My So-Called Bollywood Life(59)

He shrugged. “You never know until you try. Anyway, I must go, but I wish you the best of luck, Vaneeta Mehta. Follow your heart. Oh, and those dreams you’ve been having? Maybe they can lead you to help with your problem.”

Before she could ask how he knew about her dreams, he’d shut down the monitor with a wave. Winnie pulled down the screen of her laptop and collapsed against her pillows.

“Pandit Ohmi strikes again,” she said. Well, he’d made her feel better about her situation, which she guessed was a good thing.

Since she didn’t think she was getting any more sleep, she walked over to her DVD library and looked for some of her favorites. She had other things she could do, like write a new blog post or finish up her paper for advanced European film studies, but she didn’t think she was going to be productive.

    Winnie ran a finger along the thin spines until she found Baazigar. She pulled it off the shelf and examined the image of Shah Rukh Khan. She thought about the premise of the movie and remembered one of the most famous lines that came out of the film:

Sometimes you need to lose something to win something. Someone who wins something by losing is called a gambler.

“Film festival…,” she said out loud. “Pandit Ohmi said…holy baby Shah Rukh Khan.”

Winnie dropped the movie as the idea formed in her brain. It was three in the morning. She couldn’t wake up her mom and dad to ask them for help. They’d kill her. Who else was there?

“Of course,” Winnie said, and grinned.

She opened her bedroom door and peeked outside. The hallway was dark save for the one night-light. After tiptoeing past her parents’ room, she reached the last door at the end of the hallway and pushed it open. Moonlight filtered through the curtains, and in the shadows she saw a lump in the middle of the bed. The sound of loud snoring filled the room.

“Nani?” she whispered. She nudged her grandmother in the side. “Hey, Nani?”

Her grandmother grunted, but didn’t move.

    Winnie repeated herself, louder this time.

“Haan,” Nani said with an irritated growl.

“Nani, wake up. I need to talk to you,” Winnie said.

“Winnie?” she said. “What’s wrong?”

Winnie switched on the light.

Her grandmother’s hair was pointing in all directions. Her hot pink paisley nightgown with white lace trim contrasted with the emerald-green blanket.

“What happened?”

“Nani, we need to talk. I spoke with Pandit Ohmi again, and I have a plan to fix everything.”

Nani looked up at her, squinting. “Okay…”

“You have to help me,” she said.

Her grandmother sat up slowly and absently ran a hand down Winnie’s back. “You want to do this now?”

“I’m going to have to tell Mom and Dad eventually, but I need a team huddle before they wake up. It’s important.”

Nani nodded. She swayed for a moment, then yawned. “Beta, I’m not as young as I used to be. Why don’t you put the chai on downstairs?” She opened her bedside table, took out a flask, and handed it to Winnie. “I’m not going to have chai in the middle of the night without my medicine. I won’t get back to sleep.”

Winnie looked down at the pink flask covered in red rosebuds. She shook her head and took it with her downstairs. One thing was certain: her plans were going to be a lot more interesting now that Nani was involved.



* * *



—

    Winnie knew that Dev wouldn’t be working the same shift as hers on Saturday. If she’d been in his position, she’d have avoided herself, too. She hoped she was wrong, but when she reached the movie theater that afternoon, Eric was running the ticket booth himself.

“Dev is sick,” he said. “You willing to help after splicing the last reel?”

“Yeah, sure. It’s great that you work with your own film so much.”

He stepped into the lobby. “Listen, about that. Winnie, I was talking to the boys, and I think that I’m going to start going digital after all. I know that I hired you a few months ago, but I won’t need someone to splice film anymore. You’ll still have a job, though. Just in a different role. I’m so sorry—”

“No!” Winnie said, holding up her hands to stop him. “I mean, no, don’t start apologizing. I’m happy I get to still work here. And going digital is great.”

“Wait, you’re not upset?”

“No, not at all! This is going to be good for you. Wait…you’re going digital. Oh my God.” She stepped forward and rested her palms against his shoulders. “Eric, please tell me you’re going digital before next week.”

“Uh, I ordered the projectors already. They should be here by then. Why?”

“There are moments in Bollywood movies where a character realizes their mistake and tries to fix it, usually through a montage. I need your help for my montage. But first I have to talk to Henry. Is he here?”

    Eric pointed toward the stairs leading to the projection room. She patted his shoulders and rushed off to find the one person who might be able to help her pull off her crazy plan.

When she entered the projection room, Henry was working on putting back together a platter tower that held the reels.