The joyous and mournful documentary “The Gas Station Attendant” tells the story of an American woman’s Indian-born father who escaped poverty as a young man to Texas in hopes of a better life but meeting with mixed results. It opens Friday, June 12 at Manhattan’s DCTV Firehouse Cinema. Go here for showtimes.

H. N. Shantha Murthy grew up in extreme poverty in India, often sleeping on the street and going weeks without food. While working as a bell boy in a hotel as a teen, he found dinner for an American couple who arrived after the kitchen was closed. Touched by his friendliness the couple got him a visa and paid for his flight to Houston where he lived with them, went to high school and then college.

Shantha says he never found out why the Texas couple took an interest in him! He met and married a woman from the Phillipines and had several children, including Karla, who moved to New York City, worked for a film production company and became a documentary filmmaker and a parent herself.

Karla combines phone conversations, video and film footage to show the struggles her father encountered trying to keep alive. He worked a variety of jobs, including a stint as a gas station attendant. This caused his daughter to worry, especially after an attendant at another station was murdered during a robbery. Shanta also made and sold jewelry at a series of trade shows. Everyone he met attests to how friendly he is. Though they barely got by the family traveled often, going to India, the Phillipines, New Orleans. When Karla was eight her mother died and her father married another woman from the Phillipines.

“Dad,” Karla asks, “How did you get up and keep going?”  My guess is the memories of his childhood deprivations kept him working hard to enjoy what, even at its most challenging, was a superior life in the United States. His family always ate well, loved one another and made friends easily with people from many cultures.

In one sequence, director Karla Murthy talks about her discomfort walking down 6th Street in the East Village. It’s lined with Indian restaurants and she felt she could see her dad in front of each venue trying to convince tourists to pick his restaurant. This is a beautiful, emotional portrait of a loving father and daughter relationship and why immigrants are so important to the culture of America.