Born Confused (38 page)

—Believe me, since yesterday it’s not as simple as you’d think, I said.

—That must have been some conference, he now said helplessly, flagging down another waiter and ordering a round of mango lassis. He did it as if he were ordering a whiskey straight up, and he drank his that way as well. I could sense his relief upon the arrival of the steaming dishes and my mother, who had clearly beaten the cooking staff into submission.

—We were just saying, uh, what a wonderful conference that was, said Gwyn.—I learned so much about South Asian identity.

—And spinning records, said Karsh.—This girl is really something—in a matter of days she learned things that took me months! I’m really proud.

—Dimple, too, is learning things in days that take months, said my mother.

—I’m right here, Ma.

—Aren’t you, Dimple?

—Let’s just eat, Mom, I said.—Bon appétit, everyone.

—See? For example, Dimple speaks French, don’t you, Dimple?

My mother thinks I speak languages even when what I’m saying
is the same in English—like
the hors d’oeuvres are really quite luscious
or
sauté in butter.
And forget learning things in days that take months; this was going to require learning in a matter of minutes what I hadn’t learned in years if it got going. That piano panic was filling my stomach faster than the spongy appam.

—C’est pas vrai! said Karsh.

—Likewise, I said.

—And her mother tongue is Marathi.

—Mom, I don’t speak Marathi!

—Well, it is my first language, and therefore it is your mother tongue. Am I not your mother?

She leaned towards the fused corner of Gwyn and Karsh.

—Gwyn? Do
you
speak Marathi?

She said it sweetly but I knew something was up.

—You see, she said, sitting back satisfied. She gave Karsh a pointed look. But Karsh was already busy demonstrating to Gwyn how to dip the idlee in the sambar and then coconut chutney it up before taking a bite. Well, c’est la vie.

But la vie was getting out of hand: Karsh had lifted his hand and Gwyn opened her mouth and I was just cringing at the idea of having to be subjected to watching them feed each other when there was a blustery noise and we were joined by the tornado of energy that was Radha. She pulled up a seat now and plunked down, squeezing in right between Gwyn and Karsh. Forget the fact she obviously hadn’t noticed we had a seat saved for her on the other side—this woman was scoring tenure in my book.

—Bloody bollocks! she cried.—Pass me a plate! What a day I’ve had.

—What happened? my mother asked.

—Well, I can’t talk about it.

—Shakti?

—Shakti.

—Do you know an Upma Abichandi? Sabina asked.—She works there sometimes.

—Upma? Yes, I know Upma. Who doesn’t know Upma? Could you miss her opinions from a mile away? But we’re not usually on the same shift.

Radha plunged an appamful of tamarind rice in her mouth and spoke starchily through it.

—Friend of yours?

—She’s amazing, isn’t she? Sabina nodded. Kavita gave her a dirty look.

—You know, Kavita, if you keep it up, your face is going to just stay that way, snipped Sabina.

—Whoa! said Karsh.—Come on, Sabz, what are you so angry about?

—What wouldn’t I be angry about?

—No, as a matter of fact, what
are
you so angry about? Kavita demanded. My mother was quietly observing the scuffle and though her expression remained the same, her pupils had visibly widened.

—I’m Radha, by the way, said Radha loudly breaking in.—His mother. But there’s more to me than that.

—Of course there is, Sabina retorted bitterly; she made agreeing sound like disagreeing.

—So you’re Radha! said Gwyn. She had been sitting completely still watching all the goings-on from the moment Radha had entered.—Wow. It’s, it’s a total honor to meet you. Karsh has said you’re, um, like the bomb.

Probably only I could see this, but Gwyn was twisting her napkin to near shreds in her lap now. Her eyes flooded with the canine zest I’d seen in them when she’d danced with Zara that first night.

—How odd, said Radha.—You mean because I have the potential to destroy his life?

—Oh my god, no! Gwyn cried, horrified.—I so didn’t mean that, Mrs…Aunty. No, not Aunty. Um…

—Radha.

—Mrs. Radha. It’s just, like, an expression. It means you’re totally down with it. Actually, I’ve never ever heard anyone talk about their mom that way.

—You haven’t? said my mother, shooting me a betrayed look.

