Before you leave. On June 16.
They still can’t say it, either of them. The leaving part has sunk in, of course, with eight more days to go, but in between America and India they’re now in best-friend country, where some things don’t need to be said and others can’t bear to be.
School will be out in a few more days. Dini has said her good-byes to a lot of people, but not to Maddie. Not yet.
“You have to think positive,” Maddie says. “Dolly would think positive. You have to think, ‘WWDD?’”
“What?” What’s that? Some new movie Dini has not heard of?
Maddie grins at her in the light that is filtering lavender and blue through the patterns of the comforter. “‘What Would Dolly Do,’ silly,” she says.
Dini breathes deeply. “You’re right.” It’s true. Dolly is big on thinking positive. In MJTJ when Dolly is on a cliff, hanging on for dear life, she thinks positive. Thinking positive helps her to remember that she has a cell phone in her pocket with the TV station’s number on the speed-dial list, and so she is able to call for help right when you’d think there were no choices left.
“Maddie,” Dini says. “I know this is going to sound crazy.”
Maddie makes sympathetic go-on-and-tell-me-anyway noises.
“I figure,” Dini says, “that even if Swapnagiri is far from Bombay . . .”
“The center of the filmi universe,” they proclaim together.
“It’s still closer to it than Takoma Park, Maryland. So I should really try to get in touch with Dolly. And I will. Because look.” And Dini shows Maddie this week’s issue of Filmi Kumpnee.
From the “News ’n’ Views” column of Filmi Kumpnee: Your Magazine of the Stars:
Dolly Singh fans, take note. Our hardworking, scoop-finding Filmi Kumpnee reporters have news for you. Nothing less than word from Soli Dustup himself. Yes, that Soli Dustup—manager, owner, and artistic director of Bombay’s own Starlite Studios.
And the word is—silence.
Yes, that’s right. Our beautiful and fabulous and always-happy-to-talk Dolly Singh is Giving No Interviews.
“What-what-what?” you may ask. “Why not?” We asked too. Soliji’s mum on the what and the why. But Dolly, it seems, is indeed not talking. No TV, no radio, not even Filmi Kumpnee’s own tireless reporters can wangle an interview.
Mysterious indeed. Is it love, we wonder, that has made our dazzling Dolly fall silent? Will there be a new movie? “No comment,” says Mr. Soli Dustup.
We are ever alert. You be alert too. Keep your eye on this column.
“Maddie,” says Dini. “I promise you that the minute I find Dolly—the minute—I will let you know.”
“By e-mail?” Maddie says.
“Maddie,” Dini says. “E-mail or mail or phone or text or whatever.”
“Maybe if you even just think hard enough, I’ll hear your thoughts,” Maddie says.
“I’ll think,” Dini promises. “I’ll think so loud and long and hard I bet it’ll wake you up.”
“Send me jokes.”
“And songs.”
“How about video? You think you can thought-send video?”
“Dance steps?”
They laugh so hard that Dini’s parents peek in to make sure they are not crying. Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference.
“Those two have really become glued together,” Dini hears her dad say.
“Velcroed,” says Mom. “Can’t say I blame them.”
Chapter Eight
Fan Letters
IN MUMBAI THAT ALL THE FILMI people still insist on calling Bombay, in the hallway of a twelfth-floor apartment that for some strange reason is called a flat, Mr. Soli Dustup of Starlite Studios is on the telephone.
Sometimes, as the best filmi people know, nothing works like snappy dialogue. This is why Mr. Dustup has been making phone call after phone call to a certain person. But you can’t have any dialogue, snappy or otherwise, when the other person refuses to answer the phone.
And the fan mail! “Soli, do me a favor and take care of the fan mail for me,” she said, dropping off the key before taking off on this jaunt to some hilly place no one has ever heard of. “Just use this letter—only till I get back, there’s a good chap.” And she thrust a signed “Dearest Friend and Fan” letter into his hand, typed on that creamy stationery she likes to use.
