On his arrival at Tel Aviv airport, he was picked up by Mr. Moshe Rabin, a prearranged tour guide. While driving towards Jerusalem, they started to familiarize. Mr. Rabin mentioned that he was about eighty years old (though he appeared to be fifty years old). He was a member of the early batch of immigrants to the country, after its creation at the end of World War II. While building a new nation, their main form of entertainment was enjoying the black and white Hindi films coming out of Bombay (now called Mumbai), India, especially the ones starring famous Late Raj Kapoor and Late Geetabali. Then to Mr. Mishra’s surprise, Mr. Rabin hummed a complete Hindi song “Ichik dana, bichik dana, danar upaor dana...”, a classic one from Raj Kapoor-era. Mr. Mishra, in turn, informed Mr. Rabin that in recent years the Bombay movie industry grew bigger and due to recent phenomenon of globalization, has assumed a new identity of “Bollywood”, competing with Hollywood in US.
Over next few days, Mr. Rabin accompanied Mr. Mishra to various places of interests in Jerusalem. Then he broke a bad news: “As an Israeli Jew, by law I am barred to enter Bethlehem, controlled by the Palestinian Authority.” However, he assured that he already had a solution to Mr. Mishra’s visit there.
Next morning, Mr. Rabin drove Mr. Mishra to the city-boundary of Bethlehem, parked his car and made a phone-call. Soon, a green Toyota appeared on the other side and two young Palestinian youths came out of the car. They introduced themselves as Saif and Salman, exchanged pleasantries and instructed Mr. Mishra to board their car for a visit to the city.
Soon, the youths turned on the car-radio blaring Hindi music from a recent Bollywood blockbuster. Mr. Mishra remembered that the actress in the movie was none other than current heartthrob glamorous Karina Kapoor, the granddaughter of Late Raj Kapoor. Like a little child with curiosity, Salman even asked Mr. Mishra whether he had ever met Ms. Kapoor in person. Then, over next few hours, the youths led Mr. Mishra visiting the Church of Naivety and the Manger Square, subsequently bringing him back to Mr. Rabin.
That night, Mr. Mishra dreamed of a film festival taking place at the border of Bethlehem showing all the classics of Raj Kapoor along with the recent blockbusters of Ms. Karina Kapoor, while Mr. Rabin, Saif and Salman taking the front row seats