—Except Dimple, quick-saved Karsh.

—Don’t try to ghee me up, said my mother, alternately glowering at me and shooting a honeysuckle smile at Karsh.

—So where are your brothers, Gwyn? Radha asked now, shoveling some dosa into her mouth while the rest of us sifted through kheer and carrot halva.

—What brothers?

Radha nodded towards her wrist.

—Oh, the rakhis. Well, no, I don’t have a brother. I just.

—They matched her outfit is how it all began, I said sulkily.

—You don’t have a brother?

Gwyn shook her head sheepishly.

—Well, my dear, I didn’t always give rakhis to merely brothers, said Radha mysteriously.

—You didn’t?

—No. Believe it or not I once had a particularly sticky suitor, the son of family friends and whom I wanted to rid myself of plainly and painlessly. And a very wise woman I knew had the solution for how to achieve this without creating any bad blood between families. She gave me an envelope to deliver to the boy the next time I saw him. I carried it with me day after day; it was the monsoon and
I came upon him one wet morning at the train station—I remember the entire bottom of my sari was soaking, sticking all around my ankles. I handed him the envelope. And inside it was a rakhi.

—Oh, Mrs. Radha, I would have been even
more
into you if you gave me a rakhi! cried Gwyn. She looked at Sabina and Kavita and threw a palm up, quickly adding.—I mean, if I were a guy.

—No, no, you’re missing the point, yaar. What this did was make wordlessly clear that I thought of him as a brother, that I would be like a sister to him.

—I guess it makes sense, Gwyn said.—I mean, Dimple gave them to me, and she’s the closest thing to a sister I’ve got.

—How sweet, said Radha approvingly. Just then Sanjit came up to see if we wanted coffeeteacoffeetea. My parents suggested Karsh and I drop Gwyn off at home so she could get her things for work, and that the five of us reconvene for tea at our house, after they’d made a paan stop for old times’ sake.

On the way out I scooped up a fistful of mukhvas, the mix of nut and seed and leaf in the thali bowls by the exit, sifting out everything but the pink and white sugar crystals. I held them so tightly in my hand they’d melted by the time we got to the car.

When we’d rolled around from Gwyn’s dead end to my part of Lancaster Road, the Marriage Mafia four-wheeler was already there. We kicked off our shoes, adding them to the other pairs on the porch, and stepped barefootedly on in.

—So! Nice ride? big-winked Radha. She was poised regally in the smoking section of the family room (which had never existed prior to her entry), exhaling flagrantly out the cracked window by the financial sector; the sailboats whiffed about goldly overhead. Funnily enough she didn’t look guilty at all—but my parents did, glancing up from the sofa at us when we entered, cheeks stuffed hamster-like with paan.

—Mother! said Karsh indignantly.

—I know, I know, yaar—she’s not that kind of girl.

—I’m not that kind of boy!

There was something so loud about it all I wasn’t ashamed.

—Don’t worry, we kept a foot off each side, I smiled.

—Aaray beta, you see? Radha proclaimed.—East, West—it is always about the feet! Just like when Rohitbhai was fighting off the girls in India.

—What do you mean? I said, sitting on the floor by the coffee table. Karsh joined me and I handed him a cup of the chai brewing there.

—Dimple, didn’t you know your father was quite the sought
after bachelor back in India? I bet you never imagined that about your bapu!

—
My
dad?

The man in question was waving off the encomium, but I could see he was pleased; his cheeks puffed with pride as well as paan now.

—Oh, yes, a veritable heartbreaker—which is not to say your mother was not a catch. In fact it was a match made in Bollywood, this couple. I nearly expected palm trees and dance troupes to spring up and moonwalk wherever they went.

—Bus bus, Radha, said my father, making a lame attempt to stop her now that he’d successfully swallowed. But Radha was on a roll.

—You never told her? Dimple, this man was our Elvis! On that little motorbike with his hair combed back like an American star.

—Motorbike?

Were we talking about the same person? I couldn’t believe all the astonishing bits and pieces of information that emerged every time Radha entered our home.

Now my mother caught the fever and bounced in her seat like a little kid, clapping delightedly.

