Julie & Kishore (13 page)
Authors: Carol Jackson
The
Hindi word for tea is chai.
We
were going to attend our first official family gathering as a couple.
It was a naming ceremony for Andrew and
Tanya’s first child, a son, the first grandchild in my family. Naming
ceremonies using a Justice of the Peace were becoming popular for new parents
who chose not to go down the path of a traditional baby christening but still
wanted a get-together to bless their baby. New Mums and Dads wanted to publicly
announce the name they had chosen for their child and enjoy a celebration in
the baby’s honour.
Kishore
had not yet met Sarah, Brett or
any of
my extended
family and friends so this was to be the first time I was to show off my Indian
fiancé to them. They had heard a lot about
Julie
and her Indian man
and were intrigued to meet the source of all the gossip.
Although
this was not a formal occasion, Kishore took it quite seriously
,
he wanted to impress my family and make me proud of
him. He took
ages deciding
what to wear
,
deliberating for hours whether to wear a tie or not.
Kishore,
minus a tie and I arrived on a glorious spring day at the public rose garden
s
where the naming ceremony was to take place. As we
walked towards the main party area
every
head rotated as
if someone had pushed an automatic button on a remote control -
all
eye
s
stared at us. We ignored their vacant looks as we
took in the pretty roses growing all around which were blossoming in gorgeous
shades of pinks and reds. The garden
s
,
which are
also dotted with pergolas, are often
used for weddings and special occasion photography. We realised as eyes
continued to follow us that we were being judged but we disregarded the looks
and headed to where my main family were waiting for the ceremony to begin, I
made introductions to Sarah and Brett.
The
ceremony commenced and with the Justice of the Peace’s sanction, my baby nephew
with cheeks as soft as marshmallows
and legs
as podgy as bread dough,
was
officially introduced to the guests with his given name. Andrew and Tanya
proudly held their son Christopher high for everyone to see.
After
the ceremony the guests were invited to a shaded area under a pergola to enjoy
an afternoon
tea that had been delicately laid out -
delicious mini
sausage rolls,
rectangular
club sandwiches,
melt-in-your-mouth lamingtons and
sweet,
crumbly
meringues. Rather than hide in the corner, I took Kishore
a
round to introduce him to the guests. He made polite
conversation
to the people he met
and was given the chance to show
them
his charm. He asked the older ladies if they would
like another cup of tea and talked to the elderly men about weather and sports.
He scooped up daisies from the lawn presenting them to the little girls and
joked about with the boys giving them high fives. He then took up conversation
with the younger ladies, teaching them how to say naughty words in Hindi. One
of them decided to try out her new found words on her boss on Monday, oh dear.
By
the end of the afternoon Kishore was the envy of all of the single girls at the
naming ceremony. His ability to use the crowd to his advantage amazed me,
showing he was a confident, genuine and kind young man but of course I knew
that anyway. The only surprise I found was his shyness seemed to have
miraculously dissolved. Once the guests took
the
time
to talk to him they saw he was more than
an
Indian man with a funny accent
and
that he
was
a suitable match for any girl. As his personality shone through, they soon
forgot he was Indian and liked him for being him.
Although
later
Mum did mention a few of the older relatives voiced
comments of their own. A family cousin
had
said,
“Oh, Julie is young
,
she has plenty
of time to meet and settle down with a fine English
young
man.”
O
ne of Mum’s Aunts wondered what was wrong with Julie
and why could she not find a nice Kiwi boy? Mum politely informed them that
what
Julie
did was up to
Julie
,
she told those well-meaning relatives that she and
my Dad had given their blessings to Kishore’s and Julie's relationship.
The
most astonishing comment of all came from another Aunt,
an elderly relative on Mum’s side of the family
.
Aunty Gladys is known as the type of woman who speaks
her mind. Approaching Mum
as if she had a big secret to tell her,
she
pulled
her
to one side and made her sit down. Mum obediently
sat, waiting and speculating what was coming next.
Aunty
Gladys questioned sternly, “Helen, are you really going to let Julie marry that
man?”
“Yes,
certainly.”
The
old lady snorted “You do know what those Indian people do, don’t you?”
With
a sigh Mum replied, “No, tell me Aunty Gladys, what
do those
Indian people do?”
Aunty
Gladys
turned her head from side to side,
peering behind
each of her shoulders
to make sure no one else was
listening. She leaned in closer, lowered her voice and said, “I know what they
do, I will tell you. People in India are cremated on an open fire, if the
husband dies before the wife, the wife must be cremated with the
husband
-
alive!”
“What!”
exclaimed Mum, “How
ridiculous.
”
The stubborn Aunt crossed her arms in defiance,
“I can assure
you, it is absolutely true,”
she
claimed.
