But of Dolly there is no sign.
Veeran points out a temple, a church, and a mosque. He shows them the post office. In her mind Dini can see a vision of Dolly buying a string of jasmine flowers to put in her hair, or leading some kind of procession, or collecting funds on behalf of orphaned children. Every single one of those places could be a Dolly backdrop, even the post office. Maybe especially the post office, with its red mailbox that looks like an oversize fire hydrant. Dolly could dance around that, all twinkling toes and chan-chan-chan ankle bells. But in reality, sad to say, Dolly is not actually doing any of this at this moment.
The van turns onto a red dirt road and jerks to a stop outside a gate. Dad lowers the window and says something. At first Dini thinks her father is talking to himself. Then she sees that he’s talking to a man sitting by the road, chewing on a bit of grass.
It turns out the man’s name is Sampy, which sounds like a happy kind of name, only he isn’t. He should have been named Grumpy. It seems that no one has told him Dini’s family is arriving, and he likes to be able to plan his day.
“Is this it?” Dini asks. “Are we there?”
Mom beams at her. Oh, right. She can’t hear.
On both sides of the van are fields full of green bushes, with houses scattered about between them. “Tea-gardens,” Veeran says. “Houses are rented out, but Sunny Villa Estates is still a working tea-garden. Mr. Chickoo Dev, of Dev Tea, is the owner.” Dini can only think, What a great place for a movie shoot!
Sampy takes a key off a giant key ring and gives it gloomily to Dad. Then the van is bumping along once more. Dini looks back over the pile of luggage to see Sampy closing the gate and going back to sitting on the side of the road, chewing on his bit of grass.
The van stops in front of a brick-red house. Veeran gets down to open the gate.
“Another gate?” says Dini.
“That one was just the starting gate,” Dad says.
“What?” says Dini, digging her missing sandal out from under a bag on the floor of the van.
“Joke,” says Dad. “Like a starting gate at a racetrack?”
“This isn’t a racetrack,” Dini points out, putting on the sandal.
“A movie clapboard, then,” Dad says. “You know, those black and white things they clank together when they say—”
“Take one!” Dini cries. At last Dad has found nifty words that make sense. “I didn’t know that’s what they were called.”
“Yes indeed. Clapboard,” says Dad happily.
This is it. Take one.
“Welcome to Sunny Villa Estates, cottage number six,” says Dad.
Dini opens the door of the van and steps out. The moment her feet touch the sloping concrete driveway, a wave of sleep hits her. Jet lag—she forgot how awful it is. She stands there, swaying a little. To her dazed eyes it seems the house is moving too, in a slightly nauseating way. She expects tree branches to move in this manner, but not a house.
Dini clutches at her nice green and silver scarf that she is wearing for good luck. The house steadies itself. Its little upstairs windows with funny-looking shutters give it a blinky look.
Veeran and Dad unload the baggage. While they get the door open, Dini sits down on the front step and puts her head in her hands because it suddenly feels heavy, as if her neck will no longer support it.
Mom folds some rupee notes into Veeran’s hand, and he nods his thanks and gets back into the Qualis. He’ll be here the next day, he says, to take Mom to the clinic. She protests, but he will have none of it. He intends to transport her here and there and back again, at least until she gets used to the way things work in Swapnagiri. “It is my job,” he insists, and seems to take it seriously.
“Mom,” Dini says, “do you think I could get to meet her?”
Mom looks up. She rubs her stuffy ear and breathes deeply, as if hoping that will fix it. She says, “I know. I can’t believe it either.”
“Dolly,” Dini says, forming the words very clearly and slowly on the off chance that Mom has begun to read lips. “You think she’s really here?”
“Who would have thought it?” says Mom. “Pure good luck. The best kind of coincidence.”
“That’s just it,” Dini says. “We’re here, and so is Dolly.”
