Monsoon Diary (12 page)

America is full of muggers and rapists, Nalla-pa said. Why did you apply there?

No unmarried girl should venture into such a promiscuous society, Nalla-ma added.

Why go abroad to study when there are several world-class Indian institutions to choose from? my rabble-rousing, patriotic uncle asked.

My father was caught between admiring me for my tenacity and admonishing me for my secrecy. Why did you apply without telling us? he asked. And why abroad? As a college professor, he took it personally when students left India to study abroad. Now his own daughter was rejecting an Indian education for a foreign one.

My mother was just plain upset. She retreated into her bedroom and didn’t emerge for hours.

I sought out Shyam. “Why don’t you convince all of them to let me go to the U.S.?” I asked.

“Because I’m not sure if that’s the best thing for you,” he replied.

I couldn’t believe my ears. Shyam, who was waltzing off merrily to take up a career that was unconventional and risky, had the temerity to question my judgment?

“What do you mean?” I cried. “The educational facilities are great in America. I could do the research I’ve been dreaming about.”

“It isn’t just about education,” Shyam replied. “It’s about juggling cultures, straddling lifestyles, never fitting in anywhere, questioning the values that you’ve grown up with, and having your kids grow up as Americans.”

“Kids! I’m not even married.”

KIDS. That’s what it eventually boiled down to. My parents’ objections, my grandparents’ fears, Shyam’s lectures all had to do with one thing. Two things, actually. Marriage and kids. They were worried that I would run off with an American man and have “American” kids. All my begging and pleading didn’t seem to make an iota of difference. They were thrilled that a prestigious American school had accepted me, and they bragged about it to all their friends.

“Shoba got admitted into a famous American university,” Mom said to everyone who called. “It is a women’s college all right, but . . .” She trailed off. The unstated assumption was that the family was going to turn it down.

I appealed to my father. He was a college professor after all and knew the value of education. He knew that fellowships such as mine were hard to come by. Mount Holyoke was even providing my room and board. My parents wouldn’t have to pay a dime beyond airfare to the States.

“Of course, I am proud of you for getting the fellowship,” my father said. “But can you promise that you’ll come back just the way you left us?”

“Dad, what do you mean?” I replied. “I’m not going to dye my hair orange or change my name or something.”

“It’s not that,” my mother said impatiently. “Get married and then go to Timbuktu if you want,” she repeated for the hundredth time.

I stared at them, frustrated by their stubbornness. I needed a bargaining chip. Surely there was something I could do to make them relent. Something within my means with which I could negotiate.

IT WAS MY UNCLE who came up with the idea, an idea so far-fetched that both parties instantly agreed.

We were having lunch the day before Shyam’s departure. My mom had made all his favorite dishes, a feast with the perfect balance of spices and flavors. The bland sweetness of crunchy basmati rice absorbed the fiery spices of a
biriyani.
Sprigs of cilantro were arranged in concentric swirls over the yogurt-white landscape of a tangy cucumber
raita.
Delicate herbs offset the robust ingredients of a hearty root-vegetable stew.

As we all piled the food on our plates, the conversation turned once again to Mount Holyoke. For days I had protested, argued, pleaded, cajoled, retreated to a sullen silence. I had now come full circle.

“It is so unfair,” I protested again. “You are letting Shyam go off to sea but not allowing me to study at a women’s college.”

The adults glanced at one another and sighed. We had gone through this before. Several times.

“I tell you what,” my uncle said. “Cook us a vegetarian feast like this one. If we like it, you can go to America. If we don’t, you stay here.”

Everyone looked up and chewed thoughtfully. This was a novel idea and perhaps the only way to silence me. I stared back belligerently. It was a test, one they were sure I would fail. After all, I had never cooked a full meal for anyone, let alone for the demanding palate of my family: Nalla-pa with his strict diet regimen; Nalla-ma with her well-oiled kitchen that turned out quality fare for hordes of visitors; my mother, who effortlessly cooked complex dishes with savory fillings, spice pastes, and daintily chopped vegetables topped by decorative fruits cut to resemble flowers; my gourmand uncle with his elastic waistline, who thought nothing of eating a rich five-course meal at dawn before heading off to the river for his morning ablutions; and my brother, who was always ravenous.

