Abby Spencer Goes to Bollywood

by Varsha Bajaj

  I nod. She comes back with peach yogurt and granola, which have never tasted so good. After being asleep for so long, I’m wide awake. Everyone on the dimly lit plane is asleep while I read my travel guide to Mumbai. It’s a present from my grandparents. The cover is a photo of the Gateway of India. Soon my brain is buzzing with facts—like how Mumbai was originally a group of islands and that the city is India’s economic and commercial center. It’s India’s most diverse, cosmopolitan, and westernized city.

  The flight map on my TV console says we’re over Afghanistan. It feels weird to be flying 30,000 feet above a war zone. Same space, different altitudes, and different stories I think as I page through my book.

  Finally the captain announces that we’re about to begin our descent into Mumbai International Airport. I gather my belongings, tighten my seat belt, and pray through the bumpy landing. The plane shudders, sighs, and touches its wheels to the earth in exhaustion.

  “Good luck,” The flight attendant squeezes my hand as I get off the plane, my backpack over my shoulders and clutching my violin case. Because I’m an unaccompanied minor, an airline employee with immaculately creased pants meets me at the gate.

  For the first time in my life, I’m in a foreign country. My string quartet is quiet as if it too wants to hear all the foreign languages spoken around us. The sounds are gibberish to me interspersed with familiar nuggets of English. Huge rusty fans swing on pedestals, valiantly fighting the heat. Surrounded by newness, I struggle to take it all in. Women in saris walk all around me—some are travelers like me while others are airport staff. There are other people dressed like me in jeans and shirts.

  At the immigration desk, I say I’m visiting friends. What if I tell them the truth? Would the earth stop revolving? Would it be like a scene in a comedy when chaos rules? I grin, imagining an elephant running through the busy airport, clearing desks with his tusks and crapping in the gift shop.

  I look at my watch as the immigration officer checks whatever it is immigration officers check. It’s eleven a.m. in Houston. What is Mom doing?

  He stamps my passport with the seal for entry. Thunk!

  He slides it through the window.

  My airline chaperone hustles me through customs and out of the airport terminal. The sliding doors open, and hot, humid, pungent, dark night air sneaks into the airport to cool down.

  I scan the faces behind the rusted metal barricade. It seems like hundreds of men are holding up signs for the passengers they’re meeting. I disregard the signs and focus on trying to locate my father’s face.

  Right to Left. Left to Right. I’ve never seen so many people milling around at this hour at an airport. Mumbai, I read, was the most populous city in India—with a population around fifteen million. It’s the fourth most populated city in the world, and I’m sure a good chunk of those people are at the airport!

  My eyes scan the crowd. A crumb of panic rises. I look at the signs. None of them reads beloved long-lost daughter.

  A car honks and startles me. My backpack slides off my shoulder. The heat swirls around me. The smells of sweat, heat, soil, and people overpower my brain.

  My chaperone tugs my sleeve and points to a sign. “There.”

  A man holding a sign with my name sees us point and steps forward, “Abby?” he yells.

  Who is this man? Why isn’t my father here?

  The airline employee and the man discuss. The man signs some papers and then my chaperone says good-bye and leaves.

  “Wait! He’s not my father.” Sheer panic invades my body, down to my smallest pore.

  The man hands me a cell phone.

  I hold the phone to my ear. “Abby! Welcome to Mumbai,” my father’s voice booms.

  “Dad?” I ask. “Why aren’t you here?”

  “I didn’t think you’d want the hoopla after a long journey. Thomas is my publicist. He’ll drive you home. I’ll see you in thirty minutes.”

  I hand the phone back to Thomas, give him a weak smile, and trip over a mangy dog sleeping on the street.

  “Sorry, guy,” I whisper to the dog, whose bones stand out against his skin, and follow Thomas to the waiting car.

  Chapter 11

  My dad is bigger than your dad

  A white-haired Indian man opens the car door for me. “Abby, this is Shiva,” Thomas says.

  I hold out my hand, but Shiva joins his hands and does a slight bow. “Namaste.”

  I feel stupid. Next time I’ll do a namaste too.

