Same Sun Here (7 page)

Thank you for saying you might have thought me and Kiku were terrorists, too. That sounds funny but what I mean is that I am glad we tell each other the real whole truth, and I am glad we can change each other’s mind. I feel like I am learning a lot from you about Americans and what they’re really like. I would have been afraid to go to Kentucky before I met you. Kiku says that everyone in the South wants to hang us by our necks from trees. But since meeting you, I have told him he’s wrong. He doesn’t believe me, of course, because he thinks he’s never wrong.

I will say “close call” from now on. It didn’t make me mad that you told me the right way to say that. And I would definitely tell you if you had a booger hanging out of your nose.

You asked if things like your mountaintop removal also happen in Garhwal. They do. My family lost its farm because of a big dam that took twenty years to build. The farm was small, but it had been in our family so long that no one remembers the name of the ancestor who first turned its soil.

Even though the government came and moved all the people from our village, they didn’t flood the area right away. So we used to go back and visit the land and harvest the crops. The vegetables grew without us, especially the turnips. I only remember a few things about the farm. I remember Dadi and me picking beans in our bare feet and the cool dirt between our toes. I remember falling asleep under a banana tree and getting bitten by a spider. And once, Dadi and I were walking to the river and we saw big crowds of purple flowers on the hillside. I asked Dadi their name, and she said, “They are wildflowers. They would not want a name.”

I guess there are some things that are not meant to be tamed. Like mountains and wildflowers and my dadi.

When the dam came, Dadi had to move to Mussoorie, where Mummy-Daddy were teaching. I was not yet born, but Kiku remembers leaving the farm. He said everyone in our village cried. They shut the doors to their houses and left in a big group, herding the goats and buffalo. When they got to the Naya Road, some people went left and some people went right and then they were separated forever.

There is a big lake there now, and tourists come and rent boats that bob up and down in the water. They pose for pictures right above the spot where our village used to be. What’s weird is that the power from the dam goes to people in Delhi, which is five hundred miles away. Meanwhile, the lights in Mussoorie go out all the time. Often this would happen while Dadi and I were eating dinner. We would feel our way through a meal in the dark and keep talking and eating as if nothing had happened. Later we would light a candle and set it on the table, and I would do my homework and Dadi would practice her letters or knit. I love candles and the way they make a room peaceful when they flicker.

Did you know that the English word “jungle” is the same as the Hindi word for forest? There is something nice about two different languages sharing a word, don’t you think?

I told Mum about the trees you had seen, and she said that a long time ago, in the 1970s, when she was little, Dadi and many other village
ghasayi
(grass-cutting) women fought for the trees. They were led by a woman named Gaura Devi, who was Dadi’s childhood friend and who started the Chipko movement.

Mum said Gaura was the smartest person she ever met and was the one who taught her that the trees are our brothers and sisters. (Oh, and “chipko” means to hug.) What happened is that when the contractors came to cut the forest, the women and their children held hands and stood in circles around the trunks of trees. They hugged pine and oak and devdar and saved them with their own bodies. They sang songs and shouted, “First cut us, then the trees!”

The women did this after working all day, taking care of their families and animals, cutting grass and gathering wood and planting crops. The contractors were too ashamed to hurt women and children, so they left. Later some men came from the city and heard about the women, and they talked to the government and a law was passed that stopped the businesses from taking trees.

Most people have forgotten that the village women started the change, though. Most people have even forgotten Gaura Devi. Mum says this is how it is all over the world. She says often a woman does the work but a man gets the credit. She says the Chipko women were also forgotten because most of them did not know how to read and write, so people did not believe in their intelligence.

My dadi learned to read and write when she was fifty-two years old, and she is the smartest person I know.

It is funny how the government that stopped the bad tree cutting is the same government that created the bad dam. If a government can do one good thing, why can’t it do good things all the time?

Writing this to you has made me remember a song Dadi used to sing. I will translate it for you:

I have just sung it aloud. I feel as if Dadi is close, and I also feel hollow inside, as if I am hungry but no food will help.

Today is Karva Chauth, which means Mum is fasting for Daddy to be healthy and safe. I should go and make dinner. The city lights are bright, and it takes a while for the moon to rise above the buildings here. Mum will be eating late. She can only stop her fast once she has seen the moon. This is the first year she will do Karva Chauth. She says it is not something Garhwali women follow, but this year she will do it because her husband is far away.

I have written a lot about home but I have not yet told you what is happening in Chinatown. You and your mountains remind me so much of Dadi. Some days I feel like I am living in two places at once. Garhwal in my mind and New York in my body. I do not yet know where my heart is. Good night for now, River.

October 20, 2008

I also don’t like when people wear too much perfume. I always know when the college girls on the fourth floor have come home, because I smell their tangerine scent coming in through the window. They own their apartment, but Kiku says they did not buy it themselves. Their daddies are rich, and that is why they have loud parties and put out cigarettes in the hallway.

We do not have the Piggly Wiggly in New York City. I was taking the subway with Kiku when I read your letter for the first time. Piggly Wiggly is such a funny name, I laughed out loud and couldn’t stop. A few people on the subway looked at me and either smiled or frowned, depending on their mood. Mostly, though, everyone just kept doing their own thing. You could stand on your head in the middle of a New York subway and no one would ask what you were doing. Piggly Wiggly. Piggly Wiggly. It is fun to say.

