I’m sorry, Mr. Vassanji. I adore your short stories, but your novels move so slowly, they drive me batty. I gave up on your latest a hundred pages in. A refined reader like Jabberwock is what you deserve.

But I did spy one intriguing passage, the reason why I picked up The Assassin’s Song. And it tells me that a certain nuclear engineer-turned-writer has been watching Bollywood/Hollywood on repeat. Influenced by a fellow Canadian? No matter. Hooking up with a stealth desi is still adorable, all the more when it’s a love story set near your Boston alma mater:

The movie was 2001: A Space Odyssey… Suddenly a streaker ran down an aisle and across the front, female parts jiggling… an odour of marijuana in the air… Halfway through, a bomb scare… That was when I saw the girl. She had brown hair, large eyes, an almond face; she was fair but could have passed for an Indian… loose-limbed American mannerisms… I started walking along Mass Ave back to the heart of my new world, the Square.

That face… the girl’s image from the auditorium haunted my long walk that night. Was she Indian? Spanish? … Some weeks later… when I looked up, there she stood before me… ‘Why’ve you been gawking at me?’ …

‘I am so sorry… You are so beautiful, your good self…’ A delicious giggle burst forth from her lips…

Several years later:

… Marge Thompson reentered my life… except that her given name was Mira, her father was Indian, and she was brought up a Canadian… she broke the silence with a soft ‘Still staring, I see…’ Her mother was Cathy Thompson, born and bred in Iowa, and her father was Amrit Padmanabh, a Buddhist and medical doctor, and a poet and musician in his spare time…

… she had to discover me anew, and be convinced that this time I was safe, no longer the complicated Indian dragging behind him miles of background… Marge Thompson with Karsan Dargawalla… What did she see in me, this gawky village cartoon from India with a name to match? … she taught me how to kiss — in public, in full view of picnickers, on the banks of the Charles River. Applause.

In another interesting passage, Karsan the dargah scion is welcomed to America and the real world of Massachusetts:

I had crossed Central Square… when I was stopped by two rough-looking men my age… ‘What money ou got, man, hand it over, quick…’

‘I have seventy-five dollars… with which to buy books tomorrow.’

‘You kiddin?’

‘I beg your pardon?’ …

‘You from India, right?’ …

‘Yes. From the state of Gujarat…’

‘Right. No kiddin’. Good night. Take care…’

Only when they were out of earshot and I was alone did I realize that I had escaped getting ‘mugged…’ A cartoon apeared in the Crimson that week, titled, ‘From Gujarat, You Kiddin’? Welcome to America!’

Check out Vassanji’s excellent story collection Elvis, Raja.

Related posts: M.G. Vassanji and Assassin’s Song, Thwarted by Vikram Lall, Indecent proposal, ‘Elvis, Raja’, ‘Bollywood / Hollywood’