The Dream: How I Learned the Risks and Rewards of Entrepreneurship and Made Millions Read Free

could get As if he applied himself.”
    “So you’re not applying yourself?” my father would say.
    Kamal went on: “He doesn’t speak up in class. And he mumbles when he speaks and won’t look people in the eye.”
    “I’m shy,” I protested.
    “And he’s not very social,” Kamal went on. “He should make more of an effort to make friends.”
    “Everybody hates me,” I said.
    “Stop whining,” my father would say, and then he would launch into one of his regular tirades. “You children are such ingrates! Do you have any idea how much your mother and I have sacrificed to give you this opportunity? Not another word out of you! Now sit down and do your homework!”
    Eventually I did stop whining, mostly because it didn’t do any good. My parents were too busy making their way in the New World to worry about my little problems. And they did have problems of their own: One Saturday I heard a scream, and I rushed into the living room to find my father flat on his back on the floor, with my mother, still screaming, on her knees next to him, still screaming, and my sister on the phone, calling for help. I was only nine at the time, but I noticed the way my father’s eyes kept darting around the room without really seeing us, and I remember thinking,
He is looking at Death. He is fighting with Death.
    By this time we were all crying, and by the time the ambulance arrived we were near despair. But they stabilized him on the way to the hospital, where he spent the next three days hooked to all manner of pinging, bleating monitoring equipment. He had had a pretty serious heart attack, and the doctors told my mother that he was lucky to be alive.
    When my father finally came home, we tiptoed around him, as if he were fragile, and at every opportunity we told him how glad we were to have him back. None of us had ever had a warm, fuzzy relationship with Dad, but we certainly loved him, and for a long time afterward I loved him more ferociously than ever.
    Months later, when he was finally beginning to feel somewhat recovered, the technology sector took a dive and he was laid off. “I will find something,” he said. “Not to worry. One must always have a positive attitude.”
    A few weeks later, my father got a job with the postal service. The money wasn’t particularly good, but they had excellent health benefits, along with a solid retirement plan, and he began thinking about moving the family into a nicer neighborhood. He announced his intentions one Sunday afternoon, just before we went to the video store for Bollywood Movie Night. “We are going to be extra careful with our money from now on,” he said. “We need to save up for ournew home.” We all cheered, as if the new home were already ours, then we piled into the car for the drive to the video store.
    Sunday night was my favorite night of the week. My father would walk into the store. He always said the same thing to the clerk. “We are looking for a family movie. Do you understand me? A
family
movie.”
    “Yes sir, I understand precisely.”
    We would then go home and take our regular seats in front of the TV, and within minutes we would be glued to the unfolding stories. The movies were always very chaste, because Bollywood actors aren’t even permitted to kiss. Sometimes they would look at each other with intense longing, however, and you knew that at any moment they would leap into each other’s arms, but the director always cut away at that point. The next scene was usually some kind of frenzied dance number that took the place of the kissing and whatever followed.
    My father would get very worked up about those scenes. When the actors began to look at each other with longing, he’d hunt around for the remote. “Where’s the remote? Give me the remote! I told that silly clerk I wanted a
family
movie, and he gives me this immoral trash!”
    Invariably, we’d arrive at the song-and-dance number before Dad found the remote, and he’d sit back