From Twinkle, With Love(83)
Sincerely,
Melanie Stone
New Artists Division
Colorado Arts Organization
719-555-5655
June 28, 6:02 a.m.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Dear Twinkle Mehra,
Your movie caught our attention here at WKBR Colorado Springs. We would like to invite you to our show to talk to our audience about what led you to make this movie, and the message you were trying to convey.
If you’re interested, please e-mail us back or call us at your earliest convenience.
Thank you,
Richard Wells
WKBR Production Assistant
719-555-7889
June 28, 8:44 a.m.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Hi, Twinkle!
It was fantastic to see your video from the festival at your school. Here at Just Sixteen magazine, we’re always looking for new talent, and yours shines! We would love for you to write an article, 800–1,000 words, about what led to you taking the initiative to direct a movie for the festival. We’d love something personal and fun!
If you’re interested, please e-mail us back. Compensation will be about $1/word. We hope to be working with you soon!
Sincerely,
Jamie Auburn
Arts Editor
Just Sixteen magazine
212-555-4321
Twenty-Five
Sunday, June 28
My room
Dear Twinkle Mehra of the future,
Hold on to this moment. You’ll want to remember how you feel. You’ll want to remember every tiny detail.
Right now you have eighty-eight e-mails in your in-box, all from people congratulating you on a job well done or people wanting to have you on to their shows or magazines or papers—people who want to hear what you have to say. People who think your thoughts are worthwhile. Your YouTube subscriber count is at three hundred and sixteen, and growing. Only a very small percentage are porn bots, and Dadi has promised she did not make any more accounts.
Just when you were still reeling from all the admiring words and gushing praise, unable to believe they were all for you, for your art, which you’ve worked at so tirelessly for so long, the doorbell rang. It was Sahil, who grinned gleefully and had you call your parents and Dadi into the living room.
When everyone was assembled, he handed you an e-mail he’d printed out, which is stapled below.
June 28, 1:32 a.m.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Dear Dr. Ajit Roy,
Your colleague, Dr. Faizal Ahmed, passed on the video directed by Twinkle Mehra. We here at the Mumbai Young Filmmakers Council are all in agreement that Miss Mehra possesses the unique ability to truly transform her characters on-screen in such a way as to spellbind her audience. Her mastery of camera angles and lighting, too, is rare in an individual of her age.
Due to her supreme skill in the arena of filmmaking, it is our honor to extend an invitation to Miss Mehra. We would love it if she could come to our facility here in Mumbai and give a talk on her experiences being a young Indian-American filmmaker in the States. We feel this would be of great value to the members of our institution, and Miss Mehra might benefit from meeting other young filmmakers as well.
Dr. Ahmed has informed us of her family situation, and therefore, we would like to also invite her parents and grandmother to be part of this event. All travel and accommodation expenses will be covered by us if the Mehra family can get their visas in order.
Thank you very much for bringing Miss Mehra and her work to our attention.
Sincerely,
Rachana Deshpande, Director of Events
The Mumbai Young Filmmakers Council
Future Twinkle, your hands shook as you finished reading the e-mail. And then you looked up at Sahil, who was beaming at you like he was filled with a thousand stars or maybe like he was the moon.
“What …? You did this?” you asked, your voice husky.
He nodded. “But I couldn’t have done it if you hadn’t blown everyone away with that movie.”
“Arey, yeh sab kya hai?” Dadi said, brandishing her rolling pin around at you and Sahil.
You handed her the letter and then said, “What’s happening, Dadi, is we’re going to Mumbai. We’re going to Mumbai, Mummy. You’ll get to go home again.”
There was utter chaos for a full minute as everyone talked over everyone else, and information was exchanged.
Mumbai.
Airplane fare covered.
Mumbai.
Yes, we’re going.
Yes, all of us.
Mummy stepped forward and hugged you, her grip so tight it left bruises on your shoulders. But you didn’t care. Because when she pulled back, her eyes were swimming in tears. “Thank you, beta,” she whispered, her hands on your cheeks. “Thank you.”
She didn’t say much else, but she didn’t need to. You heard it all anyway.
Papa clapped and hugged you, while Dadi—well, Dadi began prancing around the living room until you were afraid she would break a hip. But she only laughed when you told her that. “I knew it, Twinkle!” she crowed, holding her rolling pin above her head in a victory dance. “I knew it! Chandrashekhar told me there would be travel in our future and that you would be the catalyst!” And then she swept you up and danced with you up and down the living room.