Mom smiles at her the way that grown-ups do when they think their kid, whom they raised and love, is cute, but they are really thinking about something else. “Daddy had trouble finding a house at first,” Mom explains. “And this one just happened to become available for rent.”
Oh. She’s talking about the house.
Soon Mom is on the cell phone calling the clinic. “Hello? Yes, it’s Dr. Kumaran. We just got here. . . . I’m sorry, my ear is all blocked up, what did you say?”
Dini leaves her to it.
Dad is sharing quiet time with his laptop. Dini asks him, “Daddy, do you think it’s coincidence that we’re here and Dolly’s here too?”
Dad looks up. “Ah, an existential question,” he says happily. He rubs his hands, which usually means he is going to say something very long that may or may not make much sense. “It depends, I think, on how you look at it.” He adds some rambling comments about randomness and patterns and mathematical probability, and some other things he seems to care deeply about.
“Is all that for real?” she says.
“Is bubble gum pink?” says Dad cheerfully. “Does your teddy bear have ears?”
“Bubble gum’s not always pink,” Dini points out reasonably, “and it’s a bunny, not a bear.” Her parents sometimes forget she’s not in kindergarten any more. Maddie has that exact same problem with her mom. Being a kid in a grown-up world is, as Dad might say, no bowl of mangoes.
Maddie. “Can I call Maddie?” Dini says. She likes the thought of coincidence being more than just random chance. It sounds promising, the kind of thing that turns script potential into script only (as they say in the filmi world). She thinks, This is all like a script, and I could make it work that way. Maddie and me, we could work together to make this movie happen. The Dini Meets Dolly movie, sometimes also known as the Life Becomes Perfect When You Work at It movie. A creative project, that’s what filmi people would call this.
So what if Swapnagiri is far from Takoma Park? There’s the phone and e-mail and . . .
Dad looks at his watch. “It’s now three a.m. in Maryland,” he says. “I don’t think Maddie’s mother will appreciate a phone call at this time.”
In filmi terms, Dini can see there are all kinds of problems when you are directing a creative project with someone and your codirector is halfway around the world from you. She pulls out her stripy green notebook and quickly writes: “Coincidence.” She adds a question mark. She likes the look of it and adds two more.
Now that she is here in this Dream Mountain place, Dini can see that it is up to her to listen-listen, look-look, and find Dolly Singh—which she will, she is sure of it, just as soon as she
can stop falling
asleep.
She is in a white van that is driving backward really fast, and she is yelling at the driver to stop-stop-stop because there is someone there, dancing through rows and rows of tea bushes and she has to find out who it is.
It is. Of course it is. It is Dolly in a new movie, newer even than MJTJ.
It’s just before the close-up, one in which Dolly’s face is all dreamy-beautiful and floaty and she’s wearing those sparkly silver earrings. If only this crazy driver would stop, Dini could get out and see. It’s a test, she figures. If she can just move quickly enough, she’ll get there.
She’ll go up to Dolly, who’s stamping her feet and snapping her fingers, with the bangles on her arms going chan-chan-chan. She’ll catch up with her. Dolly will turn in surprise and look right at Dini, her superdevoted fan.
Dini will say—
“Stop!” Dini yells. “Stop!” She opens her eyes to a thunderous knocking. Someone is hammering on the front door.
Chapter
Twelve
Sorry to Inform
COOLED BY THE SHADE of a spreading tree just outside the grounds of the Blue Mountain School (a very fine school indeed—a school to which everyone coming to Swapnagiri wishes to send their children), a man stretches out peacefully under a clear blue sky.
The man is a goatherd. Naturally, his goats mill around him, cropping the grass.
Nearby a low, broad-leafed plant is putting out purple buds. This is no ordinary plant. It is the kurinji plant, and the goatherd knows that it is a sign of great good luck. This beautiful purply blue flower, for which these mountains are named, blooms only once every twelve years.