  We get into the car—me in back, Shiva in the driver’s seat on the right, and Thomas in the passenger seat on the left. Thomas turns on the air-conditioning and then chuckles. “You thought Naveenji would come to the airport? Do you know what hangama—chaos—that would cause? There would be photographers going mad and fans fighting for autographs.”

  His tone is condescending.

  I have to focus to understand his accent. “Oh, I didn’t know,” I say.

  “You didn’t know?” His laugh is disbelieving as if I’m an idiot. I already know I don’t like this man much.

  “You didn’t know,” Thomas repeats, unbelieving. “Naveen Kumar,” he says with pride, “is the king of Bollywood! He has acted in thirty-five movies. Each one has been a hit. They have each grossed over a hundred crore rupees. He has millions of fans. Women love him and want to marry him. Men? Men are jealous of his body. They wish they had his charm. Kids mimic his dance moves.” Thomas’s voice rises in ownership and I cringe.

  This guy thinks I’m an ignorant idiot who lives under a rock. Shiva pulls the car into traffic, and we drive on the “wrong” side of the road, which I guess is the right side here. “In India, Naveen Kumar is a phenomenon. He is big. Bigger than the prime minister!” Thomas voices his

  declaration of love.

  Finally he looks at me. “You must be tired.”

  My watch says it’s noon in Houston, and the clock on the dashboard of the car says it’s 11:30 p.m. in India. I’ve been traveling for more than a day. Mom, Grandma, Grandpa and I left home for the airport almost thirty hours ago. No wonder I feel like a plant that hasn’t been watered for days. I slept, but not enough. I rest my head against the tinted window of the air-conditioned car.

  Keep your eyes open, Abby!

  I struggle to take in my surroundings through the haze of fatigue. It’s dark outside. The streets feel smaller and dustier than at home and there seems to be a lot of construction near the airport. Then we’re on a highway. I look out at the buildings on the side of the road and force myself to stay awake. I see an exit sign that reads South Mumbai and under it is a script in an Indian language.

  In spite of my efforts, my eyes close.

  “Naveen Kumar is big in India, big, big, big…” Thomas’s voice echoes in my sleep.

  My head whacks against the window and my eyes fly open. The car lurches with a thud. At first, I think I’m still on the plane and we’ve hit a turbulent patch. But then I realize we’ve just propelled over a pothole.

  “Shiva, drive carefully!” Thomas chides.

  I look out the window. We’re not on a highway anymore. We’re on a smaller, crowded street and I can see groups of people gathered around. There seems to be some kind of celebration on the sidewalk. Music blares and people dance.

  A giant billboard of a man looms over us, like Gulliver over a Lilliputian city. I look at his face. It’s my father’s!

  I gasp. “Is that—?”

  “Of course.,” Thomas replies. “It is his big movie. The premiere is in eight days. Very soon. This movie is the best,”

  Embarrassed, I turn back to look again. I can see the back of the billboard, a twin image of the front. My dad, at least fifty feet tall, striding with a menacing look like Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Terminator movies. He wears a ripped sleeveless T-shirt, so ripped down the front that he might as well not be wearing a shirt. His muscles bulge, his face is streaked with dirt, and he appears to have survived some grueling escapade to hell and ba
ck.

  I want to shut my eyes. No, better yet, maybe I could paint a shirt on every poster of my father in this city.

  “Jhoom—that’s his latest movie. It’s the first one that we have produced under our production company. By God’s grace, it will be a huge hit,” he says, crossing himself. “Bollywood will be at his feet.”

  Thomas’s belief in my father is touching even if the publicist is crazy. When he’s excited, he talks even faster.

  Focusing on Thomas’s accent and trying to stay awake is making my head hurt.

  We turn onto a road with the ocean on one side—the Arabian Sea to be exact. Mumbai is a peninsula surrounded by the ocean. I crack the window just a bit and I can hear the waves pounding the rocks.

  All along the drive I’m surprised to see what looks like large, brown sandbags on the sidewalks and under bridges. What are they for? When one of the sandbags gets up and

  starts walking, I’m shocked. My heart constricts. It’s not a sandbag—it’s a person.

