Not a few of those dreams were my own. I'd hired the girls and the musicians, not knowing what kind of show they'd planned to put on for Prabaker's wedding. Chandra Mehta had recommended them to me, and he'd assured me that they always devised their own program. That first black-market money deal Mehta had asked me to transact-the ten thousand American dollars he'd wanted-had borne black fruit. Through him I'd met others in the film world who wanted gold, dollars, and documents. In the previous few months, my visits to the film studios had grown more frequent, and the profit for Khaderbhai accumulated steadily. There was a certain reciprocal cachet in the connection: the filmi types, as they were known in Bollywood, found it exhilarating to be associated, at a safe distance, with the notorious mafia don, and the Khan himself wasn't indifferent to the glamour that laminated the movie world. When I approached Chandra Mehta for help in organising the dancers, two weeks before Prabaker's wedding, he'd assumed that the Prabaker in question was an important goonda working for Khaderbhai. He put time and special care into the arrangements, selecting each girl from personal knowledge of her skills, and teaming them with a band of the best studio musicians. The show, when we finally saw it, would've satisfied the manager of the raunchiest nightclub in the city. The band played a long top ten of the season's most popular songs. The girls sang and danced to every one of them, giving seductive and erotic emphasis to the sub-text of each phrase. Some of the thousands of neighbours and guests at the slum wedding were pleasantly scandalised, but most were delighted by the wickedness-Prabaker and Johnny first among them. And I, seeing for the first time how lubricious the uncensored versions of the dances were, gained a new appreciation of the subtler gestures I'd seen so often in the Hindi films.
I gave Johnny Cigar five thousand American dollars as a wedding present. It was enough money for him to buy the little hut that he wanted in the Navy Nagar slum, near the spot where he'd been conceived. The Nagar was a legal slum, and purchasing the hut there meant the end of eviction fears. He would have a secure home from which to continue his work as unofficial accountant and tax consultant to the many hundreds of workers and small businesses in the surrounding slums.
My present to Prabaker was the deed to his taxi. The owner of the small fleet of taxis sold the deed to me in a vicious bout of bare tooth-and-knuckle haggling. I paid too much for the vehicle and its licence, but the money meant nothing to me. It was black money, and black money runs through the fingers faster than legal, hard-earned money. If we can't respect the way we earn it, money has no value. If we can't use it to make life better for our families and loved ones, money has no purpose. Nevertheless, out of respect for the formalities of tradition, I damned the taxi fleet owner, at the conclusion of our deal, with that most polite and hideous of Indian business curses-__May you have ten daughters, and may they all marry _welll!-a string of dowry commitments sure to exhaust all but the sturdiest fortunes.
Prabaker was so pleased and excited with the gift that the gravity he'd assumed in the role of the sober groom exploded in a whooping cheer. He leapt to his feet and danced a few pumps of his hip-thrusting sexy dance before the solemnity of the occasion overwhelmed him once more, and he sat down with his bride. I joined the thick, gyrating jungle of men in front of the stage, and danced until my thin shirt clung to me like seaweed in a shallow wave.
Returning to my apartment that night, I smiled to think how different Vikram's wedding had been. Two days before Prabaker and Johnny wed their sister-brides, Vikram was married to Lettie.
Against the passionate and occasionally violent opposition of his family, Vikram had opted for a registry office ceremony. He'd responded to the tears and pleading of his loved ones with one formulaic phrase: This is the modern India, yaar. Few of his family members could bring themselves to face the agony of that public repudiation of the ancient, gorgeously elaborate Hindu wedding they'd long planned for him. In the end, it was only his sister and his mother who joined the little circle of Lettie's friends, and watched as the bride and groom promised to love and honour one another for the rest of their days. There was no music, no colour, and no dancing. Lettie wore a burnt-gold suit, with a broad, gold straw hat bearing organdie roses. Vikram wore a three-quarter-length black coat, a black-and-white brocade vest, black gaucho pants with silver piping, and his beloved hat.
The ceremony was over in minutes and then Vikram and I half carried his grief-stricken mother to her waiting car.