—Oh, Ram, I remember that bike! He would scoot me up and I’d ride sideways with him, like in Westerns, on horses! We were the talk of the town!

—Oh yes, it was all well and good, said Radha.—Until…

She regarded me ominously.

—Sita arrived on the scene, she whispered loudly.

—Sita? Like Ram and Sita?

—Oh, your father had a Sita of his own.

Now I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear this. But at the same time I was on the edge of my seat (even though I was on the floor). I mean, my parents had never dated anyone before each other. The story of
their love was one, well, frankly, that I didn’t know, I guess because I hadn’t asked. You know, sometimes you don’t want to know about these kinds of things. But today I kind of did.

—Don’t look so horrified, Dimple! Radha yelped gleefully.—It’s much more innocent than you think. Let me tell you the story.

My mother wasn’t turning green with envy or getting ready to bat my father over the head or anything, so I figured it couldn’t be anything too sordid. She even looked eager to hear, or rehear, the tale.

—Sita was a girl from your bapu’s village, who had been in love with him since they were of an age to walk and talk, Radha began.—Your father, of course, had no idea. Girls weren’t on his mind then at all. Years passed and many later, when we were all in medical school in Bombay, Rohit fell head over heels in love with, of all things, a
city
girl.

I flinched.

—Your mother, she added when she saw my alarm.

As if on cue, my mom looked down into her lap with a diffident smile on her face, as if this news was only just now coming to her knowledge.

—One day your parents were sitting on the bench by the bus stop just next to the girls’ hostel, gazing into each other’s eyes as those wholly in love are wont to do. Your mother’s mother always made these wonderful tiffins of laddoos for your father—I pilfered one or two myself every time.

—Or six or seven, my mother grinned.

—Okay, okay, or eight or nine, Radha conceded.—The two of them would sit for
hours,
Dimple, feeding each other these delectable concoctions.

The ashes grew long while Radha talked, but didn’t fall.

There was something strange in my parents’ eyes as she sat
there, dreamily exhaling their story. I know they were just sitting on our Columbus Day Sale divan, with those hibiscus patterns on one side, diamonds and triangles on the other. My father was leaning back looking as usual not quite comfortable in this chilled-out position, and my mother perched on the cushion edge, staving off osteoporosis with her Encyclopaedia Britannica S-edition-on-the-head posture. They were listening like children at their grandmother’s feet, as if it were a story they did not know, even though it was their own.

And once, when Radha slunk way back into the financial sector to blow a locomotive breath out the window, I saw my parents glance at each other. Now this might not sound like a big deal, but that was something they never did in polite company, or even impolite, usually using me as the intermediary for all interactions; it was much more common to find my mom talking with her back to my dad, always productively utilizing her time: purveying the oil till the mustard seeds popped, keeping watch on the cauldron of kheer that had to boil and be broken.

But today they looked at each other without a word between them, and it was something I didn’t think I’d ever seen, or maybe I’d just never paid attention, but they seemed nearly shy; my mother even lowered her eyes and something approximating a blush crept up her neck and flushed through her jawbone (which can be a tough thing to make out on us brown folk). And for a minute it looked as if they were back on that bench again, cardamom crushed with bus dust, hands sticky, mouths melting, wanting to kiss but not daring. Or maybe daring; personally I’d never seen them kiss except on the cheek and the occasional peck that seemed executed to humor me more than anything. But now I was the one blushing.

For some reason I couldn’t look at Karsh while this story was go
ing on. I kept staring at his mouth when I did: It was so defined, the lips so full, I don’t know why I hadn’t really noticed before. And a funny thing happened as I heard the tale; my parents turned into us and back without changing, like in dreams. And I had this bizarre urge to put something in Karsh’s mouth, too. But paan didn’t quite have that romantic ring to it.

—Well, when word got back to Varad that Rohitbhai was seeing not only another girl, but a city girl, and not only a city girl, but a
Bombay
girl, Sita grew so fearful that she actually came to our school to see him and declare her love. Which may not sound like such a big deal to you, but at that time, and being the kind of girl Sita was from the kind of village she was from, the idea that she took a train by herself and traveled all that way was already well beyond what anyone would expect. It would be like…like…