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All of this culminated in Nair’s 2000 hit Monsoon Wedding. A bright, relentless film juggling five different stories held together (and resolved) through the music and madness of Indian weddings, it delivered a giant box office punch and sealed Nair’s reputation in gold. She dedicated it to her family. “I had just lost a very close friend,” she says, looking out of her window at the morning sky, “and I came to the film with a sense of mortality. I wanted to say that all we have is now, and all we have is each other.” She succeeded in conveying her message; the actor Jim Broadbent, who worked with Nair on Vanity Fair, said he felt Monsoon Wedding should be prescribed as an anti-depressant. Nair says it was the most rewarding validation of her work. “People who love Monsoon Wedding love it because they long for a family. I can understand that. My own family is vital to me. They give me the roots that keep me anchored and the wings that allow me to fly.” It was family that brought Nair to Pakistan. Her parents grew up in Lahore and attended the city’s most prestigious colleges. In 1947, however, as the British were departing, they carved the Indian subcontinent into the two nation-states of India and Pakistan along religious and communal lines. It led to the largest mass exodus in history. Millions of Muslims left their homes in India and migrated to Pakistan, and millions of Sikhs and Hindus fled for India. Nair’s parents were among them. In 2003, when Nair was awarded the Harvard Arts Medal and came to Sanders Theater, I went up to the microphone and asked her a question. My favorite Urdu song had featured again and again on the soundtracks of her films. It was sung by Farida Khanum, a Pakistani singer, arguably the greatest living exponent of the ghazal, which is the jazz of South Asia. Where had Nair, an Indian now living in the United States, come across this Pakistani song? Nair explained. Her father, when he had migrated from Lahore, had brought with him an old record that he played every day when Nair was growing up. His favorite track on the record was the Farida Khanum song. It had formed the soundtrack to her childhood, and she had carried it into her films. That same day Nair asked me if Farida Khanum was still singing. Yes, I told her, Farida Khanum was eighty years old and in top form. A year and a half later, Nair was sitting in a drawing room in Lahore on New Year’s Eve, listening to the great singer perform her best-loved ghazals, swaying in ecstasy. Now, sitting on an airplane, Nair has caressed that ecstasy into an idea. “Imagine,” she tells me excitedly, “the opening shot of a movie – Farida Khanum singing.” I picture it. It sounds fantastic. “It’ll be so good,” she says. “A great way to set the mood for the film.” Mood is to play an important role in Nair’s next film, The Namesake. Based on Jhumpa Lahiri’s bestselling novel, the film will chart the lives of Bengali immigrants who travel from India to Massachusetts and settle finally in New York City. “The moment I finished reading the novel I knew I had to turn it into a film,” says Nair. “The story bears an uncanny resemblance to mine.” She has her palette figured out; the film, starring Kal Penn and Zuleikha Dobson, will consist of “hot, meditative strokes.” It is also to be an erotic film. “Jhumpa has given me a canvas very suited to my sensibility,” says Nair. “Not only does it allow me to make a film about love and loss and journeys, it also lets me capture a new kind of South Asian power in America.” Nair was one of four South Asians at Harvard. When she went to Sanders Theater last year, she “flipped out” at the number of brown faces. “What’s going on in South Asian culture right now is music, sex appeal and a great new confidence. It’s really quite amazing,” she says. As our plane prepares to land, a smiling stewardess walks up to Nair’s seat and whispers: “Are you the director of Monsoon Wedding?” “Yes,” says Nair, “I am.” “Welcome to Pakistan,” says the stewardess, and walks away.
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