The Indian immigrant experience – Bollywood esh-tyle!

In Edison, our hero Prem is challenged to explain “What is good about Hindi movies?” It’s not something he has thought about – to a devotee, they just are. Pondering the question, he comes up with

They crammed it all in – romance, comedy, drama, suspense, action, international teleportation, song, dance – creating a glamorous spectacle, a singular genre, “the masala film,” a big, spicy mix. They celebrated Kathak’s graceful aerobic choreography and preserved an Urdu-Hindi mix of poetic language that might otherwise fade. Even when unrealistic, they expressed reality, transmitting the agony and ache of problematic love.

Pallavi Sharma Dixit’s Edison is all that (okay, maybe not the Kathak dance bit) and more. The more? It’s Fun, with a capital F, and laugh-out-loud funny. I’ve longed for Indian-American writing that doesn’t forget that our immigrant experience can be, was, fun, even hilarious. Maybe not in the moment, or in those initial years of struggle and fitting in, but, like a Bollywood masala movie, in between the tears and fears there was laughter and camaraderie. In Edison, Dixit delivers that side of desi life in spades.

Edison, New Jersey –

Between 1990 and 2000, the Indian population in New Jersey more than doubled to 169,180; in the same period, the Indian population in Edison nearly tripled to almost 17,000….Edison was the name that became synonymous among expatriate Indians with a homeland in America.

In our story, Prem — Prem Kumar, son of the head of an Indian conglomerate (one that sounds suspiciously like a real one) — whiles away his days watching Hindi movies. Movies connect him to his late mother, with whom he spent afternoons watching movies, until her last breath. In 1986, when his father asks, if not marriage or the family business, what, Prem blurts out he wants to make a movie. But, after an unfortunate encounter with the Bombay Bollywood mafia, a dejected Prem returns home. When questioned again by his father about his plans, inspired by a Hindi movie in which the hero is an ‘America Return,’ Prem says there’s work in a movie in New York and off he goes, thinking what could go wrong in America?

Prem’s first few hours in the US establish a pattern – the Indian guys who receive him at JFK Airport rob him of almost all his money, but, a kind, turbaned cab driver takes him to King’s Court Estates, an apartment complex in Edison,

…a miraculous place where young and middle-aged sari- and shalwar-clad women assembled on concrete steps with large platters to shell peas, and the din of at least three Hindi movies emanated from any given building on any given afternoon, their spangling soundtracks spilling out from beneath doors to give King’s Court the air of the mother continent.

Prem becomes a paying guest like several other desi guys there, not all as unlucky as Prem, but close. His father, knowing there was no movie in New York, cuts Prem off. Prem hides his wealthy family background from his roommates and neighbors and, running out of money, he takes up a job as a gas station attendant, earning the moniker Petrol Pumpwalla. Time passes, with Prem yo-yo’ing between near-disaster and being rescued by the generosity of what would become his new family – the motley crew of lovable Indians in his new home, Indians dreaming of success, becoming business owners,

Between 1982 and 1987, the number of Indian-owned businesses in America had increased 120 percent, and the Indians flooding King’s Court were gearing up to join the action. These were not the doctors and engineers who had come…in previous waves. They were the waiters, the taxi drivers, the Burger King cashiers, and the jobless, who discovered that King’s Court did not offer the glamorous American apartments about which they had dreamed.

The only bright spot in Prem’s life comes when he slips and falls into an orange puddle of broken Gold Spot cold drink bottles and sees Leena, soon-to-be love of his life.

His breath caught in his chest and he thought he might vomit. It was love-induced Hindi movie nausea…Prem’s heart pounded in his chest. The bustle of the store…became muted, and the movie soundtrack was the only sound left… Suddenly, she was wearing a sky-blue sari and running toward him on a snowy mountaintop…he, too, was running in a matching leisure suit.