“No blinking problem, Dolly darling,” he replied. He groans now to think of it. He should have asked her then: “Where are you going? When will you be back? Exactly how long will I have to answer your blinking fan letters?”
In silent exasperation he shakes his fist at temperamental movie stars who just pick up whenever they want to and go off to parts unknown without a thought for their producers, directors, studio executives—and fans!
Mr. Soli Dustup thinks sadly, You should look before you leap, Dolly darling. Looking before she leaps has never been Dolly’s strong suit.
Chapter Nine
A Sign
SCHOOL IS OUT AT LAST. The calendar has moved into Dini’s room. So has Maddie.
Dini and Maddie are going to spend every last hour and minute together until. You know.
“Two days and—when did you say your flight was?” Maddie says.
“Ten o’clock at night,” Dini says. “From Baltimore, which means we have to leave here at six p.m.”
“That means two days and . . .” Maddie is making little marks for hours and minutes on the edge of the calendar, being careful not to smudge the stars and houses and letters and butterflies and birds that are scattered all over it already. “No, no, I’m wrong. That’s three days and three hours from now, exactly. Maybe we can get them to leave at six oh three, and that’ll give us three days, three hours, and three minutes.”
“Wow,” Dini says. “I wish I could figure out stuff like that.”
Mom sticks her head through the doorway. “How are you two?”
“We’re fine,” says Maddie.
“Just fine,” says Dini.
Dad peeks in. “How are the Velcro girls doing?”
“Fine,” they say. “Just fine.”
Maddie’s mom calls to ask about them too. Everyone is suddenly terribly interested in Maddie and Dini. Don’t they have anything else to do?
Dini shuts the door to her room. Maddie hums a song from MJTJ. “Got to get that CD,” she says.
Then they pull out the rainbow-colored sari that Dini begged Mom to give her from her sari collection. It looks a bit like the one Dolly has on when she’s getting her big award for bravery at the end of the movie. Well, maybe not quite enough green, and certainly not enough silver, but sometimes you just make do.
Dini and Maddie grab opposite ends of the sari and dance around the room together while belting out what they can remember of “Sunno-sunno” until they collapse in a heap, exhausted.
The day arrives. That day.
“Please can we leave at six oh three?” Dini begs. “Please, please, please? Promise me you won’t pull out of the driveway until six oh three?”
Mom looks about to say something and then does not.
“Six-zero-three,” Dad promises.
And so the hours and minutes tick down the way hours and minutes do, and it is sixteen minutes to six. The suitcases are loaded in the taxi. Passports and itineraries have been checked and double-checked.
Hugs have been hugged. Sad but true, a few tears have also been shed, because how is it humanly possible to say good-bye without them?
“Wait a minute!” Dini is about to get into the car when she remembers something. “Did anyone check the mail today?”
“Not me,” Dad says. “Did you?”
Mom shakes her head. Dad says something about address changes and the tenants sending on mail, but Dini is already running to the mailbox.
In it is a single envelope. Cream colored, with little embossed flowers on it. “Dini Kumaran,” it says. Dolly has replied to Dini.
Dini screams and run
s back waving the envelope. She hugs Maddie. Maddie hugs her back. Dini opens the letter.
June 9, 2010
Dearest Friend and Fan:
I am always so happy to hear from you. Thank you for your kind letters. Please keep them coming.
I know you will understand that I receive many letters from all over the world, and so I cannot reply to each of your questions personally, even though I take every single one most seriously.
You are my hope. You are my delight. You know the rest.
Best wishes,
Dolly Singh
And now it is 6:03, and Dad, true to his promise, tells the cabdriver it is time to leave. Maddie waves, and dabs her eyes. Dini waves. Her lip quivers, but she makes it straighten up.
The cab backs out of the driveway. Before Dini can untangle the mess of sadness and excitement and oh-no-now-what coursing through her, they are on I-95, headed north to that big airport in Baltimore, from which so many people leave when they have to go overseas.
