THE NARRATIVE ARC
I Sang at Bollywood Karaoke Night as a Tone-Deaf White Woman
My autistic super power is an ability not to care what people think of me
I felt the eyes of a dozen confused strangers on me as the microphone shook in my hand. My eyes were transfixed on the screen where the lyrics would be displayed after the impossibly long instrumental intro ended.
After more than 30 seconds, I finally opened my mouth to let loose syllables of a language I did not speak in a key that probably doesn’t exist and wondered if I had made a terrible mistake.
In 2009, I watched the Director’s Cut of “Slumdog Millionaire,” and my life changed when Danny Boyle said that he put the song “Jai Ho” during the end credits because he didn’t want the movie to get labeled as a Bollywood movie.
I had never heard the term before, so I looked it up and saw that it referred to Hindi movies made in Mumbai (formerly called Bombay, which is where the “B” comes from).
A few days later, the local newspaper ran a piece about a local dance studio that taught Bollywood dances, including (at the time), one choreographed to “Jai Ho.” Intrigued, I went to the dance studio’s website, where they had clips from several Bollywood movies, including the…