Impressed by Prem’s cleaning skills, Hemant, father of Leena and desi grocery store owner, hires Prem part-time. Miraculously, Leena too is interested in Prem and their love story begins – love notes surreptitiously left under a bottle of oil in the store and Prem moving into Leena’s apartment after she convinces her father to take in a renter. When it’s time to get Hemant’s blessings for marriage, in a typical Hindi movie twist, the father throws up an obstacle – Prem must first earn $1million (and $1). Hemant won’t give his daughter to someone who reeks of petrol and sleeps under bags of onions. Prem accepts the condition and embarks on a series of get-rich-quick ventures, only to be duped by his desi brethren. More than once. Adding to his misery, Leena, furious at both Prem and her father, leaves for Minnesota to stay with relatives. When she returns to Edison, Prem learns Leena is engaged to someone with more potential, a doctor. Almost broke, Prem sinks lower and lower into misery, watching more and more movies. He copes by starting a ledger in which he lists conversations he would have had with Leena, starting with the essentials:

  1. Did you see Tezaab?
  2. Isn’t Chi-Chi’s spicy salsa and chips quite good?
  3. How do you think the fried ice cream is made?

Prem lives to catch a glimpse of engaged-but-not-yet married Leena – around King’s Court, at social gatherings, at the Pizza Hut. No closer to earning the $1 million (and $1) and not interested in marrying anyone else, but lonely, Prem scans Indian matrimonial ads for companionship. He begins dating women who haven’t found a match, for the usual desi reasons – too old, too divorced, too not-attractive, too uneducated. It’s a win-win situation; Prem has a new audience for his unrequited love story and the women? They don’t want to marry either and don’t mind the friendship of the witty and handsome-like-Shashi-Kapoor Prem. Ultimately, these women turn out to have ‘connections’ that contribute to Prem’s success as an entertainment organizer. The idea comes to him while watching a Hindi movie (of course), that “light-bulb moment,”

In his mind, a grand glittering vision unfolded for an astonishing enterprise…Prem conceived the idea to start a company to produce lavish stage shows featuring Hindi movie stars…They could each perform their numbers…When Sridevi, Madhuri Dixit, and Juhi Chawla came out, the crowd would go wild…the Kapoors…would bring an element of sophistication to the event.

There would be special effects, magnificent lighting, a screen showing scenes from movies…If he could pull off such a program, it would be unlike anything the Indians in America – or Indians anywhere – had ever witnessed.”

But, first, Prem has to learn how one actually starts a business. With the help of Edison’s desi business owners, friends with Bollywood connections and funding provided by aforementioned Bombay-based mafia and its overseas ‘agent,’ hired to ensure on-time repayments (or else…), Prem’s venture is a mega-hit. Years later, Prem would be featured in the New York Times as,

…a highly successful show-business entrepreneur whose company, Superstar Entertainment, has been putting on elaborate stage productions featuring Indian film stars since 1990. The flashy, Vegas-esque shows play out to sold-out audiences at increasingly grand venues, the latest of which will take place…at the Nassau Coliseum.

Prem, afraid of failing and often his own worst enemy had found his niche – “this thing called Bollywood.”

And what a thing it was. He’d given himself over to it time and time again – in the Delhi movie halls, at Mehboob Studios in Bombay, and, at long last, in Edison through Superstar Entertainment, forged from nothing but his measureless worship of the films. The shows were his ode to the genre, and he had succeeded, he felt, honoring the movies’ magic, their grace and rowdiness, their charm and untamed emotion, their poetry.

Years pass, Prem is a huge success and still pining for Leena; Leena is an entrepreneur in her own right and still engaged. Each has kept tabs on the other through the grapevine. As in any good (and bad) Hindi film, the climax is spectacular – Prem and Leena are reunited after the requisite medical emergency; there are regrets and misunderstandings – the latter cleared up with the help of a who’s who’s of Bollywood A-listers, leading to a grand musical filmi finale in King’s Court.

The author grew up in Edison and watched its Indian American community and businesses grow. Many of the events track closely with reality, such as the racist attacks by ‘Dotbusters’ in the late ‘80s, the backlash against South Asians after 9/11, the Indian American community banding together, and its political engagement and growth as a critical constituency. Against this real background, Dixit brings her fictional characters to life, so much so, I felt I was there watching the films with the residents of King’s Court or at the Dairy Queen turned Dosa Corner with friends. Even at its most unbelievable, like, the mega-star Amitabh Bachchan having a conversation with Prem, as he pumped gas, about why Indians add a ‘1’ to things, part of me thought, yeah right. Then again, I dunno, it could have happened…in Edison.