Dini reads the letter over and over. It is a sign, small but sure. The “Dearest Friend and Fan” part feels good. So do the “hope” and “delight” lines. An ignorant reader would not get the reference, of course, but Dini does indeed know the rest of that song.
She hums it now, hums that hope and delight song all the way to the airport. It is the only way she knows not to cry.
Chapter Ten
Swapnagiri
“HEY THERE,” SAYS DAD AS THEY drive from the airport in a white Qualis, which is what Toyota calls this kind of a van in India, “are you okay? Right as rain back there?”
Mom says nothing, but that is because her right ear got stopped up somewhere between Baltimore and Frankfurt and hasn’t popped yet, so she can’t hear very well.
Dini groans. Right as rain she is not. The back-seat of the Qualis is way too cluttered for comfort, and she has lost one of her sandals under a bag, which is most annoying. Dolly’s letter is in her carry-on bag, and she can’t even get at it to read it once more. She would like to do that because in addition to making her very tired and sleepy, all this travel has made her a bit . . . worried. That maybe in the excitement of getting that letter, she didn’t read it properly. When she looked at it last on the plane, before getting off at this airport-that-was-not-Bombay, it looked as if the signature was just a printed one.
“Dearest Friend and Fan” . . . could it be? Is it possible that what she got back was only a form letter?
Dini’s thoughts are dizzying, or maybe it is just that the driver of the van, a man named Veeran with a fiercely-pointed mustache, is driving rather fast. Every time he honks the horn, which is every few minutes—bebeep-bebeep!—Dini’s parents clutch their seats and beg him to slow down.
“Don’t worry,” Veeran says. “You are in the hands of a superfine driver and mechanic.”
It is entirely unreasonable to expect a normal person to sit in a plane for fifteen hours at a time without getting fidgety, and then to plunk that same person into a van for still more sitting. Every time Dini visits India with Mom and Dad, she keeps expecting they will make the planes faster, but they are still not fast enough. Now she is getting cross-eyed trying to figure out what time it is in Maryland and when would be a good time to try to call Maddie.
But then Dini sees something that knocks all these things out of her mind.
She sees something green and silver on a billboard.
And she sees a face. What a face. Dini has been looking for Dolly posters ever since they left the airport. She knew she would see one sooner or later. How could she not? Everyone in India loves Dolly.
She can’t stop herself from crying out, “Slow down, slow down!”
Veeran slams on the brakes, and the Qualis screeches to a crawl in the middle of the road, making all the cars and trucks and scooters in back of it burst into a cacophony of honking.
Mom wrings her hands in a panicky gesture that Dini notes, even in her dazed state. It’s practically fillum-worthy.
Dad says, “Hey! What happened?”
But Veeran the driver is shaking his head from side to side, which is what people do here when they mean to tell you that they are with you. He says, “You know our superfine, tip-top film star Dolly Singh?”
“Yes,” Dini says. No one knows Dolly Singh’s superfine tip-topness like she does. Well, Maddie does, but she is on the other side of the world right now.
Veeran picks up speed again, honking his horn to get three bicyclists and a donkey out of the way of the Qualis. “There is one more Dolly Singh picture,” he says, turning around to point it out.
Dad clutches the dashboard for comfort. Mom clutches her head.
Then Veeran the driver says something that makes Dini shriek in astonishment. He says, “Miss Dolly Singh is now in Swapnagiri.”
Dini says, “In Swapnagiri?”
“Nandu,” says Dad, as if Dini is the one who is making him nervous.
The white van is heading out of the city now and into countryside with rice fields and big spreading trees.
Wow-wow-wow! Can this be true? Dini thought she was going to be miles and miles away from Bombay, the center of the filmi universe, and now it seems that Dolly has come to the very place they’re headed for! She’s come to Dini. It seems too good to be true.
“Are you sure?” she says to Veeran.
He shakes his head from side to side to side, very very fast, he is that sure.
He weaves between two rows of buses.
