Bombay_LA

= **Chapter 9** = = = = **Bombay to Los Angeles** =

Shanta was confident that she would say yes to Milan’s proposal of marriage when she returned from Los Angeles to India by a roundabout route in 1979. First she flew to London, where she was given a short training by Lintas. Next she travelled to the Netherlands to help Trudi Van Puyenbroek organise a fancy fair in order to raise money for Trudi’s orphanage in India. In between she visited her Flemish friends in Itegem, where she failed to say anything about her marriage plans. She did have a very serious conversation with father Puyenbroek in Goirle, and she was relieved to find that he agreed one hundred percent with her plan.

She did, however, anticipate difficulties with her boss at Lintas in Bombay whom she now needed to explain that within a short period of time she was to leave the important job she had been given despite all he had invested in her. But he was also unexpectedly understanding and very supportive.

When she told her parents that she was going to get married, her mother became very worried. Obviously she was not keen on her daughter leaving for a faraway country for good. Mother Gidwani put forward that most of all she was concerned about the age difference: Shanta was barely 38 years old, I was 70. But father Gidwani reacted in a very positive way. ‘Look at Shanta’s face’, he said to his wife, ‘have you ever seen our daughter this happy? She radiates. Let her be happy!’. Shanta threw her arms round her father’s neck. She was infinitely grateful to him. At a later stage she truly regretted the fact that I never met her father in person. Shanta was convinced that he and I would understand each other well and that we would have become real friends. Unfortunately father Gidwani died at a young age, before I could visit him in India.

The die had been cast. Shanta wanted to marry me as soon as possible. I insisted on her thinking it over and wrote her a long letter with nine reasons why a young woman should not marry the old widower I was. I have the letter ready to hand and could let you read it, but we prefer not to have it published. Some matters of the heart are better kept private. Anyway, Shanta read the letter, considered my objections and refuted all nine arguments one by one. The matter was settled. We were going to get married. We immediately set a date: 12th July 1979.

But in order to make a dream come true, one has to overcome laws and practical difficulties. You can not imagine the problems which arise when you want to quickly arrange something you really want. Shanta knows all about it.

Finding a replacement for Shanta at Lintas in Bombay turned out to be easy, partly because of the fact that the agency was understanding and helpful. But obtaining a visa from the American consulate in Bombay to get married in the United States was a horse of a different color. Shanta remembered the difficulties she had encountered last time when traveling to Los Angeles, so she spoke to a friend at the consulate who was willing to help. Then something unexpected happened. While working in a small village on Year of the Child, Shanta received an urgent phone call from her friend at the consulate asking her to immediately contact her fiancé in the States. In 1979 it was anything but obvious how to make an international call from one of the 650,000 villages in India. But Shanta knows how to deal with these things and she managed to speak to me. When she called me it was one o’clock at night in Los Angeles and I was asleep. I was sound asleep because that night, for the first time in my life, I had taken a valium. I have always been a bad sleeper and I wanted to be prepared for the tough day ahead of me. It was precisely that night I received an ill-timed phone call. I woke up with a fright that put me in a bad temper and I answered the phone grumpily. ‘Sorry’, Shanta said at the other end of the line, ‘but Los Angeles called Washington and Washington called Delhi and Delhi call Bombay and Bombay called me to inform me I had to ask you to urgently call the immigration service in Los Angeles.’ I told her I would make the call the next morning. She was so curious to find out what was going on that she called me the next evening. The only thing the immigration service wanted to know was whether I would be willing to pay for Shanta’s collect calls from India. ‘Why on earth couldn’t Los Angeles ask you directly instead of calling round the world?’ Shanta rightly wondered. That would have been a possibility but the administration moves in mysterious ways and it is better not to give it too much thought for risk of becoming worried.

In the end Shanta got her visa and started packing. Her parents could not attend the wedding because they could not cope with the long journey to Los Angeles. One of Shanta’s best friends, her boss at Lintas in Bombay, would stand-in for her father - he would give away the bride, as Americans call it.