School is going pretty OK. I like English class with Ms. Bledsoe the best. I also like history and science and maths. I do not like homeroom because everyone talks, so it is hard to concentrate on reading. In science, I am lab partners with a girl named Valentina. She is from the Dominican Republic. She showed it to me on the classroom map. It is an island near Florida. She speaks Spanish and English and is always singing. When I tell her she sounds beautiful, she says, “Oh, forget about it,” and smacks me on the arm. She was in the school play last year and is auditioning this year. I had a lot of fun helping her “run lines” the other day.

This year, they are doing a show called
A Chorus Line
. It’s a New York City story about a bunch of actors auditioning for a play. Valentina says the Broadway version is realllllly dirty, so the drama teacher cut a bunch of songs and changed the words to others.

Valentina is trying out for the part of Maggie because she is what is called a soprano. If she gets the part, she will have a solo. Her big competition is Marvel Jenkins, who scares me because she is sooooo confident. Even when she makes a mistake, Marvel manages to look strong. Like the other day in science, we were comparing buoyancy in plain and salt water, and Marvel dropped a beaker and it broke. Glass went everywhere. I would have been very embarrassed if this had happened to me. In fact, I am always careful with the beakers because I do not want to drop one and have everyone stare. Marvel was texting when she dropped the beaker, so she should have gotten in BIG TROUBLE. But she just slapped her own cheeks and rolled her eyes and said in a cartoon voice, “Oh, no, Marvel, look what you did!” It was really funny and everyone started laughing — even the teacher. I don’t know how Marvel changed something naughty into something funny. I wish I could do that.

I am too shy to sing and dance in front of people, but Valentina saw me drawing in my notebook and said I could paint backdrops for the play. I am going to ask Kiku about it. I think I would like to be in the Drama Club. All the drama kids sit together at lunch, and I have heard that people kiss backstage. Apparently Jeffrey Mazano and Amanda Fritz got caught doing that last year. I don’t want to kiss anyone (blech) but it is interesting to hear about.

Today, as I was coming back from school, I saw the exterminator leaving the building. When I went up to Mrs. Lau’s, she said the exterminator had not come to her apartment or to ours or to the Woos’, on the second floor. She said the building manager must have said not to spray the rent-controlled apartments. They are hoping we will be overrun with bugs and will move out, so they can sell our apartments for a half million dollars each. That is also why they do not fix Mrs. Lau’s broken windows or the crack in our ceiling that leaks.

I still have not gotten
The Outsiders
from the library. All the copies are lost or missing. But I have put in a request for
Old Yeller
. I have finished
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
for the third time. It taught me a lot, and I cried all over its pages because it was so real. When I returned the book to the library, I thought about how maybe someone else will cry over it, too. I like that library books have secret lives. All those hands that have held them. All those eyes that have read them.

I keep forgetting to tell you that Mrs. Lau uses something called Tiger Balm when she has a headache. It is a minty kind of oil, and when you rub it on your skin, you feel warm and tingly and the pain goes away. If you do not have this in Black Banks, I will ask Mrs. Lau if I can put some in a bottle and send it for your mother. Mrs. Lau also puts Tiger Balm on her hands, which have arthritis from sewing in a factory for thirty-three years. The factory used to be on the next block, but it closed down after Mrs. Lau retired, and now there are fancy shops there and a high-rise luxury building.

I was very glad to read about you making friends with Mrs. Patel. Her first name, Chandra, means moon. I knew from her last name that she was Gujarati. Indian last names tell you things about a person, like what part of the country they are from or what their religion is. Now that you and Mrs. Patel are friends, I am thinking you will not make fun of the way I talk. And if you ever go someplace where you are the only person like yourself, you’ll see how it feels to be stared at, and maybe then you will better understand what I was saying.

Today I am writing from Mrs. Lau’s apartment. Cuba is lying across my feet and the parakeets are angry. Mrs. Lau is at the senior citizen center on Gold Street. On Monday nights, they have ballroom dancing. Now that Mrs. Lau is retired and in her “golden years” (this is what she calls them), she goes out and enjoys life. She eats dinner at the senior citizen center two nights a week. It is only $1.25 for a plate of food, either chicken and vegetable, beef and vegetable, or baked fish. Mrs. Lau likes that they have disposable plates. She used to go to the senior center on Essex Street, but they used real plates and didn’t clean them properly.

The sun sets so early these days. This week, the ivy on the building across the way has changed from green to red. The delis on Delancey are selling pumpkins and gourds, and the big oak on 12th is full of acorns. The mannequin in the new boutique next door is wearing a wool hat and a scarf and a big red sweater. Right now, at Mrs. Lau’s apartment, there are six pigeons looking in the window at me. They are wanting Mrs. Lau because she feeds them seed every morning and night. Whenever there is not seed on the fire escape, the pigeons wonder what is wrong, and they look in the window to see if Mrs. Lau is home. If they don’t see her in the living room, they fly to the bedroom window and look for her there. If she is not in the bedroom, they fly back to the living room and wait.