  I see now that people sleep on the streets, under the shadows of skyscrapers, with threadbare sheets pulled over them, their knees in the fetal position. Cocooned in their homelessness. I read that Mumbai is both a city of dreams and of extreme poverty. Some sources in my book claim that one in five people in Mumbai lived below the poverty line.

  “We are almost home.” Thomas shakes me out of my wandering thoughts.

  I’ve anticipated this moment all my life. Meeting my father, the person who made me. My hands are clammy and my mouth feels dry. This is, of course, nothing like I thought because my imagination hadn’t flown me halfway around the world.

  The car slows in front of a fifteen-foot wall that hides most of the house behind it from street view. All I can see a small curved balcony on the second floor. On the other side of the road, the pitch black Arabian Sea roared. I have goose bumps on every inch of me. Even at this late hour, a group of people is gathered outside the gate. I wonder who they are. Tall, ornate gates swing open without a creak and the group rushes to get a glimpse inside.

  Our car glides in. My heart beats faster than the speed of light. The gates close behind us.

  The car stops in the driveway, and I step out of the car, clutching my backpack.

  The front yard is paved with slate tiles, and a fountain stands quietly in the center. Red bougainvilleas pour from huge lush pots that line the wall. An ivory house with modern-looking stucco sits in front of me. It has an enormous, ornately carved front door with brass knockers. The outer walls are like a fortress keeping out the rest of the city. It feels like a completely different world.

  The night air is humid and I’m dizzy with excitement. I’m barely aware of the flurry of activity behind me. Thomas runs to get my luggage, a man in uniform emerges and nods at me, and yet another man opens the front door.

  He steps out—my father, in flesh and blood. Real, in this unreal moment.

  The father whose absence has defined my life, whether I like it or not.

  The string quartet soars.

  I remember all the moments when I yearned to know him. At Doughnuts with Dad, at father-daughter dances, in family pictures, and across the kitchen table each evening for dinner. The wait is over. This moment will always divide my life into before I met my father and after I met him.

  He stands with arms outstretched. He’s wearing jeans with a white T-shirt. “Abby!” he says.

  For a moment I’m paralyzed.

  Dad? Could this be happening? Or is he a hologram?

  He comes toward me and I step into his arms. Maybe there should be awkwardness but there isn’t. Strangely I feel safe.

  In that moment he becomes real. He becomes my dad. “Dad!”

  Then he holds me at arm’s length and looks at me. His eyes mist. He blinks and brushes his eyes.

  “Wow! You look like a clone of Meredith with dark hair.

  You take me back years!” he shakes his head in disbelief.

  Thomas and Shiva hover around. Dad thanks Thomas for meeting me at the airport, and he leaves. Shiva, I learn, lives with Dad.

  We walk into the house. It’s unreal. The floors are lined with silk carpets, huge windows and cathedral ceilings make the space light and airy, and the sound of sea waves provide a natural sound track. Tall bamboo plants with their waxy leaves sit in gleaming bronze pots. Museum quality bronze sculptures of Ganesha and the Buddha adorn various corners. The beautifully blended décor is at once ancient Indian and modern. I’m no art dealer, but the stuff on the walls scream real!

  I’ve never been to a movie star’s house before, and now the one I’m in belongs to my dad. Crazy! I’m certainly not in

  my middle class, homey house in Houston anymore. I read that Mumbai is the wealthiest city in India and therefore a magnet for people seeking a better life. People from rural India come to Mumbai every day to try to find job. I’ve seen both the poor and the rich within minutes.

  Before I can absorb anymore of the house, Dad says, “Abby! I know it’s late and you’re exhausted, but you have to meet your grandmother. She refused to sleep. She had to meet you.”

  I’m surprised. It’s past midnight. I expected to see her the next day. I know she lives with Dad. Mom explained that in India elderly parents often live with their children.

  Dad leads me through the foyer into the living room. An elderly woman sits in a cozy-looking armchair, watching TV. She’s dressed in a loose-fitting blue tunic that grazes her knees over matching loose pants.

  As soon as she sees us, she rises to her feet. She holds a cane for support in one hand and the other hand reaches out to welcome me. Dad rushes to steady her weak, shuffling gait.

