“So according to him we're entirely wrong for each other. He says I'm a lovely and smart young lady and I'll make some man a wonderful wife and some kids a great mother in the future.”
Rita gave me her best-friend look. “He's right, you know. When the right guy comes along, you'll make the best wife and mother.”
I was racked by sobs and couldn't stop myself. “But Prajay is the right guy, Rita. I'm in love with him. I want him and no other guy. I've had relationships before. I've known a lot of men, but I've never, ever felt like this about anyone.”
Rita put her arms around me and rocked me like a baby. “Oh, Meena, Meena, what a horrible thing to happen to you. That big, clueless giant doesn't deserve you, honey. You can do a lot better, believe me.”
“But I don't want to do better.” I gave Rita a teary-eyed look. “Would you want anyone else but Anoop?”
She shook her head.
“Well, there you go. I'm in love with Prajay Nayak. And if I can't have him, then I guess I'll stay single.”
Rita let out a laugh that clearly said it was a stupid idea. “Don't be silly. By this time next month you will have forgotten the man. He's not worthy of you, and you'll realize that after a while.”
I shook my head vigorously. “Not likelyânot the way I feel. I'm hurting like mad. I feel like my life is over.”
Rita smacked my hand. “Don't say that. I don't want to hear such crazy talk. If you have your heart set on the giant with the big nose, we'll figure something out.”
It was my turn to laugh. “Figure what out? He's returning to Washington tomorrow. And he doesn't want me. He wants a six-foot woman who can look him in the eyeâwho understands his ... bigness. He thinks any physical contact between him and me will shatter me to pieces. He believes I'm fragile because I'm small.”
“He's an idiot,” Rita said.
I dried my tears again and discarded the tissues in the trash can. “I always hated being tiny. Now I hate it even more.”
“You may be tiny, but you're beautiful,” declared Rita. “You have more heart and spirit and spunk than any six-foot dinosaur out there. And if that Nayak guy had any brains in that big head of his, he'd have realized what a prize you are. Instead he's blindly groping around for some woman who shops at the Big and Tall Men's Store. What a dunce.”
“Yeah, dunce.” I blew my nose and watched the balls of tissue in the trash can piling up. Rita and I had gone through half a box of tissues.
We sat huddled under the blanket for a long time, sniffling and denigrating men for having no brains whatsoever. That's how Anoop found us nearly an hour later. He took one look at us and stopped dead. “Are you two all right?”
I immediately jumped up from the sofa. “Sorry, Anoop. I didn't mean to burden your wife with my problems.”
“I ... It's okay, Meena.” He looked at his wife with deep concern. I could see he didn't really mean what he'd said to me. His eyes said he hated me for making his sweetheart cry.
“No, Anoop, I'm really sorry. I came here to chat a little and ended up making Rita my official therapist. I'll leave you two alone now.”
Rita stood up and put her arms around me. “Don't worry too much, okay? Everything will be all right. You wait and see.”
I gave her a faux smile. “I'm feeling better already. You make a great counselor, Rita Tandon.” It felt odd to say her married name. I wasn't quite used to it yet.
“Don't be silly. I did nothing,” Rita assured me.
“You did more than you realize.” I patted her hand and took off.
I left them standing in the doorway of their townhouse, their arms entwined. It was a nice, warm image to carry in my mind. Maybe Rita was right. A month from now, I'd laugh about this whole business with Prajay.
But deep down I knew it wasn't going to happen. Next month, next year, next centuryâit wasn't likely to happen.
Chapter 18
J
ust when I thought the cloud following me would never give way to light, a little ray of sunshine appeared on our doorstepâin the person of my great-aunt, Chandra Kamat, otherwise known as Akka.
On a cool, sunny Saturday afternoon, Mom's youngest sister, Madhuri Bhat, arrived from Connecticut, with Akka in tow.
This old lady was my mom's paternal aunt, my grandfather's youngest sister. Everyone called her Akka. Big sister. She was a feisty, seventy-eight-year-old widow, and she wasn't very popular with my mother and her sisters.
They referred to Akka variously as the misfit, the renegade, the black sheepâall because she had disdained arranged marriage and married a man of her choice. Although he'd belonged to the right caste and community, the very fact that she had chosen
love marriage,
as those kinds of marriages are called in Indian culture, was enough to make her notorious in her day.
Evidently Akka's behavior had been judged as scandalous sixty years ago: An eighteen-year-old had disobeyed her father and married a man who fell far below the family's high expectations. Instead of marrying the rich businessman picked for her, she had insisted on marrying a poor college professor because she thought he was handsome and charming.
The marriage had been a happy one and had produced three healthy kids, and everything had been forgiven laterâbut never forgotten. My mom and her relatives still talked about Akka's disregard for convention. Consequently Akka was deemed a corrupting influence on the young folks in the family.
“Keep the impressionable kids away from Akka,” was the general mantra amongst the family members.
