A few hours before the curtain went up before the premiere show of Bombay Dreams, Geeta Nagarajan and her mother performed a puja to ward off the evil eye in daughter Anisha's [extreme right] dressing room.

"We prayed not only for Anisha," the mother said, "but for the success of the entire show." They had held a similar pooja on March 29 when the previews began. Along with her husband Nandu, Geeta has been visiting the Pittsburgh Venkateshwara Temple near their home to pray for the show's success.

In another place near the Broadway Theatre, writer Meera Syal was reciting the Gayatri Mantra. The parents of other key cast members, including Sriram Ganesan [extreme left, with costar Ayesha Dharker] and Manu Narayan [second from right], have been visiting the temples and invoking the Gods for an auspicious start for the $14 million production.

A risky production, by any account, its price tag makes it even riskier. Bombay Dreams, which cost half its Broadway budget in its London avatar, is today one of the costliest shows on Broadway, with the hit show Wicked costing just a few thousands more.

"I will pray to all the gods in the world," Anita Waxman, one of the co-producers of the show said a few days ago. “Elizabeth [partner Elizabeth Williams] and I have had so much faith in this show ever since we saw it in London about two years ago, that we decided to give it the highest profile possible."

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