“Quite sure,” he says, slamming the gas pedal to the floor, so that the Qualis engine revs into a victorious roar. “It’s a small town. People talk. Normally I don’t pay attention, but my missus and me, we love Dolly Singh’s movies.”
“Do you know where she lives?” Dini says.
“Oh my, no,” says Veeran. “I’m sure she does not want everyone and their brother-in-law turning up on her doorstep.”
“I’d love to meet her,” Dini says. “I’ve seen every single one of her fillums.”
“My missus and me also,” says Veeran.
“Me and my friend Maddie,” says Dini, “we’re both Dolly fans.”
“Really?” says Veeran, taking both hands off the steering wheel to show his amazement at what a small world it is. Mom and Dad clutch at each other now.
“So it’s true, Miss Nandini,” Veeran says, “that they like our Dolly Singh in America also.”
Dini tells him about how she and Maddie would have gone to Bollywood dance camp together this summer, only she is here now.
“My little girl is too small now to take dance classes,” Veeran says, “but she likes Dolly Singh’s songs also. Every time they play on the radio, she laughs loudly.”
Life is an astonishing thing. Who would have guessed that the driver of this van, sent by the clinic to meet Mom and Dad and Dini at the airport and bring them to Swapnagiri, would turn out to be a true fan? Who would have guessed that he would bring Dini this glad news that seems almost too good to be true?
Veeran picks up speed. Dad suggests Dini should let him drive and not distract him with her chatter. They are now on some very twisty bends of a mountain road. There are signs: SLOW DOWN and TOO FAST? WHY TEMPT FATE? And this one, which seems like good advice: ARRIVE ALIVE.
Dad is now saying something to Mom about the rupee-dollar exchange getting more favorable, which sounds like complete gibberish, and if he thinks that’s not distracting to the driver of the van, then Dini thinks he should think again. Especially as he has to talk extra loud on account of Mom’s stuffed-up ear.
Dini’s own thoughts are twisting and tumbling so fast in her head that they are making her dizzy. She’s got so much to do.
She has to find Dolly now. She can’t be this close to her and not meet her in person.
She’ll tell her, “I was born—born!—on the same day that your very first movie was released.”
And Dolly will say, as she says in MJTJ, “Kismat ki baat hai.” Which it is, of course. It is
just a matter of kismet, which some people think of as fate, but it’s so much more. It is about things that were just meant to be, like Dolly being in Swapnagiri when all the common sense in the world might suggest she’d be in Bombay, the center of the filmi universe.
As soon as they are unpacked and settled in, Dini will invite Dolly to come visit her.
Dolly will come. Dolly will invite Dini to be part of her next movie project. A scriptwriter, perhaps, or that person who is rather peculiarly called a grip. Dini’s name will be on the credits. . . .
At this point Dini realizes that in that letter she wrote to Dolly, she made a silly mistake. She should have sent Dolly her address in Swapnagiri. How on Earth can she expect Dolly to come visit her without knowing where she’ll be?
“Sunno-sunno,” she hums to herself, “dekho-dekho.” That helps to calm her down, as it always does.
Swapnagiri is not as big as Bombay. It is probably not even as big as Takoma Park, Maryland. Dini will just have to listen-listen and look-look, and she will find Dolly.
Chapter Eleven
Sunny Villa, Take One
“SIR, SWAPNAGIRI MARKET,” says Veeran to Dini’s father, waving his hand at houses and shops as if he is introducing the Taj Mahal. The market whizzes past. Veeran leans on his horn, scattering people, goats, and chickens.
Dini listen-listens. She look-looks. This is a busy kind of place. Dolly is nowhere to be seen in it. This is going to be more difficult than Dini thought.
The houses lean comfortably into one another, with shops on the ground floor and washing strung on lines along their rooftops like bright flags. Dini can see kids playing with marbles on the sidewalk. She can see people selling oranges and pineapples. A woman pushes a cart piled high with ripe, yellow bananas so tiny that Dini could probably eat half a dozen just for a snack.
The Grand Plan To Fix Everything Page 3