Personally I was delighted to see the little old lady. She was my favorite great-aunt. She was utterly, deliciously different from my grandmother and the other elders I knew. Slim and petite, with an infectious smile, Akka still dyed her hair, wore modern glasses instead of granny spectacles, spoke good English, and giggled. She was even known to tell an off-color joke on occasion. And she loved thriller novels and Bollywood movies.
She was totally cool.
Mom cleared her throat when she saw me coming down the staircase in a rather short skirt to greet Akka, but I chose to ignore Mom. To make up for the skirt I bent down to touch Akka's feet in the traditional manner of greeting an elder.
She caught my shoulders before I reached for her feet. “
Ayyo,
there is no need to do any of those old-fashioned things, Meena.” Instead she drew me into a hug.
“Hello, Akka. It's great to see you again,” I said with a grin and returned the warm embrace. She smelled like she always didâof jasmine-scented talcum powder. Her hair was an unnatural black, pulled back in a bun, high on the headâquite chic. Her pale green and white-print crepe sari looked fresh with its matching green blouse and accessorized by a simple string of freshwater pearls and matching earrings.
Mom insisted on touching Akka's feet despite her protests. Akka winked at me over Mom's head. She clearly thought this was funny: the fifty-something woman acting more old-fashioned than her septuagenarian aunt. Nonetheless she patted Mom's head and murmured the expected:
“Dev baren koro.”
God bless you.
Dad knew Akka's modern ways, so he offered her a handshake. “Welcome, Akka,” he said. “Hope you are enjoying your East Coast trip.”
“Ramdas, you are looking good,” she said with a diplomatic twinkle in her eye. “I see Kaveri is taking very good care of you.” Everyone knew the gray in Dad's hair had multiplied, and he'd gained a few pounds around his middleâmarks of a man on the wrong side of sixty.
The past week had been so dismal and I had cried so much that I badly needed some cheering up. I couldn't think of anyone better than Akka to put some laughter back into my life. I'd spent time with her often enough to know she was a pistol.
I helped Dad carry Akka's bulging suitcases into the house and up to the guest room. Akka always came with interesting presents for everyone in the family, hence the excessive amount of luggage.
“Where are my favorite grandnephews?” she asked, looking around for Maneel and Mahesh as she and Madhuri-pachi were ushered into the kitchen for refreshments.
“Maneel will come by later. Mahesh is working as usual,” I replied.
“This medical doctor business is too much stress and hard work.
Paap,
” she clucked. Poor soul. Konkanis tended to use the term liberally to express sympathy, although it was a homophone, its other meaning being sin. “Mahesh and Amrita are working all the time.”
“What's so
paap
about Mahesh and Amrita?” snorted Madhuri-pachi. “They're single, living at home, and don't have to lift a finger. My sisters and I had husbands, housework, children, and a similar schedule to juggle when we were their age. We didn't have any help or anybody to say
paap.
”
With a good-natured smile Akka patted Madhuri-pachi's shoulder. “I used to say that about you and your sisters all the time when you first came to America and started your residencies. I used to worry about how you young girls managed such busy lives. Now it is Mahesh and Amrita's turn.”
Madhuri-pachi and Mom exchanged that wry look that often passed between the sisters.
Yeah, right, like anyone in India ever knows or cares about how hard our lives are.
After everyone was comfortably seated, Mom asked Akka and Madhuri-pachi, “What would you like to drink? We have soda, orange juice, and iced tea.”
Madhuri-pachi asked for iced tea, but Akka cheerfully replied, “Can I have my usual, please?”
Mom turned to Dad with a meaningful look. Akka's usual was scotch and club soda. My folks drank very little alcohol, and that mostly at parties, so the booze was stored in the sideboard in the formal dining room. Dad made his way there with a tight expression.
To add to Akka's long list of misdemeanors, her liking for alcohol was a definite sore spot with Mom.
“An old widow should be reading scriptures, eating vegetarian food, and knitting sweaters. Instead Akka insists on drinking liquor and eating meat,” Mom grumbled once in a while. “Sometimes I wonder if she was adopted or something. She's so different from my father and their other siblings.”
Akka had a taste for mutton curryâgoat meat cooked in a fiery hot brown sauce, as well as grilled
tandoori
chicken, kebabs, and spicy fried fish. Although my parents and aunts and uncles had converted to non-vegetarianism for convenience after moving to the U.S., they still disapproved of elderly folks enjoying it.
Madhuri-pachi generally turned up her nose at the mention of Akka. The old lady had been at Madhuri's place for two whole weeks, and I could see my aunt was up to her dark eyeballs with Akka's shenanigans. Akka traveled to the East Coast every year for a six-week visit.
She had a married daughter, Kalpa, who lived near San Francisco, and Akka had come to live with Kalpa and her husband and their teenage son a few years ago, after she'd become a widow. Her annual visit to the East Coast was divided equally between our house and my two aunts' homes.
Mom and my aunts treated Akka's visit with the kind of enthusiasm they reserved for the annual flu season. They tolerated it with their teeth clenched and some discreet eye-rolls. Of course, as gracious Indian hostesses brought up to honor and respect elders, they showed her all the hospitality they could afford.