“What a load of
nonsense,”
scoffed Mum.
Mum
later discussed this with Kishore and yes Aunty Gladys was right
-
to a point. This horrifying tradition called Sati was performed hundreds of
years ago when it was believed a woman could not survive without her husband.
It
certainly did not happen today and absolutely would not happen to Julie.
The
Hindi word for sun is suraj.
It
came to Kishore’s attention that pets played an important role in family life
in New Zealand, almost every home contained a cat or dog or both. Dogs were not
so strange in India but cats? In India cats were considered dirty. He had never
known anyone to own a cat as a pet or welcome one into their home as part of
the family.
My
family owned a golden Labrador, Jasper, who had been with us for many years and
Penny, a five year old grey and white cat. Kishore found
this
bizarre, when visiting my home he observed as Jasper
and Penny ate their meal next to each other and slept together. He was
astonished to see them as friends.
Kishore
seated himself on the couch and Penny took this opportunity to jump up on his
lap to try him out for a cuddle. She rubbed herself up against him expecting to
be patted. I told him what she wanted and as he had never done this before I
showed him how. Very gingerly he stroked her soft, fine hair and she began
purring. This was a strange noise to Kishore, it startled him, he thought she
was growling and was about to bite him. He jumped up quickly moving out of the
way. I laughed asking what was wrong, “That cat is going to bite me,” Kishore
exclaimed.
I
explained when a cat purrs it’s their way of expressing contentment or
happiness.
“Penny‘s
just enjoying you patting her,” I clarified.
“Ohh,”
he sighed, much relieved. He sat back down again but Penny had moved, deciding
to settle on her favourite armchair.
After making herself comfortable she turned to look at him. Her eyes
were glazed as she stared, the sleepy way cats do when they’re content, her
purring continued, becoming in tune with each breath she took. Kishore intently
scrutinized her and finally he concluded, “It is like a motor they have inside
them that switches on when the trigger is activated by someone patting them.”
Coming from a man with a systematic accountant mind, this was surely a true
analysis.
Penny
soon stopped purring and began her licking and cleaning ritual
,
carefully stretching her neck, she smooth
ed
the hair on her back
with her rough tongue
.
“Now
what is she doing?”
“She’s
cleaning herself.”
“Does she think I dirtied her?” Kishore
examined his hands, “My hands aren’t dirty,” he joked.
“No,”
I giggled, “Cats are always cleaning themselves.”
“I
thought cats were dirty animals but if they can clean themselves with their own
tongue, that's impressive, that is clean, not even a dog does that.”
The
next time Kishore came over he brought his camera with him.
He took photos to send to his family of
my
Mum and Dad, the house, garden and the pets eating
and sleeping together. His parents reported back they were also most surprised
to see a dog and cat happily living together.
The
Hindi word for welcome is swaagat.
Kishore
received a telephone call from his parents regarding his Aunt and Uncle’s
impression of their meeting with me. Apparently, to Kishore’s and my great
relief they told his parents I was a lovely, sweet girl. As in conventional
arranged marriages the parents of the intended boy and girl seek advice from
friends and family about the marriage of their child. Kishore’s Mum and Dad
could only use Aunt Bhamini and Uncle Harilal's comments to judge the girl
their son was engaged to. They were real
l
y
keen to meet for themselves, the red headed
,
freckled girl who had stolen their son’s heart.
We
made a few stumbling phone calls to his family home. Kishore handed the phone
over to me whispering in my ear, “Say Namaste,” (hello) then, "Kei ha lai”
(how are you). I repeated what he told me and could hear a tiny voice deep
within the phone lines reply, “Namaste, mai theek hu,” (Hello, I am good). I
was talking to Kishore’s Mother, as I spoke I imagined an older version of the
woman I had seen in the photos at his Aunt and Uncles house. I saw, in my
mind’s eye, his Mother dressed in a sari holding the phone up close to her ear.
I thought she must be wondering, who is this English girl that my son is so intent
on marrying?
Is she genuine? Is she a
good person? A Mother is a Mother regardless of race, culture or religion and
only wants what is best for her child.
Secretly,
I was scared.
I was beginning to realise
just what I might be getting myself into if I married Kishore. I hoped his
family would like me and support our decision to marry. We knew meeting his
family was exceptionally important, so as a couple we made our first big
decision.
We
started planning a trip to India.
When
I told my friends my exciting news, they were not as enthusiastic as I hoped
they would be. In fact, as they each voiced their own opinions, their remarks
astonished me. Louise, with a hint of sarcasm affectionately called me a 'curry
lover.’ Michelle said, ‘what if he sells you to a white slave trader?’
