The Hindi-Bindi Club Read online

  “How about this one?” I hold up a black lace camisole. My mother’s eyes go wide. She whispers, “Parath thev. Parath thev.” Put it back.

  We are in a classy intimates boutique in Georgetown that specializes in lingerie for women who’ve had mastectomies. I learned about it from a local Pink Ribbon support group’s website.

  Ignoring her embarrassment, I thrust the camisole toward her. “Feel it. It’s pima cotton. Solid cloth on the inside, against your skin. Lace on the outside, so it doesn’t touch you.” Her skin itches, and she admitted feeling more comfortable without a bra but not wanting to go braless, or boobless. The saleslady, herself a breast cancer survivor, recommended these specially designed camis that have pockets for prostheses.

  “It is soft,” she says. “But the color…the style…”

  “It’s sexy.” The mere word makes her flush and turn away. “Mom. Really.” I plant one hand on my hip Saroj Auntie–style. “You and I both know the stork didn’t deliver Vivek and me. By my calculations, that’s at least two occasions on which you and Dad—”

  “Kiran!” She practically leaps into the air like a comic book superhero to cover my mouth with her hand. “Chup bus!” Be quiet. “Tujya tondala kulup lawayla hava.” Your mouth should have a lock put on it.

  If I had five bucks for every time she’s said this to me, I could have paid off my student loans a long time ago.

  “Just try it,” I say. “Here, take the matching panties, too. Chalaa, chalaa.” I shoo her toward the dressing room. When she doesn’t emerge for a while, I go after her. “Mom? Everything okay in there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you try them?”

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  She opens the door a crack, and I see her standing with one hand covering her mouth. Not in embarrassment, but in surprised pleasure. The camisole set is sexy but in a sweet, tasteful way. The color makes her skin look creamy and her complexion radiant. She looks beautiful—and she knows it.

  “Those Victoria’s Secret models don’t have anything on you, Mom.”

  Her eyes fill with emotion. She lowers her hand and says, “Thank you.”

  “Stay put. I’ll get some more,” I say, closing the door.

  Dad might get lucky, I think, but opt to keep that thought to myself.

  Aside from physician-to-physician discussions regarding my mom, I’ve barely spoken to my dad. I figure the less said, the less chance of starting World War III.

  After shopping, Mom and I lock the bags in the trunk of my car and decide to do lunch at Clyde’s. We follow the hostess past tables with red-and-white checkered tablecloths, our heels knocking on the hardwood floors. She seats us by the windows where we can people-watch the passersby on M Street.

  “What can I get you ladies to drink?” our waiter asks.

  “Water for me, please,” my mother says. “Wine for you, Kiran?”

  I glance at her over my menu. She appears nonchalant, yet an age-old-programmed twinge of guilt prickles at me when I ask for a glass of Kendall Jackson Chardonnay.

  The waiter cards me, and my mother laughs.

  “He’s just being kind, Mom.”

  “No, he’s not. You still look like you’re in college. My daughter’s a doctor,” she informs him with undisguised pride.

  The waiter grins and returns my I.D. “Thank you, doctor.”

  “How embarrassing,” I mumble as I replace the card in my wallet.

  Outside, an Indian family strolls past the window, and I imagine our family must have looked the same. Yuppie immigrant mom and dad, their son and daughter sporting the latest trendy clothes and hairstyles, and the five-foot-tall grandmother, her silver hair in a bun, a big, round red bindi on her forehead, a coat over her sari, and tennis shoes on her feet.

  Three generations: Indian Immigrant American.

  “It feels like everyone knows,” my mother whispers.

  “Knows what?”

  “What I’m wearing. Under here…”

  “Oh…” I smile. “You mean that my mom’s wearing black lace—”

  “Kiran!” She bats my menu. “Stop!” But she’s smiling, too, so I tease a little more.

  “Didn’t you see that aji-bai mouth ‘arré wah, kitti chan’ just now?” Oh, wow. How nice.

  She throws back her head and laughs deep from her throat. Music to my ears. “Labaad mulgi,” she says. Mischievous girl. “Mummylah sataawayla majjah yeteh, nuh?” It’s fun to harass Mom, isn’t it?

  Whenever our parents speak to us in Marathi—commonplace from Mom, not as much from Dad—Vivek and I tend to reply in English, because we think in English: Input Marathi Mental translation Output English. The process can prove taxing.

  Sometimes, we get translation overload and beseech Mom to please speak English. As teenagers, we also implored her for another reason: Marathi in public places caused embarrassment. She might not have given a rat’s ass when strangers mistook her for a fuzzy foreigner, fresh off the boat, but Vivek and I sure did. It wasn’t that we weren’t proud of our heritage. We were. But we were equally proud of our nationality. That’s what it means to be American. Like our friends, we were Americans of (insert your heritage here) descent, and we didn’t like being mistaken for foreigners, or worse, tourists in our own country.

  That was then; this is now. Today, it’s enough that I know who I am. And as evidenced by my marriage and divorce, I’m not overly concerned with the (mis)perceptions of others, certainly not strangers.

  I waggle my brows at my mother. “Mummylah sataawayla khup majjah yeté,” I say. It’s lots of fun to harass Mom.

