“Do you need a driver?”
“It appears I do.”
“Where are you going?”
I recall the address from the immigration forms I just filled out in triplicate. “The Bombay Royale. In Colaba. Do you know it?”
He gives his head a half nod, half shake that isn’t exactly reassuring. “I take you there.”
“Are you a driver?”
He wags his head again. “Where is your suitcase?”
I point to the small rucksack on my back.
He laughs. “Like Kurma.”
“The food?”
“No. That is korma. Kurma is one of Vishnu’s incarnations, a tortoise, carries his home on his back. But if you like korma, I can show you a good place.”
The boy introduces himself as Prateek and then confidently threads us through the crowd past the airport garage and to a dusty lot. On one side are the runways, the other, high-rise buildings and even higher cranes, swinging in the wind. Prateek locates the car—something that back home might be called vintage, but when I compliment it, he makes a face and tells me it belongs to his uncle and one day, he will buy his own car, a good one made abroad, a Renault, or a Ford, not a Maruti or a Tata. He pays the skinny dusty boy who was guarding the car a few coins and opens the backseat. I toss my rucksack there and try to open the front door. Prateek tells me to wait, and with a complicated sequence of rattles and twists, opens it from the inside, sweeping a pile of magazines from the passenger seat.
The car shudders to life and the little brass statue cemented to the dash—a tiny elephant with a sort of smile of the perpetually amused—starts to dance.
“Ganesha,” Prateek says. “Remover of obstacles.”
“Where were you last month?” I ask the statue.
“He was right here,” Prateek answers solemnly.
We drive out of the airport complex, past a bunch of ramshackle houses, before climbing onto an elevated expressway. I tilt my head out the window. It’s pleasantly hot, but not as hot as it will be, Prateek warns. It’s still winter; it will get warmer until the monsoons come in June.
As we drive, Prateek points out landmarks. A famous temple. A spidery suspension bridge crossing Mahim Bay. “Many Bollywood stars live in this area. Closer to the studios, which are near the airport.” He thumbs behind us. “Though some live in Juhu Beach, and some in Malabar Hill. Some even in Colaba where you are staying. Taj Mahal Hotel is there. Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Roger Moore, Double-Oh Seven. Also American presidents all stayed there.”
Traffic starts to back up. We slow down and Ganesha stops his dance. “What is your favorite movie?” Prateek asks me.
“Hard to pick just one.”
“What is the last movie you saw?”
I flipped through a half dozen of them on the flights over, but was too antsy to focus on any one. I suppose the last movie I watched in full was Pandora’s Box. That was the movie that started it all, that led to the disastrous trip to Mexico, which funnily enough, has now landed me here. Lulu. If she was far away before, she’s farther now. Not one but two oceans between us now.
“Never heard of that movie,” Prateek says, wagging his head. “My favorite movie of the last year is a tie. Gangs of Wasseypur. Thriller. And London, Paris, New York. Do you know how many films Hollywood studios produce a year?”
“No idea.”
“Take a guess.”
“A thousand.”
He frowns. “I speak of the studios, not an amateur with a camera. One thousand, that would be impossible.”
“A hundred?”
His smile flips on like a switch. “Wrong! Four hundred. Now do you know how many films Bollywood produces a year? I won’t make you guess because you will be wrong.” He pauses for dramatic effect. “Eight hundred!”
“Eight hundred,” I repeat because it’s clear he thinks the number warrants repeating.