Ultimately, it was the little touches that made me fall in love with Edison. From the title ‘Edison’ written in Hindi on the book jacket and front hard cover and the film poster-like book jacket, to the (I thought) long-forgotten minutiae of desi life – how we used to scan the white pages for Indian names, especially in smaller towns (if no desis were spotted at the Kmart, as Dixit writes) and wall art in desi apartments (of that era) – “…framed portraits of clowns, needlepoint sailboats, a gaggle of plastic ducks captured midflight.”

I also liked how the author inserted (fictional) newspaper articles to describe events in the Indian community and in both Prem’s and Leena’s businesses. Without taking away any details or the dead-pan humor – the ‘articles,’ move the story forward, efficiently. Late in the book, there is finally a chapter giving Leena’s point-of-view. Like a flashback in a Hindi movie, Leena reminisces about her life after Prem accepted her father’s million (and one) dollar challenge. So caught up in Prem’s dramas, I didn’t realize until then that we hadn’t heard how Leena felt or about her life in those 12 or so years apart from Prem. There is also a somewhat poignant chapter devoted to the Bombay goon, Wristwatch, sent to Edison to threaten Prem.

Was there anything about Edison I didn’t like? Just one thing – the description of librarians as “unassuming and mostly silent.” Harrumph.

Initially, I wondered how the book would read to a non-Indian audience, what with the many, many references to Hindi movies and songs. 105 (give or take) Hindi films are mentioned, some more than once, and I can proudly (?) say, I’ve seen all but 11, at least once (7 of those I chose not to watch). Perhaps this added a layer of enjoyment, but once into the book, it didn’t matter – the story, the humor, the characters – all transcend cultural experience. Prem, the insecure yet lovable hero, and Leena, the fiercely independent-minded ‘good’ daughter are both so likable. The sideys – Prem’s friends, philosophers and guides – Indian or not, we all know them. This bunch, the dilapidated yet ‘homey’ King’s Court took me back to college – old apartments and rooming houses, a mafia-like desi overlord who decided which of us was worthy of renting a room, the mish-mash of inter-regional desi cuisine and conversation, watching Hindi movies all night, sympathetically listening to a heart-broken or homesick friend. Thankfully, most of us didn’t reek of gasoline or sleep under bags of onions.

That Edison tracks so closely with the timeline of my own desi life, well, that’s just, sone pe suhaga – the glitter of (on) gold, icing on the cake. I was 11 when I first went to a Little India. I was awed by a mini India in the US – complete with elderly men in white pajamas and the bright red of paan spittle on the sidewalk. For decades, India vacations began with a day of gift shopping in sari stores and 220-volt appliance shops. Years later, Little India was about our own wants and needs – filmi music and movies, bags of salty snacks, the nostalgia of Parle-G biscuits and the samagiri (items) required for wedding and funeral rituals. I was in line in 1974 for the opening of the first desi movie hall in Chicago, featuring Bobby; when desi movie theaters came back in the 1990s, thanks to Yash Chopra’s films catering to the diaspora – my friends and I were there practically every Saturday night. And, like a side-plot out of a book, there was even movie-war between competing desi theater-owners – one convinced the distributor to block new releases to other; no problem – the other screened golden oldies for $1.

And, Bollywood star shows – I was thrilled Prem found his calling in these; I can’t remember how many I attended in the 1990s – they blur together now – my friends and I dressed in almost- wedding-like finery (I would later cringe at the amount of sparkly thread and sequins). And, as described in Edison, if you knew the right people, you too could greet Amitabh Bachchan at the airport, like my aunt did. Sadly, my only brush with star show organizers yielded no meet-and-greet with movie stars, just a seat in the VIP section.

Edison pays homage to the many original Little Indias in the US and to those who had a hand in establishing them – Houston’s Hillcroft Blvd., Chicago’s Devon St., LA’s Pioneer Blvd, to name a few. I’m thrilled that this immigrant experience has been showcased with such affection and most of all, humor. And, for any Prem Kumars out there now (or Ms. Dixit), I have two words: web series.

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