The goatherd is just beginning to daydream about the good luck that this flowering will bring him. A little money, perhaps—why not?—will come to him as a result of this good luck. Maybe he can move up from goats to a cow or two. Then he can sell the milk and buy some chickens. Their eggs will no doubt be appreciated by that nice Mr. Mani who runs a very fine bakery on Blue Mountain Road. Those fresh eggs will make Mr. Mani’s cakes even richer and finer than they are now. The goatherd sighs in delight at the thought that the eggs from his yet-to-be-bought chickens are giving so much happiness.
With the money from the sale of the eggs—
A most distressing sound interrupts this lovely stream of thought. It makes the goatherd sit bolt upright and wonder in dismay if his dream has turned into a nightmare.
There it comes again.
And again.
It is an unmistakable sound. It is the sound of someone screaming.
The goatherd leaps up, grabs his cloth bundle, and glances around him fearfully. Who could that be?
The Blue Mountain School is closed for the summer, so who could possibly be lurking in one of those many buildings on the school grounds? And not just lurking peacefully and quietly, but screaming.
Is it a ghost? Kurinji flower or no kurinji flower, the goatherd is taking no chances. He hurries his precious animals off to find a better grazing spot.
Who can blame him? Any sensible person hearing that scream would want to get as far away from it as possible. It was that kind of scream.
Screams of this nature are best heard in a movie theater, when the heroine of a three-hour filmi epic has just reached the point of deep distress. In a movie theater, the audience understands. They even sympathize. They may find themselves getting misty-eyed, waiting for the story to turn and sprint to a hopeful scene, an easing of tension, a resolution of the crisis. In fact, they have almost certainly plunked down their handfuls of rupees in order to see the story proceed at a hurtling gallop toward its joyful finish.
But a scream, just by itself, with no story to match—what is the use of that?
Life, however, is so often not what it seems. The goatherd does not know this, but that scream does have a story to go with it. Quite a story, in fact.
The person whose screams have just demonstrated the most excellent capacity of her lungs has just received a letter. She has read it from salutation to signature. In fact, she has read it three times, in her room in the Blue Mountain School guesthouse.
The person in question is in that room because she has been offered temporary refuge and haven there by her good friend Meena, who admires her greatly and who also happens to be the principal of this fine school.
The screamer reads the letter over and over. But no matter how often she casts her desperate eyes over it, it still says the same thing.
June 13, 2010
Dear Ms. Singh,
We are very sorry to inform you that Starlite Studios will not be renewing your contract with us, due to a certain falling-out that you have had with our major sponsor and most generous patron, the respected Mr. Chickoo Dev, of Dev Tea (Private) Limited, who was going to permit us to film on his estate without charge simply as a big favor to you. We think you know the falling-out to which we refer.
Now, of course, he has changed his mind. So we must likewise advise you that we are changing ours. You may consider that this project has been, as we say in the business, indefinitely shelved.
Yours truly,
S. Dustup
President and CEO Starlite Studios
P.S. You called him a potato nose.
Chapter Thirteen
Read Between the Smudges
June 17, 2010
Meena darling,
I am sending this by Speed Post so it gets to you before you leave. Sampy stops by every now and then, very kindly, to make sure I am comfortable, so I’ ll ask him to post it for me.
I know you told me I could stay here while you were in Australia and I was visiting a certain person in this town who shall remain nameless. Visiting him with great hopes for happiness, no less. But I’m writing to ask you if I can stay longer.
How long? I don’t know. How long does it take to mend a broken heart?
I am distraught. And devastated.
It all began with an argument. Go to the city because of a noise in the car? Or stay home and listen to music and watch a beautiful restored copy of that lovely old movie Shree 420 that I got with my own two hands straight from the studio office in Bombay? With that song in it that is iconic, I tell you, simply iconic. “Mera joota hai japani” . . . that one. Brings tears to my eyes just thinking of it, makes me proud to be Indian, I tell you.
I know, I know, it seems like a small thing, but it was just the beginning.
