The Hindi-Bindi Club (3 page)

I’m psyched to see my favorite chicken curry, garnished with fresh coriander leaves that smack of lemon-pepper and ginger. I remember the first time my mother sent me on an errand to the supermarket: It was for coriander. She was in the midst of cooking dinner when she realized she’d forgotten it. “In the produce section,” she said. I looked but couldn’t find it. No cell phones then, I came home with parsley, which she said was “coriander’s brother” in appearance, but unfortunately, not in taste or smell. Next time we went together, she took me to the elusive herb. Red rubber bands secured crisp green stems into bouquets of flat, fan-shaped leaves. We looked up at the sign:
cilantro
.

“Still your favorite?” she asks, beside me again.

I nod and wait until Saroj Auntie’s out of earshot, then confess under my breath, “No one’s as good as yours.
No one’s.
”

She, too, lowers her voice. “Good, then I’ll leave the world at least one specialty.” She tells me she’s written this recipe plus a few others
with measurements,
so I, with my meager time and more meager skill, can prepare them, should the impulse ever grab me one of these days. I brace for a comment about how Preity has a career, a husband, two children and still whips up a sumptuous home-cooked meal every night, but she either misses her cue or lets it go. “I haven’t made it in a while,” she says, “so you’ll have to tell me if it’s the same as you remember.”

I sample a bite and fan my open mouth. “Hot. Hot. Hot.”

“
Garam
or
thikhat
?” She asks me to differentiate between temperature-hot and spicy-hot.

“Garam.”
I fan some more. Swallow. Give the thumbs-up.

She smiles and hands me a water pitcher. “Spring water, please.”

I take a gallon from the fridge. “Where’s Dad tonight?”

“On call,” she says, which means he won’t be home. Yes! Finally, a break!

My father’s a cardiovascular surgeon. When he’s on call, he’s either at the hospital or the apartment he keeps nearby, since every second can mean the difference between life and death. Unlike my mom, my dad didn’t have a privileged middle-class upbringing in their hometown of Mumbai—think: New York City and Hollywood combined—but what he lacked in privilege he made up in highly disciplined academic pursuit and a lifelong rigorous work ethic.

He grew up in a two-room apartment—
room,
not bedroom—the eldest of six kids. Everyone but my dad slept in one room; he slept on the balcony. In a city where rich and poor and everyone in between live side by side, he learned early on that education was the passport to a better life. With that goal, he rose every morning before dawn to study and prepare for school. His parents never had to nag him; he was self-motivated and competitive by nature. He made a practice of “standing first” in his class, scoring the highest marks, and earned merit scholarships.

When he was twenty, he lost his father to an unexpected heart attack, the reason he went into cardiovascular surgery. Overnight, he became the head of the family and sole financial supporter. “I came to this country with two suitcases and seven mouths to feed,” he says. Over and over and over. (With his rags-to-riches life, he stands first in “uphill both ways” lectures.)

At the sink, my mother is snipping off the ends of the rose stems and arranging the flowers in a tall crystal vase with pale green sea glass at the bottom. She lowers her nose to sniff the closed buds and smiles, making my heart feel full.

Uma Auntie sashays into the kitchen double-fisted, the slender neck of a wine bottle in each hand. With her height—five foot seven—and moss green eyes, she’s easy to spot in a crowd of petite, brown-eyed Indian women. A professor at George Washington University, she has this commanding presence, sharp intellect, and engaging rhetoric that make you sit up straight and pay rapt attention.

She dresses in a style I think of as “academic chic.” Today she’s paired a cream ribbed turtleneck with a navy wool blazer and clipped her hair at the nape with a tortoise-shell barrette. While Mom and Saroj Auntie shortened their hairstyles (I still can’t get over my mom’s pixie cut), Uma Auntie lengthened hers, so it falls an inch below her shoulders. In the middle parting of her hair, she sprinkled
sindoor
—red vermilion powder—which signifies she’s married.

“Meenal? Wine for you?” Uma Auntie asks.

“No, thank you.”

“Saroj? Red or white?”

Saroj Auntie eyes the choices, a Riesling and a Zinfandel. “Red, please.”

“Kiran?”

