Scrapbooking

       Ameer loved movies as long as he remembered himself. Since childhood, he used to crawl between rusty iron sheets on the roof of a movie theatre (or, rather, a movie shack) on the outskirts of Ahmedabad to watch a movie for free. Hollywood or Bollywood, it didn't matter as long as beautiful people lived on screen, saying beautiful words and doing beautiful deeds. Since childhood, he knew that one day he would get to the other side of the screen, to the country of blonde girls and white-toothed gentlemen, studio light boards, picture up, roll camera, roll sound, slate, action! Well, he was almost right about that. Now the stone jungle of New York engulfed him, and he had gone through a lot of shooting. Taking pictures for a travel passport, immigration documents, driving licence, taxi licence, and so on and so forth. His true-fast yellow taxi cab was rolling through the hustle and bustle and action in the streets. Yet Ameer still felt like Fate played a prank on him until he found them. And it didn't cost him a cent, they were leaning on a wall of a movie theatre gone bust, they were dumped and forgotten. A smouldering handsome dark-haired guy and a delicate blonde girl, they seemed to step down from the screen of Ameer's childhood. And he took them in. Well, those plywood flat standees could fit into his cab in one piece, only cornerwise. Ameer had to saw them in halves along the height so they could ride his cab all day long without getting in the way of the passengers. But when his car clock blinked 6 p.m. straight, he'd put up a slate saying Off Duty, take out—no, invite Hrithik and Gwyneth, as he named his glorious gods, to take a ride, fasten the halves together by planks so that the figures could stand upright on the roof of his cab, and turn the music up to eleven. And he'd drive slowly and proudly through the city to the taxi depot. The sun would unroll its light as a carpet for him, or the rain would applaud, and people would turn to him and smile and take out their smartphones and cameras. At that moment, Ameer was an actor on screen, even if his role was a supporting one. No, all roles were important in a real movie. So he rolled along in the shadow of the cabin, bathing in the magic movie rays.