same to me,” Jason said.
“If you know how to read it, a sari speaks volumes. Start with the color. Bright colors for the young, somber, rich tones for women of a certain age, white for widows. The wrong shade and you send the wrong message. You also have to consider the pallu, the end piece with the design. Is your pallu too ornate, too plain, too short, too long? Don’t leave home if it isn’t just right. And it’s not just the folds and where the pallu is draped but the way you wear the sari. Not like in the west. You throw on a pair of jeans and a blouse and forget it,” Laxmi said, waving her hands to take in her own tailored outfit.
“And it still takes her an hour to get ready,” Narvin whispered to Jason.
“No one is raised wearing a sari. It is something you grow up to wear, a sign that you are a woman. But don’t be fooled. A sari has a mind of its own. You move left, it slides right, you tilt, it turns. And it is all held together, all five meters of slippery silk or quick-wrinkling cotton, by nothing more than a few folds and tuck here and there. No zippers, no snaps. A sari must be tamed and the wearer must exert her will or she can quite literally be undone. If you look awkward, battling with your sari to keep it in place or too nervous to move, people will notice, a social faux pas that your peers will never forget.”
“Sort of a rite of passage,” Rachel said. “Like high heels. The things we do for fashion.”
Laxmi stra
ightened and drew in a long breath.
“Oh boy,” Narvin whispered. “Here it comes.”
“Fashion is simply a clever means of control. Society dictates what a woman will wear to reinforce her social position. Spiked heels in the west, foot binding in China, kimonos in Japan, abayas in the Middle East, saris in India. It’s all the same. Control a woman’s sense of fashion and you can control her movements. And her status. Would a woman design a miniskirt or a push-up brassiere? Every item of clothing you buy says where you stand in this struggle against male-dominated oppression.”
“Weren’t you wearing a sari and heels last night?” Jason said.
“By choice,” Laxmi said, her manicured finger wagging. “The strong woman owns her fashion decisions. Come, Rachel,” she said, standing up. “The stores are open. It is time for us to charge our way to victory.”
***
“I wanted to talk before the women got back,” Narvin said, and shut the solid oak door of his study behind him. Behind Jason a bay window overlooked the pool and gardens, concealed spotlights illuminating the thick stand of palm trees that screened the patio from the surrounding homes. Crowded bookcases lined the walls and, centered on a kidney-shaped desk, a flat-screen monitor glowed.
“Narvin, I told you, I didn’t know he was your friend, besides I was just standing there….” Narvin raised his hand and Jason fell silent.
“There are some things you need to know before you continue your trip.” He took a seat behind the broad desk and gestured to the matching chair that sat off to the side, leaning back to pull two bottles of water from a dorm-sized fridge built into the wall. He tossed a bottle to Jason before kicking his feet up onto his desk.
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