Authors: Shilpi Somaya Gowda
“A
SHA,
BETI,
” HER GRANDMOTHER SAYS ACROSS THE TABLE OVER
breakfast. “We are attending a big wedding this weekend. The Rajaj girl is getting married. You’ve heard of the Rajaj family? They make nearly every auto-rickshaw and motor scooter in all of India. Anyway, it will be a lovely time, and I’ve asked Priya to come this afternoon to take you to Kala Niketan to choose something to wear. A nice
salwar khameez
or perhaps a
lengha
?”
“Oh, that’s okay,” Asha says, “I don’t want to impose, since I don’t know them. You guys go ahead. I don’t mind staying home.”
“What impose? Nonsense!” Dadima says. “The family is invited and you are family, no? If we have twelve people or if we have thirteen people makes no difference. There will be thousands of guests there. Besides, I want you to see this. A true Mumbai wedding. Very fancy. So be sure to choose something special,
achha
? Something…colorful,” she says, glancing at Asha’s tan cargo pants and gray T-shirt. “Priya will come fetch you after lunch.”
“Okay, Dadima.” After only a few weeks, Asha has learned when
not to argue with her grandmother. She is a formidable woman, exuding strength in everything she does, yet she shows pure tenderness toward Asha. It helps her see her father in a new light, as the boy who was raised and shaped by this woman. She can even see echoes of her dad in Dadima’s smile. She really hopes her parents come to visit, though her father didn’t mention anything during their last phone call. Her mother spoke up only at the end, to ask if Asha was taking her weekly malaria pill.
“H
ELLO
, A
SHA
? W
HERE ARE YOU
?” P
RIYA CALLS OUT, WALKING
down the main hallway of the flat. She stops at the door of Asha’s room, dressed in a sleeveless chiffon
salwar khameez
the color of mango sherbet and holding sunglasses in one hand. Her black hair hangs thick and straight to her shoulders, its henna tint glowing reddish in the sunlight. “Ah, there you are! Ready?” Priya flashes a confident smile and links her arm through Asha’s. “We’ll find you something
gorgeous
for the wedding. Strict instructions from Dadima.”
Thirty minutes later, stepping into the sari shop, Asha is thankful to have Priya by her side. When her cousin sent the driver off with directions to return in two hours, Asha was baffled, but now she can see why this will take some time. The entire perimeter of the store is lined from floor to ceiling with shelves holding thousands of saris in every hue and fabric imaginable, a rainbow wonderland. The shop caters exclusively to women’s fashion but employs only men. One of them engages Priya immediately, clearly having deduced who’s in charge of this expedition. He points to bright bolts of fabric stacked on the shelves, talking without pause like an auctioneer, until Priya holds up her hand to silence him. Then, with a few curtly administered directions, she proceeds to navigate their way through the overwhelming selection.
“
Kanjeevaram bathau! Nai, chiffon nai. Tissue silk layavo!
Pistachio
green, pastel colors?” As Priya issues her rapid commands, the man behind the counter unfolds the piles of silky fabric in front of them, pointing out the elaborate borders sewn with gold or silver thread in detailed patterns of paisley and peacocks. Asha sees each sari for a few seconds before it is buried beneath the next one. She catches only the odd word, watching in astonishment the quick-fire volley between her cousin, the man behind the counter, and his two clerks, who dart back and forth to distant parts of the store to retrieve armfuls of new saris.
No one asks Asha for her opinion, nor could she proffer one. Another clerk presents them with stainless steel tumblers of steamy fragrant
chai
. Asha, accepting her incidental role, busies herself with alternately sipping and blowing on her tea to keep a skin from forming on its surface. Periodically, she glances around the store, where every few feet an elegant mannequin with a black updo and feline eyes stands with perfect posture and a gracefully extended arm holding her sari. This is the quintessential garment for women across India, according to Asha’s research, a six-yard rectangle of fabric wrapped and tucked around the body without a single button, hook, or zipper. It can be draped in a number of different ways, depending on the region, and one size is used to fit women tall and short, fat and thin. It all sounded very democratic when Asha read about it, but the smiling mannequins now seem intimidating.