Both my uncles and my dad seemed to like Akka well enough, maybe because they didn't spend as much time with her as their wives did.
Akka's stay with Madhuri-pachi was now over, and Madhuri had driven her down from Connecticut like a hot brick to be dropped in Mom's lap. Besides, Thanksgiving was just a few days away, and it was convenient to have Akka spend it with her eldest niece's family. Two weeks later, Akka would be dispatched to Shabari-pachi's house in North Jersey.
Everyone would wait for the day Akka could be hugged good-bye and put on a flight to San Francisco. They'd all have a year's respite before Akka's next trip.
Last week, on hearing that Akka was coming to New Jersey for her usual stint, Mom and Shabari-pachi had groaned, “Here we go again.”
Shabari had sighed. “I'm so stressed. I can't understand why all our children admire Akka so much.”
“What's not to admire?” I'd asked cheerfully. “She's such fun for an old lady.”
Mom had given me a bland look. “Fun in your book, because she encourages all the silly things you kids do.”
“What silly things?” I'd looked at Mom with my most innocent expression, despite knowing what she was referring to. Akka thought it was okay to have boyfriends, drink alcoholâafter one turned twenty-one, of courseâand wear trendy clothes.
“Don't give me that wide-eyed look, young lady,” Mom had warned me. “I don't want Akka filling your head with nonsense.”
I'd rolled my eyes at the naïve remark. “Mom, I don't need a sweet old lady to tell me anything I don't already know.”
“In that case, try not to fill
her
head with more,” Mom had said. “I have enough on my mind right now with Maneel and his problems.”
“Yes, Mom,” I'd said obediently.
Mom had been tense ever since Maneel had told her about Naseem. Mom, Dad, and Maneel had an appointment to meet with Naseem's parents the following weekend. Poor Mom was losing sleep. Dad was frowning more lately and had withdrawn into himself more than usual. They were both worried about Maneel's future.
Although I didn't say it aloud, I was equally worried about Maneel's future.
Dad brought Akka her scotch, and the rest of us sipped our soft drinks along with Mom's crispy fried
piyava bajay
. Onion fritters. Madhuri-pachi was going to stay overnight and then return to Connecticut the following morning. She looked like she was ready to leave now, except Mom wouldn't let her drive a long distance alone after dark.
Akka sipped her scotch and looked around. “So, what is going on with Maneel, Meena, and Mahesh? Any girlfriends, boyfriends?”
Mom winced. Dad squirmed in his seat. I nearly let the cat out of the bag about Naseem, but decided to keep my mouth shut. If Mom and Dad wanted to share the “news,” it was their business. And Maneel's.
I was astonished when Mom glumly announced, “Maneel is involved with some entirely unsuitable girl.” Her tone seemed to suggest Maneel had lost one lobe of his brain.
Akka sat up. “Really? Who's the girl?”
“Our Maneel is involved?” Madhuri-pachi turned to Mom with her brows raised in dismay. “But he's such a sensible boy.”
“I know,” said Mom. “We had so many eligible girls' parents asking about a possible
soireek.
” Match. “Then he ... does this.”
I'd heard enough. “Mom, that's not fair,” I said in his defense. “You're making it sound like Maneel is dating some mutant.”
“That's not what I meant,” Mom said weakly.
“Why don't you tell them the good part? That she's a successful lawyer and exceptionally attractive?”
“There is that,” admitted Mom. “But still, she's ... a Muslim.”
Madhuri-pachi's face couldn't have been more expressive.
“Ayyo Deva!”
Oh God. “Where did he find her?”
I sent my aunt a tolerant smile. “Where a lot of nice girls can be found: in a civilized office in New York.”
To my surprise, Dad jumped in to support me. “The girl works for a well-known law firm.”
Akka, who'd been sipping her scotch and listening with interest for the last minute or two, beamed. “How nice. A beautiful lawyer. I knew our Maneel had good taste.”
Mom and Madhuri-pachi turned twin frowns on Akka. “But she's a
Muslim,
” they said in perfect unison.
“So what?” I protested. “Mom, I thought we went over this, and you and Dad had accepted the fact that Maneel wants to marry Naseem.”
“There is a difference between accepting and being resigned to the fact, Meena,” explained Mom. To the others she said, “Ram and Maneel and I have an appointment with this girl's parents next weekend.”
“Appointment?” Madhuri-pachi looked lost.
“You know ... to talk about things,” Mom explained. “Maneel says they are very strict and will hate the idea of their daughter's getting involved with a Hindu boy.”
“This is just like that old Hindi movie,” declared Akka. “I can't recall the title.” She looked at Mom and Madhuri. “Don't you girls remember that story? A Muslim girl and a Brahmin boy fall in love and both the families are ready to commit suicide rather than let the children get married.”
“This is real life, Akka. Please don't reduce it to the level of some silly Bollywood movie.” Mom looked thoroughly irked. The old lady had been here less than an hour, and she'd already managed to annoy Mom.