At any rate there is now no more engagement. I threw the ring out of the car. No use groaning. It’s done. I tell you, it felt good. I listened to see if it hit a rock or not but that stupid car was making such a racket it could have shattered a window of some house down the hill and I wouldn’t have heard a thing.
I hope it fell into a pile of cow dung. No, I don’t. I have been crying ever since. Now look. I’ve cried all over this letter. And I’m too tired to write it again, so you will have to read between the smudges.
The thing is, I can’t stand the thought of going back to Bombay. Because—mirchi on a wound, I tell you—Soli’s pulling out of the project. So not only my happiness is gone but my career also.
Hugs and kisses to you and your children and grandchildren. Did they really get to see my movies in Australia? What a thrill. I am so blessed to have such a good friend as you.
Love,
Dolly
Chapter Fourteen
Swapnagiri Post Office
“SPEED POST TO AUSTRALIA?” says Ramanna the postal carrier in astonishment. “I have never heard of such a thing.”
“It is possible,” says the Swapnagiri postmaster, pushing his glasses up his nose and squinting at the letter that has just been presented to him by a man with a single beetling eyebrow. “Yes, I think I know how to process that. Let me see. . . .” He pulls his fat green regulations notebook off the shelf. “Yes, there it is. Item number fifty-six under instruction number 375 b (i) c.”
The man pays and leaves, entrusting the letter to the care of the Swapnagiri postmaster.
“So much money?” says Ramanna, picking up the envelope and tallying up the cost of the stamps. “It costs that many hundreds of rupees to send Speed Post items to foreign countries? Waste, waste.”
“It’s their wish, if they want to pay,” the postmaster points out.
A mild rebuke, but Ramanna is too busy fuming at the thought. “How will it get there?” he demands.
“There is such a thing as a plane,” the postmaster reminds him.
“Terrible, loud things,” says Ramanna. He watches while the postmaster shows him the correct forms to complete so that the fat letter with the curiously smudgy handwritten address can be sent to Australia superfast, so it can travel thousands of miles and over the ocean, and yet arrive in just a couple of days.
He remains unconvinced. “Where is the need for so much hurry-burry, I say?” says Ramanna.
Chapter Fifteen
Monkeys
DINI SEEMS TO HAVE SLEPT for half a day and a whole night, because it is now
morning. Mom has gone to the clinic already.
“But it’s Saturday,” Dini says, rolling herself out of bed.
“Not yet,” Dad says. “It’s Friday. And anyway, Saturday’s a working day here.”
“I thought moving to India was supposed to be fun,” Dini says. This is no fun at all.
The someone who hammered on the front door and woke Dini up was Sampy the watchman. He brought candles, and Dad is now putting one in every room in the house.
“Why candles?” Dini asks.
“In case the electricity goes off,” says Dad.
“Will it?” Dini turns the faucet on.
Dad waves his arms around in a who-knows kind of way and plunks a candle down on the desk in Dini’s room.
But the electricity is not the thing that has gone. The faucet squawks at Dini. “Hey, what happened to the water?” she says.
“We had to shut it off,” Dad says. “I’m going up on the roof to see what’s up.”
“Why?” Dini says, but he’s gone already. People are zipping in and out of scenes like clueless extras instead of the major actors they are.
Forget showering and brushing teeth. Dini changes quickly. She tucks her green notebook and pen into the pocket of her jeans and goes down to the kitchen. She peels herself one of those tiny bananas just like the ones she saw on that cart when they drove through the market. She eats it. She is not going to be zipping around. She has things to think about.
She is just peeling another banana when thumping and shouting noises break out on the roof. With a sigh, Dini takes a bite of the tiny fruit—the whole thing is only two bites—and goes out to see what is happening. She climbs the ladder that goes up the side of the house, leading to the rooftop. Dad is up there waving his arms. “What are you doing?” Dini says.
The Grand Plan To Fix Everything Page 4