Sandhya Menon - From Twinkle, With Love

Contents

Sandhya Menon was born and raised in India on a steady diet of Bollywood movies and street food, and blames this upbringing for her obsession with happily-ever-afters, bad dance moves, and pani puri. Now she lives in Colorado, where shes on a mission to (gently) coerce her family to watch all 3,220 Bollywood movies she claims as her favourite. Visit her online at sandhyamenon.com.

When Dimple Met Rishi

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First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Hodder & Stoughton

An Hachette UK company

Copyright Sandhya Kutty Falls 2018

The right of Sandhya Kutty Falls to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 47366745 7

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For t, n, and m.

Who else?

Hello, namaste, buenos dias, and bonjour, Mira Nair!

The basics.

Name: Twinkle Mehra

Age: Sixteen

Occupation: Sadly, a junior at Pikes Peak Charter in Colorado Springs. And ugh, the only one whos still sixteen. Mummy and Papa obviously thought theyd birthed a prodigy when they stuck me in kindergarten a whole year early ha. But that doesnt matter. If you learn only one thing about me, its that I think I have a filmmakers soul. Like you, Mira. There are so many universes I want to explore with my camera.

BFF: Maddie Tanaka. Well, used to be, anyway. Now its complicated.

Crush: Duh. Neil Roy. Since forever.

So, now that were acquainted, can I just say that Im a huuuuge fan? Like, the biggest. I mean, okay, Im not deluded. I know youre never going to read this in a million years. But somehow, writing to you in here feels like youre listening.

This diary was a birthday present from Dadi, by the way. She was all, Take this, Twinkle. Put the words of your heart in the pages as you put the images of your heart in your movies. As far as grandmothers go, shes pretty cool (and pretty kooky, but thats a story for another day). Anyway, it sat in my desk drawer for about nine months, but then I thought, Why not? Whats it going to hurt to try to journal? I thought writing to my fave female filmmakers would be way more fun than writing to myself. Or to one of Dadis soul bearers from beyond the veil. (Too long of a story to go into right now.)

Some might call people like me losers. I myself prefer the term groundlings. See, in Shakespearean times, these were the poor people who would have to stand in the front of the stage and got called out (unfairly, IMO) for being rowdy and smelly and having the mange or whatnot. And then there were the snooty people in the back, who got to sit in, like, covered areas and look down at the groundlings and feel all superior in their silk feathered hats. But Shakespeare would never have gotten famous if he hadnt appealed to the groundlings.

Heres a little secret, though: I wouldnt completely mind if I were something other than a groundling. Its not like Im silk feathered hat material or anything, but still. To be even one social status level above the one I am right now would change my life because Im pretty sure it would give me my best friendwho is now definitely one of the silk feathered hatsback. And bonus: It would help transform me from Invisible Twinkle to someone people recognize, maybe even someone who tells stories others want to hear.

So now Im sitting here in homeroom and Hannah Macintosh just took off her six-hundred-dollar shoes (I know because she told the entire class thats how much they cost in Milan) to show Victoria Lyons her pedicure. If I were a teeny bit braver, Id go over there and ask, Hey, Hannah, did you steal those shoes? I only ask because it seems you like taking things that dont belong to you, like my best friend. Maybe Ill ask Dadi if she knows any incantations thatll grow me a courage gland.

Oops, theres the bell. More soon.

Love,

Twinkle

Hey-o, Sofia Coppola.

Im sitting here trying not to expire of totalicus boredumus while Mrs. Mears explains the life cycle of the royal walnut moth, aka Citheronia regalis, aka kill me now. And you wanna know what Maddies doing?

Drawing a six-color diagram of said life cycle. With gel pens. I guess she doesnt make mistakes? Even Mrs. Mears, the biologist, didnt draw us a diagram. But Maddie probably wants to be thorough. Oh, and shes written her name at the top of the page with her new markers (she gets new stationery and school supplies as often as regular people get new Um, actually, I dont know where I was going with that. She just gets them a lot), along with the date, and underlined everything three times.

Maddie wants to be a physician-scientist. Yeah, thats really a thing. Being a plain old doctor or a plain old scientist isnt challenging enough, so she decided she wants to combine them. But Im thankful. Because if I ever get a rare disease that causes my butt to break out in fluorescent hives or something totally rando like that, I know Maddies the only one who could save me. Shes sort of a genius.

It must run in the family. Her dad, James Tanaka, is a world-famous artist who regularly challenges ideas of the mundane with his mixed-media pieces and has gallery showings in the United States, Tokyo, Paris, and London (literally what it says on his website in the about section). Plus, Maddies ultra-rich. She lives in one of those old neighborhoods in Broadmoor in a giant mansion.

Thats one thing that hasnt changed even after Maddie gave up her groundling membership and became one of the silk feathered hat people. Shes still super ambitious. I havent been to her house in months, but I bet she still has that poster board she made of her five-year plan. It has pictures of the Johns Hopkins campus, where she wants to go to college and med school, places she wants to travel (Shanghai, Tokyo, Mumbai, Edinburgh, London), and pictures of the type of boy she wants to date (Japanese-American like her, with tattoos and not taller than 510; she says she wants to meet him in the second year of medical school).

Meanwhile, Im like, maybe Ill waitress/travel after high school? Or go to film school at USC if I can get a scholarship? Or live in my parents house forever, decrying the death of the arts?

Maybe thats why our friendship is as doomed as the Globe Theatre. Maybe Im not ambitious enough for Maddie. Or cool enough. Or confident enough. Or, or, or.

A lot of your films were about being on the outside looking in, Sofia. I wonder what advice youd give me. How do I step over the threshold and join my best friend again?