I weighed the possibilities. They were giving me a chance knowing full well that I would fall on my face, but at least they were offering me something to bargain with. I had to take it. I had no choice.

“Fine,” I said. “But if you like my food, you can’t come up with more excuses to hold me back here.”

“Fine,” they said, and the deal was sealed.

Now I had to cook for this exacting audience and their foregone conclusion that I would blunder through the kitchen and produce a mangled, burnt mass of food. I had to cook, for in it lay my destiny.

The elders picked a Friday, an auspicious day in the Hindu calendar, for my debut. They tried to hide their smirks and informed me that I need not stretch myself. After all, my forays into the kitchen had been limited to stealing midnight snacks from the forbidden aluminum bin, or running in and out for a cup of coffee between study sessions. They understood my talents perfectly well and were not looking for complex
masalas
or delicately seasoned sauces, merely tasty, authentic Indian fare.

Using tattered family recipes, my mother’s earlier instructions, and gigantic cookbooks as guides, I began with tender okra, a forgiving, flexible vegetable that tasted good in thick sauces as well as dry curries. I cut it into long strips, stuffed it with a paste of cumin, coriander, and green chiles, then fried it in oil.

I teased some spinach over a low flame until it blossomed into a deep, bright green, like the eye of the ocean. I blended it into a smooth paste and sprinkled it with asafetida.

Tomatoes brewed in tamarind water with turmeric and salt, while I cooked some red lentils and blended them into the
rasam.
I garnished with cilantro, mustard seeds, and cumin.

I hovered over the virgin basmati rice, cooking it until each grain was soft but didn’t stick.

As sweet butter turned into golden ghee, the litany I learned at my mother’s knee echoed in my head. Ghee for growth, ginger to soothe, garlic to rejuvenate, asafetida to suppress, coriander to cool, cumin to warm, and cardamom to arouse.

Dessert was a simple almond
payasam
with plump raisins, cashews, and strands of saffron strewn over the top like swimming red tadpoles.

The feast ended with steaming, frothing South Indian coffee, with filtered decoction, boiled milk, and just enough sugar to remove the bitterness.

On the day of the feast, the elders arrived, resplendent as peacocks in their silk saris and gleaming white dhotis made from spun Madras cotton. Even my teenage cousins were dressed to kill. Shyam was in Bombay, keeping tabs over the phone. I felt like Marie Antoinette throwing a final party before heading off to the guillotine.

My guests surveyed the ancient rosewood table that tottered under the weight of the stainless steel containers that I had filled to the brim with my culinary creations. They picked and sampled, judiciously at first. They didn’t want to eat but couldn’t stop themselves. They fought over the last piece of okra, taste overtaking caution. In the end, Nalla-pa leaned back and belched unapologetically.

I was going to America.

OKRA CURRY

There is the legend of a poor young man who wanted to marry a princess. On hearing this, the king decided to teach the young upstart a lesson. He summoned the young man to court and ordered him to play a game of chess with his cleverest minister after one week. “If you outwit my minister, you can have the hand of my daughter,” the king said. The young man immediately sought the counsel of the wise old woman who lived across the river. “Eat okra every day,” she said. “It will increase your brain-power.” The young man did as she said and a week later beat the clever minister in a game of chess. He married the princess, who cooked him this okra curry every day, and they lived happily ever after.

This is a quick and easy dish and goes well with rice as well as chapatis. It requires a little more oil than other vegetable curries, mostly to keep the okra pieces from sticking together. As children, we ate tons of okra because the elders assured us that it would make us smarter.

SERVES 4

3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 teaspoon black mustard seeds
1 teaspoon
urad
dal
1/4 teaspoon asafetida
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
1/4 teaspoon chili powder
2 pounds okra, trimmed, washed, diced, and dried between
paper towels
1 teaspoon salt

Heat the oil in a heavy medium-sized skillet until it smokes. Add the mustard seeds; when they sputter, add the
urad
dal, asafetida, turmeric, and chili powder.