Kerry’s concerns were, ‘be careful, Julie,
Indian men treat their wives as slaves’ and ‘what if he takes you to India and
dumps you there?’
When
I sadly told Kishore these comments he surprised me by laughing. He especially
found the last comment funny, “Julie, my jewel,” he said, “Why would I spend
our time and money on planning a trip to India to meet my family, if all I do
is dump you when we get there? What would that achieve? Why would a person do
that?”
We decided the best thing to do was to ignore
the comments and continue saving for our trip.
We loved each other deeply, that is all that
mattered to us.
We
were discussing travel plans one afternoon at Mum’s house when I got up to get
a drink of water.
“Julie,”
Kishore called from the lounge where he was busy petting Penny, his new best
friend, “Can you please have a look in my wallet for a business card that has
the name of a travel agent on it.”
I
picked up his wallet that was sitting on the bench next to his keys. While
looking for the card, I found a folded note tucked behind his driver’s licence.
Curiosity got the better of me and I opened it. I was surprised to see my own
handwriting. I realised with astonishment, it was the note with my phone number
I had given to Linda that day in the lunchroom when Kishore presented me with
the flower. Confronting him, I waved it dramatically in his face, teasing,
“Mmmmm, whose number is this, a secret girlfriend, aye?” To my surprise he took
one glance at the piece of paper and said, “Julie, that’s the note with your
home phone number, 472-9023.” He had not only kept it but also knew my number
off by heart.
We
headed out one Saturday night to Michelle’s house, she had also become engaged
and organised a pre-wedding couples games night with inventive competitions
that would make for an interesting evening. After
introductions and
drinks
the games began. The first challenge was to see how many pegs each girl could
fit in
to
her hand while hang
ing
out washing on a
make-shift
clothesline
.
A
length of string had been stretched between two chairs
while knickers and bras (which were clean!) were used as clothes
- I lost,
miserably.
A
boys
game was next,
Kishore was
very
eager to participate in this competition, which was
called ‘see who could eat the most spring onions.’ Pee
k
ing
at
each other we snickered behind our hands. Kishore had already told me of the
competitions he’d had with his brother to see who
could
eat
the most chillies. Compared to chillies, spring onions were like raw carrots.
While his competitors had tears streaming from their
ey
es,
my fiancé munched his way through those spring onions like they
were
raw carrots!
He won, of course, easily.
*
Our
first big argument was over a pair of jeans.
We
had been saving for our trip for a few months when Kishore arrived
at my house
one Saturday morning proudly wearing a
brand new pair of expensive Levis jeans. He waited for the expected compliment
but that was not what he got. I had always been thrifty, so saving came easily
to me and with Kishore being an accountant I thought he would also be frugal.
And he was, most of the time. This one time however, he’d blown caution to the
wind. Kishore was oblivious, he didn’t even realise what he’d done. Although,
the look of thunder on my face was enough to make him realise I was not at all
happy.
He
asked hesitantly, “What’s wrong, Julie, are you okay?”
With
a scowl, I answered the only way a woman knows how to reply when she is not in
the mood for talking.
“Nothing,”
I seethed.
The
poor man persisted, pushing me and falling innocently into the trap he was
setting for himself.
“Come
on, Julie, I can tell something is wrong.”
Not
able to contain myself any longer, I exploded.
“Jeans!
Not only jeans but Levis jeans! How can you be wearing an expensive pair of
jeans? We are saving!” My eyebrows hit the top of my head as I continued
ranting rather loudly, “If you want to buy something expensive we need to
discuss it
first
, that’s what couples do, I am desperately trying to
save every cent I have so we can go to India to meet your family, so we can
start our lives together and you go and blow money on an expensive pair of
jeans!”
Kishore’s
face crumbled like a broken biscuit as the bottom of the packet. Never before
had he seen his dear sweet Julie get so mad. He then realised for the first
time in his life, life didn’t mean, ‘I’ anymore, it meant, ‘we.’ He was most
excited to hear me referring to us as, ‘we’ and a ‘couple.’ He was also wise
enough to realise
that
this was not the
time to revel in that fact. He knew he had some serious buttering-up to do and
started by apologising, many times over.
For
the next few hours I only talked to him in one-syllable words. He pleaded with
me to forgive him and I eventually gave in. He smiled so sweetly at me with his
beautiful brown eyes and promised to always discuss big purchases with me from
now on.
I
didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the surprise I received at work on
Monday morning when a courier arrived with a big bunch of pink carnations. I
stared astonished
at the flowers and a tear fell from my
eye as I opened the note:
To Julie my precious Jewel,
Please don’t be mad that I have sent you
these flowers,
I love you and wanted to show you my
love.
I promise this will be the last thing I
will buy without us discussing it first.