Finally, Priya turns to her and says, “Okay, Asha, I’ve made a few selections. Tell me if you like any of these.” When Asha glances down at the glass countertop, she sees most of the saris have been pushed to a big pile on the side and two are displayed in front of her. “This one is tissue silk,” Priya says, showing her a papery thin pale green bundle with delicate gold beading. “Tissue is the latest thing. Very modern. You
cannot
be plump and wear tissue silk, it is too fluffy. You have to be thin like a rail,” she says, holding up a pinkie finger. “This color would look lovely on you.” She holds it up to Asha’s chest.
“It is beautiful.” Asha wonders if she is rail-thin enough to carry off the tissue sari.
“And this one is more traditional, very elegant,” Priya says, sliding her hand over a deep-gold-colored lustrous sari with a dark red and gold border. “It has a bit of a shine to it. Good for nighttime. The silk is a little slippery, but we could pin it in place. You could wear it with a gold and ruby choker. Dadima has the
perfect
one.”
Asha pictures the six yards of slippery gold silk sliding off her into a puddle at her feet. “I don’t know, Priya. They’re beautiful, but…I’ve never actually worn a sari before,” Asha admits quietly. “I’m not sure I can do it.” She gestures helplessly to the nearest mannequin. “Is there something a little less complicated I can wear?”
Priya looks at her for a moment, head tilted to one side, an indiscernible expression on her face. Asha feels a rush of warmth to her face, ashamed she can’t do this.
Suddenly Priya stands up, waves her sunglasses, and says to the men behind the counter, “
Achha, challo,
let’s go upstairs. Show us some
lenghas
please. Wedding
lenghas
. Only your best ones.
Jaldi
.” Priya heads for the staircase, and Asha follows her upstairs. A
lengha,
Asha learns, is a two-piece gown comprised of an ankle-length drawstring skirt and matching top. There doesn’t seem to be the same risk of it falling off, though the long skirt looks like it might trip her up. Priya selects one in a deep rose satin topped with a layer of sheer organza, the sleeveless tunic studded with shimmery silver beading. Asha agrees to try it on.
Standing alone in front of a narrow mirror behind a flimsy curtain, Asha is taken aback by the extravagance of the outfit. The
lengha
looks like something you might see at the Oscars or at a beauty pageant. She feels awkward, as if she has been caught wearing a Halloween costume on the wrong day. It feels uncomfortable on her body.
It hangs heavily upon her, the drawstring of the skirt cutting into her belly. It is itchy at her neckline, the metallic thread and beads irritating her skin.
“It’s perfect!” Priya says, poking her head behind the curtain. “Look at you, a true Indian beauty! What do you think?”
“Fine,” Asha says, relieved to get back into her cargo pants. “Let’s go.”
“W
E’RE HEADED TO
T
HAM’S RIGHT NOW
. C
OME, MEET US
. W
E’LL
go for dinner afterward,” Priya says into her mobile phone as they leave the sari shop. “That was Bindu,” she explains to Asha as they slide into the backseat of the car. She directs the driver and replaces her sunglasses.
“Who’s Tham?” Asha holds on her lap a string-tied red box containing her new
lengha
.
“Not who,
bena,
what? Tham’s is only the best beauty salon this side of Mumbai. I’m taking you for waxing, Asha.”
“Waxing?”
“
Hahn, bena,
waxing. Your arms?” she says, raising an eyebrow above the rim of her sunglasses. “Your
lengha
is sleeveless,
yaar,
you can’t show all this.” Priya points to the hair covering Asha’s arms.
“So, you
wax
your arms? Can you do that?” Asha asks, incredulous her cousin might have a solution for this embarrassing problem she has suffered from her whole life.
Priya throws her head back and laughs. “Are you kidding? I get everything waxed—arms, legs, face. I go every three weeks to Tham’s, and I’m telling you, they practically wax me from head to toe. You’ve never done it?” Now it is Priya’s turn for disbelief. “I can’t believe it. Everyone here does it,
bena,
as common as coconuts at a
puja,
” she says.
“Doesn’t it hurt?” Asha asks.
Priya shrugs her shoulders. “Not really. A little, I suppose, but you get used to it,” she says, as if this is wholly beside the point.
One hour later, Asha is not sure she can be as dismissive of the pain involved in waxing. She is, however, very pleased with her resulting smooth arms, now fragrant with rose petal lotion. Tham’s is filled with Indian women, most of them young like Asha and her cousins, but older ones as well. Just as Priya described, many of the women appear to be spending the day here, getting one treatment after another—waxing, threading, bleaching, plucking. Everyone here is completely comfortable discussing the bodily issues that have secretly haunted Asha since puberty. Bushy eyebrows, hairy arms, and splotchy skin are simply common annoyances to be treated here at Tham’s. It doesn’t take too much prodding from Bindu and Priya to convince Asha to give eyebrow threading a try. Since it appears no needles, razors, or hot wax are involved in this procedure, Asha concludes the pain must be negligible.