Add the okra and salt, cook, stirring, over high heat, uncovered, for 10 to 15 minutes, until the okra is soft. Serve immediately.

TEN

Coming to America

THE SUN WAS SETTING when the plane landed at Bradley International Airport in Connecticut. Clutching my suitcase and handbag, I came out of baggage claim, shivering slightly from the cold and my own nervousness. It had been a long journey and my first international one: Madras, Bombay, onward to Paris, before clearing customs in New York’s JFK Airport. Then a terrifying ride on the airport shuttle—watching for pickpockets, muggers, and drug addicts—to New York’s domestic airport, La Guardia, and finally Bradley, where I was met by a smiling, spectacled girl who introduced herself as Quatrina Hosain.

Within minutes we were on our way. I tried to pay attention to the newness of my surroundings but felt tired and groggy. It was dark when we reached Dickinson House, where all the Foreign Fellows lived. Inside, Seema, an Indian girl who had just arrived from Boston, was in hysterics. She had been allotted a room on the ground floor and wanted no part of it. Anyone could break the window and enter her room, she said. Apparently, stories about America’s muggers were not confined to just my family.

Harriet, the head resident of Dickinson House, was clearly distressed. An elderly woman with a platinum coif, she was not used to volatile displays of emotion so early in acquaintance. When I walked in, she saw a solution. Would I switch rooms with Seema?

I didn’t especially want to live on the ground floor, but a lifetime of proving myself equal to any boy prevented me from saying that I was just as scared. So I mutely nodded assent and Harriet almost hugged me.

My room was spacious, comfortably equipped with a bed, writing table, lamps, armchair, and a closet for my clothes. The college even supplied my pristine white bed linen. All I needed was a warm night-gown. It was September and my cotton clothes were already proving inadequate for the nip in the air.

Before retiring for the night, I peered through the window into the darkness outside. All my childhood fears about monsters and intruders surfaced, in spite of Harriet’s assurances that nobody could open the window from outside. I lay in bed, leaving the lights on just in case.

As a Foreign Fellow, I was given carte blanche to study whatever I wanted for one year. I signed up for all those subjects that I had been interested in but never had the opportunity to pursue: piano lessons, theater, modern dance, music composition, and journalism.

At twenty, I was a tabula rasa, eager to learn. And South Hadley, although I didn’t realize it then, was a safe place to begin my exploration. It was the quintessential New England town, with undulating roads, steepled churches, white picket fences, Colonial homes with sloping roofs, and little traffic. After imagining America as a vast, noisy metropolis, I found South Hadley with its tiny Main Street dotted with a single bank, post office, restaurant, and general store, a pleasant surprise.

Everything was new: a falling leaf with flaming colors; pennies, nickels, dimes, and dollars; a bagel, with a hole in the center; cold spells in September. The cleaning lady who drove a Cadillac, unlike Ayah, who came by foot. Vegetables in boxes with nary a soul to haggle; cold cereal instead of warm
idlis
in the morning. Strangers smiled and said hello. Nobody littered, spit, or cursed.

I got up every morning and went to nearby Rockefeller Hall for breakfast, since my own dorm didn’t have a dining room. There was a dizzying array of food: softly folded omelettes that I spiced up with Tabasco sauce; breads, round and square; pastries sprinkled with sugar, called doughnuts, even though they didn’t have nuts. Waffles, French toast, pancakes, a bounty of sauces, cereal boxes with cartoon characters on the side, fruits that I didn’t recognize, creams and cheeses, milk of various fat percentages. I would stand in front of the counter, overwhelmed by the choices.

Harried servers tossed questions at me: did I want it toasted or un-toasted, with or without syrup, orange or apple juice, coffee or decaf, skim or regular? When I blinked uncomprehendingly, the people in line behind me shifted from one foot to the other. I could hear the sighs and feel the impatience. I was used to my mother plunking a plate in front of me and ordering me to eat. I was not used to choosing something and having it lead to yet another choice. I was not used to thinking about food in such a specific fashion.