I look at my mother. Even after I turned twenty-one, she still instructed me—and only me, not Vivek—to abstain from alcohol in the company of Indian friends. She coached me to refuse any offers with: “No, thank you. I don’t drink.”

That was before I married an aspiring rock star—complete with a shoulder-length PONYTAIL, small gold loop EARRING, and TATTOO of a cross over his heart—whom I met at a club in SoHo that fateful summer after I graduated from Princeton, before I started medical school at Columbia.

Yes, I know. Where’s that copy of
Smart Women, Foolish Choices
when you need it? Not that it would have changed the outcome.

Until a drop-dead gorgeous man writes you beautiful poetry, plays Beethoven’s
Moonlight
Sonata on a baby grand piano for you by candlelight, and serenades you with love songs in the shower, I don’t expect you can fully empathize with my (hard) fall from grace.

Since I’ve caused her enough grief, it doesn’t kill me to wait for some sign from my mother—parental permission—before replying to the booze question. It’s the little things, Vivek advises me to concede. Small signs of deference go a long way.

My mom inclines her head.
Go ahead if you want.

I want. I extend a wineglass by the stem. “White, please.”

We form an assembly line and load our plates to take into the dining room. I serve myself as my mother taught, using my left hand and spooning each dish into its proper place. Meat at ten o’clock. Lentils at eleven. Condiments like chutney, lemon, mango pickle, and a pinch of salt disperse across the outermost twelve region, cold veggies and yogurt due south. Warm veggies nestle between one and three. Rice or
chappati
at six.

Fried fish, which we don’t have, would take the nine o’clock spot but can shift inside (next door to meat and lentils) when dessert snags nine, a rarity at our house where “desserts are rewards, not side dishes,” my mother insists. That is, unless
her
mother visits from Mumbai. According to my traditional
aji
—maternal grandmother—a properly served, well-balanced meal includes all six
rasas
(tastes): sweet, sour, salty, spicy, bitter, and astringent.

Dinner conversation starts with compliments to the chef, then segues to family gossip, books and movies, and current events. No one uses a fork, knife, or spoon. We eat with the fingertips of our right hand, keeping the left hand clean for serving, passing, and holding drinks. I tear off a piece of
chappati
—the only food-touching act that permits left-handed assistance—and envelop a piece of chicken, creating a bite-sized morsel. I’m competent at the fine art of Eating With One’s Hand but lack the elegance, the finesse of the aunties in the same way I can stitch up a patient, but I’m no plastic surgeon.

The lemony chicken melts in my mouth. The gravy has just enough kick to give me sniffles. Ordinarily, I’m not a big fan of green beans or eggplant or cabbage, but Indian
bhajis
—cooked veggie dishes—are so well seasoned, even ho-hum veggies become quite yummy. I like to occasionally dip my bites in sour cream or alternate with
koshimbir
—raw veggies like tomato or cucumber in a refreshing yogurt or sour cream. This cools down the spicy-hot factor and cleanses the palate.

When I get close to finishing an Indian meal, I’m anal-retentive about my
chappati
and my complementary dishes ending together. I don’t like to eat one without the other; it’s just not the same. Ditto hamburgers and French fries. The optimal apportionment occupies my subconscious, and the aunties take this opportunity to inquire about my well-being (read: examine me, a mutant specimen under the microscope).

Auntie 1:
Isn’t it scary going to new towns all alone, not knowing anyone?

Me:
No, it’s fun meeting new people, and re-creating myself.

Auntie 2:
But isn’t it dangerous, a young woman by herself?

Me:
I’m very careful, and I’ve taken self-defense classes.

Auntie 3:
You must be getting lonely,
nuh
?

Me:
Sometimes, but my work keeps me busy.

Auntie 4:
What do you do outside of work?

Me:
Sleep.

Auntie 5:
I have a niece in Georgia, the daughter of a good friend of my brother’s wife in Bangalore. They were classmates in college. You should call her. Get together sometimes. I’ll give you her number.

Me:
(Polite smile)

I explain that I’m nearing the end of my contracted stint, and when I’m done, the government will repay my student loans. I leave out the part about having these loans because my father cut me off—financially and emotionally—after I married against his wishes. (He didn’t bless my marriage or my divorce. “What did you expect?” he asked, bewildered.
“Hya
American rock star
anchi lafdi nehamich astat, hen saglyanach mahtyeh.”
These American rock stars always have affairs, everyone knows that.)