She is only partially correct. She is told to slide down in a salon chair until the back of her head rests on the top of the chair. The stylist, with a nameplate that says
KITTY
pinned to her white smock, instructs Asha to close one eye and hold the skin above and below it taut with her fingers. Kitty holds a long piece of thread looped between her fingers and her mouth, and begins bobbing her head uncomfortably close to Asha’s. The vibrating thread burns against Asha’s brow bone and causes a tickling sensation in her nose. Kitty stops a few times when the thread breaks, and a few more times for Asha to sneeze. Thankfully, the whole thing is over within ten minutes. Asha sits back upright in the chair, her eyes watering as Kitty hands her a mirror with which to inspect her freshly sculpted eyebrows. Kitty turns to Priya and says something in Hindi, which her cousin seems to acknowledge with a sideways bobbing of her head.
“What did she say?” Asha asks.
“She said you had a lot of hair. Don’t wait so long next time and it won’t hurt as much.”
T
HEY SIT TOGETHER
—A
SHA
, P
RIYA, AND
B
INDU—IN A SMALL
vinyl-covered booth at China Garden, famous for its Indian-style Chinese food. Bindu passes a plate of sweet and sour chicken to Asha as she and Priya discuss the upcoming wedding. Asha has learned all of her cousins, and even some of their parents, consume “nonveg” food when they dine out, though they still maintain the unspoken illusion of being complete vegetarians at Dadima’s home.
“I heard the
jamai
procession has six white horses, one for each of the male cousins, and the groom himself is coming in a white Rolls-Royce,” Bindu whispers across the table. Asha takes a bite of the chicken, which tastes far more spicy than either sweet or sour to her.
Priya nods her head while biting into a spring roll. “
Arre,
someone told me they’re spending close to a
crore
. They’re planning to feed ten thousand people!” Priya explains to Asha. “A
crore
is one hundred
lakh,
” and then she whispers, “ten million rupees.”
“The bride is wearing eight carats of diamonds in her necklace alone, not to mention the earrings and nosepiece. She is changing between three different sets—diamond, emerald, and ruby. And thirty bangles of twenty-two-karat gold on each arm. They’ll need one security guard just for her jewelry.” Bindu grins and pours more green tea for all of them.
“You came at a good time, Asha,” Priya says. “This is going to be the wedding of the year. Lots of eligible bachelors there.” Priya winks at her over the fried rice, and all three of them dissolve into the giggles of a bunch of old girlfriends. Asha laughs so hard that green tea comes out of her nose, and tears from the corners of her eyes.
B
EFORE GOING TO SLEEP
, A
SHA CHRONICLES THE DAY’S EVENTS
in her journal. She is surprised by her own discovery that, although the food may be spicy, the clothes uncomfortable, and the beauty treatments painful, this place is starting to feel like home, and these people like family.
S
OMER INWARDLY COMMENDS HERSELF FOR COOKING THE
chicken perfectly, as she knows the praise will not come from Kris. Since Asha left for India last month, all the conflicts they had spent years repressing erupted freely, living with abandon under their roof, a thousand disturbing houseguests. Somer has struggled to understand why Asha made the choice she did. She’s tried to let go of her anger toward Krishnan, but his complicity lingers in her mind.
Kris takes several bites without comment, and then speaks with his mouth full. “We need to decide about India. Asha’s going to keep asking until we give her a date.” Looking up, she notices the Tabasco bottle next to his plate. He has a habit of dousing everything she cooks with some kind of hot sauce, one of the varied assortment he keeps in the fridge. It’s as if he means to obliterate any delicate flavor she tries to impart to her cooking—a touch of rubbed sage on the chicken, lemon-scented rice—all of it lost under his red blanket of heat. She pokes her fork at the wandering green beans on her plate. “I can’t just pick up and go to India on a moment’s notice, I only have a week off over the holidays—”
“Just get someone to cover, Somer. They’ll get by without you.” She bristles at the remark, though she should be used to it, his being dismissive of her work, as if anything less than the brain-saving surgeries he performs is unworthy medical practice. Kris removes his glasses and begins rubbing them with his handkerchief. “I don’t see what the big deal is. It’s the perfect time to go. Asha’s there, her first trip, my whole family’s there. I haven’t been in nearly a decade. You haven’t been in…God knows how long. Why wouldn’t we go now, Somer? I thought you were worried about her, I thought you’d want to keep an eye on her.”