I told my breakfast mates that I wasn’t used to eating sweet food— jams, jellies, and syrup—so early in the morning. When I added that a main component of my morning meal was a spicy
dosa
with chili powder, they looked shocked. A Japanese student added that she ate rice and salty miso for breakfast. It was perhaps my first lesson in globalism.

ONE MONTH INTO the program, I met my host family. Incoming foreign students were assigned to American families who had volunteered to help us adjust to America and serve as surrogate parents. Mine were Mary and Doug Guyette, who lived in neighboring West Springfield, and their two daughters, Margie and Kathy. They were my window into family life as I attempted to piece together the jigsaw puzzle that was America.

On a chilly October evening Mary picked me up at my dorm and took me out to dinner at a fancy Northampton restaurant along with her teenage daughter Kathy. When she noticed that I was throwing my garbage into a cardboard box, she quietly equipped my room with a wastebasket, table lamp, and a few other essentials that I didn’t realize were essential. Two weeks later she drove me to a giant, sprawling shopping mall, the likes of which I had never seen before, and bought me my first Elizabeth Arden makeup box, a glittering pink-and-gold confection with eye shadows, mascara, lipsticks, and foundation.

When I told my mother about it during our monthly phone calls, she was delighted. “A girl needs makeup and you won’t wear any,” she said. “I’m glad someone is taking you in hand.”

A middle-aged woman with kindly eyes, Mary held a part-time job and was very involved in her church. Her husband, Doug, worked at a bank and drove an impressively large Cadillac. Occasionally he would pick me up on Friday evening and drive me to their house for the weekend. Their elder daughter, Margie, was away in the Peace Corps, while Kathy, lanky and reserved, was in high school.

We would have supper together: salad, bread, rice and beans for me, chicken for them, a fruit tart of some sort, and coffee afterward. At first the conversation was stilted and awkward. They were too polite to probe, and I was intimidated by their accents. I had hundreds of questions—which came first, fork or spoon? how many dates did it take to “go steady”? which trees changed color in the fall? what subjects did Kathy study in high school?—but I concentrated merely on making sense when I did speak.

It was at Mary and Doug’s house that I got my first glimpse of American family life, the soap and suds of it, the gentle grace of setting a table with fork and knife rather than baldly eating with our hands as we did back home; the carpet and ruffled curtains; and “my” bedroom upstairs, which smelled of linen and rose potpourri.

I LOVED my classes. Most of the subjects I chose were fantasies come true rather than a natural progression of my studies. I signed up for music composition without knowing how to read or write Western music and having listened to it only rarely. I didn’t play an instrument. I was a music imbecile with lofty aspirations. Allen Bonde, the professor, wasn’t insulted when I told him that I had only trained in Indian classical music. He didn’t kick me out of class like I expected him to. Instead, he told me to record my compositions and offered to transcribe them for me.

I sought out one of the piano rooms in the music building and improvised, experiencing for the first time the thrill of creation. When my piano skills didn’t keep pace with the tunes in my head, I hummed them into a tape recorder. In class, while the rest of the students demonstrated their homework compositions through flying fingers and sheet music, I simply turned on the boom box.

Claire, a fellow student, took pity on me and transcribed my improvisations into organized sheet music with notes that moved up or down according to the rise and fall of my voice. I wandered the halls of the music department trying to decipher the various instrument sounds coming from within closed doors and figure out which one was suitable for a particular section. Occasionally, when I didn’t recognize an instrument, I barged in and asked the surprised musician what she was playing. When she gave me the name of the composition— Mozart’s Sonata in D Major or whatever—I shook my head. “No, I meant the name of the instrument,” I muttered, embarrassed by my ignorance.

At the end of the term there was a recital of all our compositions complete with a program sheet. My piece had four instruments: piano, violin, cello, and flute. It was probably amateurish and middling, but it was mine. Gloriously, totally mine.

MY THEATER CLASS WAS just as exciting. Something was always in production—Alan Ayckbourn, Medea, O’Neill, and Shakespeare in rapid but disconnected progression during my term.