I know the aunties are dying to know about my (nonexistent) love life, but dating, like every other taboo subject, requires discussion in furtive whispers behind my back.

“So I hear you’ve started movie nights and a reading group,” I say and manage to wiggle out of the hot seat, at least for the time being.

Their movie nights feature Hindi films/Bollywood musicals, and the book group focuses on novelists of the Indian diaspora. Someone is invariably insulted by the depiction of Indians, or Americans, or Indian-Americans, or Non-Resident Indians in any given film, making for lively debate.

“What nonsense,” says one auntie about the character in a popular crossover film. “N.R.I.s are nothing like that.”

“Don’t take everything so seriously,” says another. “It’s all in good fun.”

“Bashing one’s heritage is not my definition of good fun.”

“Satirical humor exaggerates a kernel of truth,” says Uma Auntie.

Some aunties huff and shake their heads; others nod.

The auntie who brought up this topic says, “I don’t find perpetuating stereotypes and gross inaccuracies amusing.”

From across the table, I spot the devilish gleam in Saroj Auntie’s eye. “And you’ve never laughed at a
Sardarji
joke, or
told one,
have you?” she says, deadpan.

Ooooh, good one, Saroj Auntie! (Before modern political correctness kicked in, bashing this minority subculture was a long-revered national Indian pastime.) After some sputtering and guilty silences, everyone laughs.

My mother asks what book they’re reading next. From what I can tell, the book-selection process involves as much discussion as the actual book.

“Please. Not her again,” one auntie says. “Too crazy.” She proposes an alternate, an international bestseller, but another auntie waves her hand in protest.

“No, no. She isn’t an expatriate. And she’s more of a political activist than a novelist.”

“She’s brilliant, that’s what she is,” says Uma Auntie, who teaches South Asian literature. “I don’t always agree with her, but what a mind. What a mind….”

“My mind is tired,” says Saroj Auntie. “Why don’t we read something fun for a change?” She suggests another author. “Her prose is like music. Lyrical. Lush. Evocative.”

My mother winces. “Too Mills and Boon. Not realistic.”

“
I
find M and B realistic,” says Uma Auntie with a grin.

My mother springs from her chair like a jack-in-the-box. “Can I get anyone anything? More
chappati
?”

“Sit, sit. We can serve ourselves,” the aunties protest, but she ignores them and retreats to the kitchen.

“I’ll help.” Since I’m out of
chappati,
I abandon my last few bites of green beans and go after my mother.

She stands with her head bent, her left hand gripping the counter. Tucked into the corner alcove in front of her resides the foot-high wooden
mandir
—shrine. Or as Patrick Uncle calls it, “the Hindu hut.” Photos of my deceased paternal grandparents and white-bearded saint Sai Baba flank the
mandir
. Inside sit rose-petal-laden sterling idols: Ganpati, also known as Ganesh, god of beginnings and remover of obstacles; Krishna, god of love; Lakshmi, goddess of wealth and beauty; and Saraswati, goddess of wisdom. (Hindus believe in only one supreme God but acknowledge different names, forms, interpretations, paths to the divine.)

“Mom? What’s wrong?”

Startled, she straightens and whirls to face me. “Nothing. Nothing. Just a little tired.”

“Hawa gayli?”
I ask and earn a smile of pride and pleasure that I remember this expression that means running out of steam.

She nods.
“Ho.”

“Understandably. You’ve outdone yourself. What can I do?”

“Eat. Please eat more. You’re too skinny.”

“I am not.” I lift the hem of my sweater and show her my stomach. “See? I’m
fit
.”

“A fit little sparrow.” She pokes my belly with her index finger. “Take half a
chappati,
so you can finish your
bhaji
.”

Our eyes meet, and emotion tightens my throat. How is it my mother can know me so well at times, yet other times not know me at all? She breaks away first, turning to the faucet to wash her hands. The din of aunties fades into the background like a hush falling over an audience. The world shrinks to encapsulate just the two of us. My mother and me, together on the same stage for the first time in five years. Together, yet each of us alone in our separate spotlights. Even the air seems to hold its breath, quivering in anticipation.