Of course Somer wants to see her daughter, but she is not sure Asha feels the same. She thinks of the fight they had just before Asha left, and the awkwardness at the airport. Her daughter has been pushing her away ever since she made her decision to go to India. The idea of seeing her there, in that country that brings to mind only difficult memories, is hard to abide. She already feels like an outsider in her own family, this family to whom she has given her whole life. She doesn’t have the strength to go to India now and feel out of place in a country full of strangers.
“I haven’t seen my family in eight years,” Kris says, his voice getting louder. “Eight years, Somer. My parents are getting older, my nephews are growing up. I should have gone earlier, but now will have to do.” Kris pours himself more Cabernet and sits back in his chair.
“Don’t make it sound like it’s my fault,” she says. “You’ve always come and gone as you’ve pleased. I haven’t stopped you from going. That’s your own damn fault.” He snorts and takes a deep swig of wine. “It’s harder for me, Kris. You know that,” she says. “I don’t have a connection like you do, it’s different. You don’t know what it feels like.”
“What do you mean, you don’t have a connection?” Krishnan says. “Your husband is Indian, and your daughter is Indian, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“You know what I mean,” she says, pressing her eyes closed and rubbing her forehead.
“No, I don’t. Why don’t you explain it to me? The way I see it, there are only a couple of explanations. Either you have a problem with Asha getting to know my family, which is also her family, I remind you. Or you have a problem with her becoming a little bit Indian. In either case, Somer, the problem is actually yours, not hers. We’ve done a damn good job raising her. But now she’s an adult, and you can’t control everything she does. You’re always the one saying we should accept her as she is, we should support her interests. For God’s sake, at her age, I moved halfway across the world and my parents didn’t fall apart.”
“It’s not quite the same,” Somer says, tears forming at the corners of her eyes.
“Oh yeah? How’s that?” His wry smile does little to veil the cruelty in his eyes.
Because they were your only parents. They didn’t have to worry about losing you.
“It just is,” she says, the only words she can speak out loud.
“It’s different because I came to this fantastic country, full of milk and honey that no one would ever want to leave? Is that it?”
She shakes her head and the tears spill out of her eyes. She can’t find the words to make him understand, to penetrate the impassive look in his eyes.
When he finally speaks again, his voice is calm. “I’m leaving December twenty-eighth, if you want to come.” Every word out of his mouth cuts as precisely as a scalpel. She looks up at him in disbelief while he continues. “Yes, I bought tickets. It gets very booked up at this time of year, I didn’t want to take chances.”
She feels the hollowness expand to fill her stomach. “When…did you do that?”
“Why does it matter?” he snaps, and then takes a drink. “September. After Asha left.”
“So, that’s it? It’s all decided then.” It is now clear. She has no voice in this decision, just as she had no choice in Asha’s.
“That’s it.” He stands up and carries his plate to the sink, where his silverware clangs against the basin. “Come if you want. Or don’t. Maybe it’s better that way.”
T
HE NEXT DAY FEELS SURREAL
. S
OMER SEES HER PATIENTS, CONSULTS
their charts, writes prescriptions. She goes through the same motions as every other day, but something has shifted. It feels as if someone has picked up her world and tilted it off its axis. Everything familiar to her is slipping away. Kris and Asha not only don’t need her, but they also can’t seem to tolerate her in their lives any longer, betraying her to make their plans.
At lunch, she walks the few blocks to Whole Foods and picks up her usual boxed salad and lemonade. On her way out of the store, she pauses in front of the community bulletin board. She scans the postings for dog walkers and garage sales until she sees one advertising a Palo Alto sublet. She tears off one of the dangling phone numbers and slips it into her purse. She calls and arranges it all quickly before she can change her mind.
That evening, she tells Krishnan she will not go with him. That it may be a good idea to each have their own space, just for a while, a few months. They agree Asha doesn’t need to know. Somer is prepared to say more, but she is surprised at how unsurprised he seems.
“I hope you can find a way to be happy, Somer,” is all he says. After he goes upstairs, Somer stays on the couch in the family room and weeps. The next morning, she begins to pack.