I was put to work on the sets. The set designer, a bearded salt-of-the-earth man named John, countered the air of high drama elsewhere in the building with his dour humor. On my first day, he handed me a chain saw with the injunction “Don’t cut your fingers off.”

I was pleasantly surprised by his confidence in my abilities. While my parents or teachers in India had never denied me something just because I was a girl, I had to work hard to gain their trust.

Not so at Mount Holyoke. The professors displayed their faith in our abilities without a hint of condescension. They weren’t foolhardy. John stood by me while I gingerly held the chain saw, he heard me gasp when I turned it on, my body vibrating like Morse code in reaction, and watched through narrow eyes as I aimed it on a piece of wood and slowly, deliberately, cut a jagged line. I turned off the machine, exhilarated by its power.

The chain saw was just the beginning. I discovered that I loved power tools and was constantly at the “shop” begging John to teach me how to use the sanders and polishers, screw and staple guns, chisels, ratchets, and wrenches. I memorized the various sizes of drill bits and saw blades and learned to estimate the thickness of wood without a tape.

A few weeks later I found myself striding into the shop and wielding a rotary hammer with careful confidence. I glanced at myself in a mirror as I stood there in my paint-streaked apron, helmet, goggles, gloves, and earmuffs, bent double over a thudding machine that was half my size and shrouded by a cloud of dust and wood chips. I looked like a space alien. I felt like Superman. Or rather, Superwoman.

I WAS DELIRIOUSLY EXCITED by the novelty of it all, so wildly enthusiastic and eager to learn that nobody had the heart to turn me down, to say no.

At Mount Holyoke I was offered a world without context, and I approached it like a child, unfettered by the American stereotypes that I have since learned. When a woman told me that she lived in Holly-wood and summered in Cannes, I didn’t know enough to differentiate her from the work-study student who had graduated from the Bronx High School of Science. I didn’t know that plaid skirts were preppy and batik prints bohemian. I was deprived of all the clues that I normally used to typecast people.

I couldn’t tell if the women around me were rich, poor, or middle-class, if the clothes they wore were fashionable or gauche, if their accents were crude or sophisticated. In India I could slot a person into a stereotype within a few minutes, just by her name, the way she talked, and what she wore. At Mount Holyoke I couldn’t even tell if a girl was pretty or not. My ideas of beauty were different from theirs. When I showed my American friends some of my family photographs, they didn’t think that the “beauty” of our family—a fair cousin with an oval face and long hair—was actually beautiful. Instead, they gushed over another cousin with asymmetric dark features and cascading curly hair.

As a result, I brought no prejudice to my interactions. I simply didn’t know enough. I couldn’t read between the lines or see beyond their smiles. While my ignorance prevented me from penetrating the façades of the American girls I met, it also prevented me from indulging in what had been the bane of my teenage existence in India: comparing myself with others. In India I was constantly comparing myself with my peers and feeling inadequate, embarrassed, or superior. At Mount Holyoke I was simply me. Not me, the middle-class Madrasi who went to the fashionable Women’s Christian College; not me, the daughter, granddaughter, sister, and niece, but just me, Shoba the student.

I was enamored of America’s newness, eager to lose myself within its expansive embrace. I wanted to suck it all in. At dinnertime I would approach total strangers without qualms and ask to sit at their table. These women (Mount Holyoke emphasized the fact that we were women, not girls) were probably too dumbstruck to refuse, and if they threw out any hints for me to get up and leave, I didn’t recognize them. It was over these long lunches and dinners that I made friends and learned about the country.

I met a lot of people—at Rotary lunches and campus dinners, at receptions and in the dining room. People took me into their homes, their churches, and their offices. Over roasted marshmallows at an Amherst home, I learned about Thanksgiving, Halloween, and other American holidays. In between chanting “Go, Red Sox!” at a baseball game in Boston, I eavesdropped on a discussion about Michael Dukakis, the state’s governor who was running for president. I learned that when people greeted me by saying, “Hi! How are you?” the correct response was not to elaborate on how I actually felt but to toss it right back at them with a “Fine. How are you?”