  “Abby, I had to get better. I had to meet you.” Her English is deliberate and accented.

  I’ve been worried that she might speak only Hindi. She lets go of her cane, holds my face in both her hands, and kisses my forehead. Happiness lights up her eyes.

  “Grandma Tara, it’s nice to meet you,” I say.

  “I like that name. Grandma Tara,” she repeats and smiles at Dad and me. “You say it differently than we do, but I like that, you know.”

  “How do you say it?” I ask. When I say Tara, it rhymes with Sarah.

  “Ta-ra.” She says it with a soft T and it rhymes with Lara. I say it her way.

  Grandma Tara laughs. “No. Say it the Abby way.” Shiva steps forward. “You have to rest,” he says.

  Grandmother waves him away. “Seeing my granddaughter doesn’t tire me,” she says in a regal voice. The she turns to Dad and they speak in Hindi.

  “She says you are beautiful, and she’s glad she didn’t die,” Dad translates for me. He shakes his head and bursts into a huge guffaw of laughter. He raises his hands and claps. Genuine happiness pours out of his smile.

  I shrug away fatigue. Oh, I am glad too!

  Chapter 12

  Namaste

  Weird trivia learned in Science: experts who know stuff say that human babies learn more in their first year than ever again in their life. I can argue with that. Like a baby who has entered a new world, I’ve learned new stuff every minute since I left home on my own. The sights, sounds, smells, tastes, Dad’s presence, and Grandma Tara’s hugs are all brand new.

  “Abby, wake up,” I hear Dad’s muffled voice as he knocks on the closed bedroom door. “Your mom called to check on you twice already.” After all my traveling and family introductions, I crashed and slept forever like Sleeping Beauty.

  I struggle to open my eyes and emerge from my sleep marathon. I’m in India—in Mumbai! And I wasted my first

  morning sleeping! I jump out of bed and smooth my bedhead. I open the door, and Dad steps in. It feels a bit weird. He’s my dad, but he’s also a stranger.

  “Abby, I hope you slept well,” he says. I assure him that I did.

  “I want you to be careful to not drink any unbottled water,” Dad reminds me. “It’s not safe, and you can’t fall sick on my watch. Use bottled water to brus
h your teeth and don’t drink the water when you shower.” Then he smiles. “It’s good to have you here. I’ll see you when you are ready.”

  “Give me five minutes,” I say to his retreating back.

  Last night I was too exhausted to take in my surroundings, now I soak them in. Sunny, almost sheer cotton curtains hang from the windows, which have wrought iron grills on them. A window unit air conditioner hums. Everything is different. My bed is a twin and has a futon-like mattress covered with a pink and green paisley cotton sheet. Instead of a comforter, there’s a softer sheet more suitable to the weather. It’s not Houston hot, but the temperatures are in the low eighties and it’s still humid. Dad says I’m lucky; the temperature is cooler than usual.

  There’s a wardrobe across from my bed, like the one in the Narnia books. The tiled floor feels cool under my feet. A patterned cotton area rug sits between my bed and dresser. The cream walls are concrete. There is a picture on the dresser of Grandma Tara, a young boy, and an older man.

  I walk into the slate-tiled bathroom. I need more light. I can’t find the switch then remember seeing a panel with several unmarked switches on the bedroom wall just outside the bathroom. I’m sure which one turns on the bathroom light and I end up turning on the two lights and the fan in the bedroom before I find the bathroom switch. The toothpaste—neem flavor, which tastes woody—and the sandalwood-scented soap have a tropical feel. The water doesn’t gush out like at home but is more of a medium-speed stream.

  As I step out of my air-conditioned room onto the landing, the temperature changes. The windows are open and the sheer curtains flutter in the breeze. The house doesn’t have central air.

  A crow outside screeches, “Caw!” I can hear the gurgling of pigeons on the windowsills and the hum of traffic. The house sits on Carter Road, which faces the ocean. Across the street, no more than five hundred feet away, I can see craggy, coal-black rocks, which merge with the loud ocean. I step to the window and soak in the sight of the ocean hurling itself at the rocks.