Shanta left Bombay four days before the wedding in order to arrive in Los Angeles in time for a last medical check up and to receive the injections which are legally required before marrying an American. The appointment with the hospital had been made. She flew with Lufthansa via Frankfurt and San Francisco to Los Angeles. The atmosphere onboard was fine and she had a good flight. Until she arrived in San Francisco. When preparing for the last and short part of the long journey, the plane refused to take off. The captain did not seem all that concerned about the failure. He was sure it would be fixed in no time, and in the meanwhile all passengers were served champagne and caviar. By now most passengers knew that Shanta was getting married and they happily drank to her future. But the failure seemed worse than initially anticipated and the spare parts required by the technicians were not available at the airport. On top of this it was getting dark and it was decided to put everyone up in a hotel and not to leave until the next morning. This was the same morning Shanta had her appointment for the check up. She realized that under the circumstances she would never arrive on time and pleaded with the airport staff to please put her on an earlier flight. But all departures for Los Angeles were fully booked. She ended up all by herself, with two giant suitcases too heavy for her to carry herself, her eyes filled with tears. All other passengers had left baggage reclaim for the bus which would bring them to the hotel. She thought everybody had left her to her own devices. Her heart sank into her boots, she was unable to reach me, had no one else she could contact, and couldn’t even manage to leave the space she was in. Then all of a sudden this nice young stewardess arrived who said to her in a friendly way: ‘I am sure you thought I had forgotten about you. But I haven’t! I tried all I could to find you a flight for tonight, but there is not one seat available to Los Angeles. You know what? Let’s go to the hotel together, I will make sure you can leave with one of the first planes tomorrow morning, so you can make it in time for your appointment. And now we need to hurry to catch the bus, because there are no taxi’s in San Francisco today, they’re on strike.’ The girl ran for the shuttle bus, managed to stop it, and ten minutes later Shanta was checking in at the lobby of the airport Hilton. Then the phone rang. ‘Miss Gidwani?’, the receptionist asked, ‘a call for you’. ‘Milan!’, shouted Shanta, ‘how on earth did you find me?’. I explained to her how I had been waiting at Los Angeles airport for her and how I had found out that all passengers were staying overnight in San Francisco, and how I assumed Lufthansa would put up its passengers at the airport Hilton. Shanta was over the moon to hear a familiar voice after hours of discomfort, the voice of someone she had wanted to contact but had been unable to call. Over dinner, which was paid for by Lufthansa, it was announced that the failure had been fixed and that the plane would leave for Los Angeles early the next morning. Shanta was up in the clouds and started dreaming of her fairy-tale wedding.

The next morning the plane took off on time, flew without any turbulence through a cloudless sky and landed without any problem at Los Angeles airport. The plane was taxing to the gate and Shanta was looking through the window, trying to catch a glimpse of Milan who was waiting for her, when all of a sudden there was a loud bang and the aircraft came to a stop. A burst tyre! The machine had to be towed to the arrival gate, which meant another delay.

Luckily all passengers had had their passports checked on arrival in San Francisco and it took no time for the luggage to come through. I was waiting to take care of Shanta and her two enormous suitcases. We raced to the hospital and arrived five minutes to nine, just in time for Shanta’s appointment.

After the medical check up was completed we rushed to the jeweller’s to collect the wedding rings. The jeweller had made a special effort for Shanta: her fingers were so delicate he had to find a particular size of ring for her. Afterwards we drove to Mount Beacon Terrace. I dropped off Shanta, gave her a big kiss and left, because I had some urgent business to attend before the wedding. Not a very romantic welcome to her new home, I’m afraid !

At the time Nico, Sadja’s son, was staying at our house, shortly after his parents’ divorce. Shanta and Nico approached each other with great caution. Nico was –and is– a very sensitive boy, who greatly loved his grandmother, my first wife Roni. Nico had to get used to the idea of granddad remarrying, so shortly after the death of the grandmother he had loved so dearly. On top of this granddad was getting married to this exotic character who wore such strange cloths as saris. But it didn’t take long before Nico and Shanta became the best of friends. This continued after Nico grew up. They are still very close.

