Bollywood Dreams

PJ Vogt (0:25)

The email hit our inbox in February. The subject line, 11 words. Almost a short story on their own. My dad is making a Bollywood movie. Is he being scammed?

The email was from a listener, his son, who'd recently learned that his father had been sending large amounts of money to a stranger in India, a director who he'd met via the internet, in order to fund a film that he dreamed up in a week. The film was set in India in 1780, but also in the present. And according to the email, it would quote, heavily feature cauliflower.

A tangle of facts, which would take us most of this year to a knot, a quest which began with a phone call to the email's author. Can you say your name and tell me where you are right now?

Raja (1:14)

Hey PJ, I'm Raja, and I'm based out of State College, Pennsylvania.

PJ Vogt (1:20)

Okay. So if you could just give me some context, like you're concerned about your dad, can you just give me like a postcard image, like who is your dad? Just tell me a little bit about your father.

Raja (1:35)

Yeah. So my dad moved to America from Mumbai in India about 50 years ago, and he came here with the classic American dream. He had a good education in pharmacy. He started out as a pharmacist and brought his wife over, started a family. But he didn't have exactly a traditional path.

Even before he was retired and before I was born, he was getting involved in all these side businesses. And the most recent thing is he sprung it on us during Thanksgiving and said, hey, next month, I'm going to India and I'm going to start shooting a movie.

PJ Vogt (2:20)

And before we get into the most recent one, just give me a hint of what are some of the side businesses. In your email, you were describing the width and breadth of your dad's entrepreneurial ventures.

If you could just tell me about some of them.

Raja (2:36)

Oh, absolutely. So before I was born, he started a hardware business where he was competing against Home Depot, where he was selling nuts, bolts, and screws.

PJ Vogt (2:48)

Or trying to, anyway. Roger remembers as a kid thinking it was normal to have a garage filled with unsold hardware surplus.

When that business failed, his dad started looking for easier prey. He started eyeing Kinkos.

Raja (3:02)

He had a photocopy business where he was just also in the garage, just trying to print off hundreds and thousands of copies, but he never had one customer.

PJ Vogt (3:14)

Kinkos also well positioned to take on would-be disruptors like Roger's dad. However, other markets beckoned.

Raja (3:21)

The hair bleaching gel is a clear gel that women would put onto their face, onto any unwanted hair, just to bleach it to make it less noticeable. He took over our basement and made his own laboratory, buying everything you can imagine from a chemistry set and setting that up.

PJ Vogt (3:39)

The gel product actually got stuck in R&D. Roger said he remembers once getting it on his own hand and it burning a lot.

If his dad seemed undeterred by the failure of these businesses, the rest of the family felt differently.

Raja (3:56)

My mom has the extremely frugal, extremely conservative, put your money into savings, put your money into investments. Don't chase wild, ridiculous dreams.

She was very clear that, hey, this is a waste of money. Your dad's doing another one of his dumb businesses, and this is not going to go anywhere, and it's not going to turn into something. So growing up, I always was a little hesitant, and I was a little frustrated with him trying these things, where I said, yeah, this is just going to be another waste of money.

PJ Vogt (4:37)

That's how Rajah felt back then. These days, he's an adult, a father himself. His relationship with his own dad has evolved from one of periodic frustration to one of ambient concern. Because his dad's now in his 70s, retired, a man living off the nest egg he earned himself, no family money. He has what he has. Which means if something were to go wrong, it could go very wrong.

Which is why when Rajah talks about his dad's newest venture, the Bollywood film he streamed up, Rajah sees how it's absurd, but he also worries about it.

So give me like, start me at the beginning of just like, one day you had a dad with a garage full of ideas, another day you had a dad who was trying to make a Bollywood movie. Like, you're just like, how did this even happen?