On the day of arrival, after Shanta had spent some time with Nico in the house, the kitchen doorbell rang. Shanta opened the door to a woman with a small girl in a pram. ‘Oh’, the lady said, slightly shocked, ‘I didn’t realise Milan had visitors’. ‘I am not just a visitor,’ Shanta replied, ‘I have come here to marry Milan’. The woman introduced herself as Robin, one of the neighbors, who was taking her six months old daughter for a swim as many of the neighbors do up to this day. At her first meeting with Shanta, Robin was informed of our wedding plans. She became one of Shanta’s best friends, which she still is. She and her daughters –Kate and Anna - regularly came for a swim. Shanta considers Kate and Anna as her own children, that’s how close they are. Bit by bit Shanta got to now everybody in the neighbourhood, in the same way she did with Robin, Kate and Anna and soon she was fully integrated in our Oaks community.

Soon afterwards my daughter Tania arrived with her young family, her husband and their first son, who was still a baby at that point. They flew in from Iowa, where Tania’s husband works as a teacher and successfully runs a farm. Tania and Shanta broke the ice very quickly. Tania insisted on wearing one of Shanta’s sari’s for the wedding, which she did and greatly enjoyed. She looked gorgeous!

Of course my secretary Milka also attended our wedding party. Shanta still insist that Milka was the decisive factor when it came to making a choice whether or not to commit to each other. Milka read our thoughts like no one else has ever done. She was the first one to tell Shanta to marry BB. Milka called me BB, an abbreviation of Big Boss. And Shanta really took a liking to Milka.

We got married in a small church that does not belong to any denomination but performs a kind of religious ceremony. Religion is important to us. I was brought up a Catholic but have stopped practising a long time ago. Shanta was close to giving up her Hindu tradition for Catholicism. We are religious in our own way. We pray together and try to live as good a life as possible, according to the bible.

After the ceremony we invited our guests to a modest reception in Indian style. It was small scale and cordial, we enjoyed the company of the people there. We cut out the frills. For the same reason we didn’t leave on an expensive honeymoon like newly-weds do. We went straight back to work.

For a while Shanta worked as a volunteer at the primary school where our neighbour Marilyn taught, helping Hispanics to improve their English. After that she joined my company. She had experience in film and assisted me with the production of Children’s films. In the first years of our marriage she delivered a lot of material for the American Centre for Children’s Films. In 1995 we hosted the CIFEJ congress, the Centre International de Films pour les Enfants et la Jeunesse, the same organisation which had brought Shanta and me together in Brussels ten years ago. Shanta was the true inspiration for this meeting in Los Angeles. And when I landed an important contract to make documentaries in France and Spain, Shanta travelled to Europe with me for six months. After that we worked together on many other educational projects. Shanta became my associate. That’s why our company is called Herzog Associates.

Filming in Europe provided us with an ideal opportunity to visit our acquaintances on the Old Continent. Our circle of friends expanded all the time. We repeatedly visited ex-colleagues of the Encyclopaedia Brittannica in France or friends in Holland and Belgium. These friends put us in touch with other friends. With these people we ate baked herring and black pudding with apple sauce near the river Nete, before walking back to Itegem through the Herenthout forest on a balmy summer’s eve. Beautiful memories!

Our distant friends come and visit us too. They know Mount Beacon Terrace. They know they are welcome. They visit our neighbours. They use our house as an operation base for exploring California. We enjoy taking them to the Huntington museum, to the Getty, to the Tar Pits, to a concert in the Hollywood Bowl, to an old Spanish missions in Santa Barbara and Capistrano or to a quiet spot of untouched nature in the San Gabriel mountains.

Shanta and I are grateful for the friendship we have received everywhere in the world and for the gratitude our friends have expressed. It makes us happy. Just like we are happy about the wonderful relationship we have with our neighbors. Shanta takes credit for this. She is always there when people need her and she has often been the driving force behind community initiatives. She has done so much to keep my family as close as possible.

I am grateful that, after Roni’s death, I married Shanta. We argue the whole day about the smallest household issues, but no one takes better care of me than she does. And when she calls me ‘Cedo’, I always answer with full conviction ‘yes, my darling’.