  I can tell my use of Marathi touches her.

  Happiness and fear swirl in my heart. Please, God. Don’t take her away from me anytime soon. Beneath the table, I clasp my hands, reminding myself I must stay positive.

  When our lunch arrives, I bite into my jumbo lump crab cake sandwich and sigh with satisfaction. My mother steals one of my French fries.

  “Excellent food. Excellent company,” she says. “Arré, we forgot to toast.”

  I raise my wine, she her water. “To many more days like this for many more years to come,” I say, and we clink glasses.

  “Hey, Mom.” I carry my laptop into the kitchen. “You have to hear some of these.” My mother caps her pen, lays it on the opened page of her recipe notebook, and swivels her barstool toward me. I read a profile from the matrimonial website, “‘WANTED: A GOOD-HEARTED WOMAN to cook, clean, wash, sew, milk cows and goats, and do all household and farm chores.’” My mother looks as mortified as I felt when I read those words. “Then he adds, ‘Just kidding!’”

  She laughs and drops her forehead onto her palm.

  “Had you going, didn’t he?” At her nod, I say, “Me, too!”

  “Is he a doctor?”

  “Architect. Commercial. Builds hospitals. Have to admit, I’m intrigued. I love his sense of humor. Cute, too.” I bring up his photo. “Not that looks are everything, but there is that little technicality about how babies are made….”

  Mom ducks her head and lowers her eyelashes, but I glimpse an upturned corner of her mouth. That’s Indian modesty/prudery, and it cracks me up.

  Not all the aunties, but many, including my prim and proper mother, act as if they found their children in the cabbage patch. They’re of the old school that believes respectable women have sex for procreation, not recreation. Missionary position only. Oral sex? Chi-chi-chi! (Dirty-dirty-dirty!) Forget about it!

  This from the culture that produced the bible of sexuality, The Kama-Sutra (Art of Lovemaking), and erotic temple sculptures and cave drawings over one thousand years ago. Go figure.

  Mom clears her throat. “So, do any doctors intrigue you?”

  “Some, but I’m not sure what I think about doctor couples. I see advantages and disadvantages.”

  “Never say never.”

  “I’m not. Okay, here’s another one. He does his spiel about himself and what he’s look
ing for, then at the end, he writes, ‘Serious inquiries only. I’m NOT looking to be just friends. I have enough friends. If one of them becomes an enemy, I’ll let you know there’s an opening.’”

  “Kamaal aahé.” She laughs and shakes her head. “Doctor?”

  “Engineer.” Before she can ask, I say, “No.” I turn the screen toward her, so she can see the photo. She flinches and waves her hand for me to take back the laptop.

  I read several more, and we share smiles and grimaces. Together, we compose my profile. After lengthy discussions mingled with healthy debates over profiles that pique my interest, we compile a list of first choices and initiate contact, both of us giddy as schoolgirls.

  I nibble on my index finger. “What if everyone says no?” Each has the option of accepting or declining contact with me.

  “We’ll curse their lineage.”

  “Mom!”

  “Kidding!” She nudges my shoulder.

  That evening, I check to see if anyone responded, telling myself it’s probably too early, but just in case…“Oh! Oh! Look!” Chills race up and down my arms, and I tap the screen. “Someone accepted!”

  My mother comes running. “Who is it?” She peers over my shoulder as I break into a huge grin.

  “The architect,” we say in unison.

  “Chalaa, Kiran-bai.” She pats my hand. “You better get ready to milk your cows and goats.” Bai means lady; it’s also the polite way to address one’s maid.

  “Eight maids-a-milking…” I hum. “I don’t believe I’m saying this, but…this is exciting.”

  “It is! I never dreamed I would arrange your marriage.”

  “Semi-arrange.”

  “Semi-arrange.” She smiles. “It’s really just matchmaking. Parents help make the introductions. What you decide to do after that is up to you.”

  It doesn’t sound at all strange when she puts it like that. The irony is, I heard these exact words growing up but couldn’t get past the “ick” factor. I’m ashamed to admit that, more than once, I stuck my index finger in my mouth and made gagging noises when my parents suggested pairing me with a “nice Indian boy.” In my paltry defense, the Indian immigrant community was much smaller back then. All the nice Indian boys I knew felt like cousins to me. We called each other’s parents auntie and uncle, after all. And last I checked, “our people” didn’t do that—no cousin intermarriage. Obviously, it wasn’t the right time.

  Over the next days, I’m floored at the number of contacts that pour in from the matrimonial website. People I contacted. People who contact me. To keep everyone straight, my mother and I make handy-dandy folders, separating each profile into YES, NO, MAYBE. People think I get my anal-retentiveness from my father, when really, it’s Mom. Obsessive-compulsiveness I get from Dad.

  “Thank you for sharing this with me,” my mom says. “It’s nice to be a part of it.”

  “An integral part,” I say. “Thank you, Mummyji.” I show off my (very limited) Hindi. The suffix -ji denotes respect. “Couldn’t do it without you.”

  I think of all the times my mother has said, “Kiran, learn at least the basics of Indian cooking. It’s a mother’s duty to teach her daughter.”

  A mother’s duty to pass along her wisdom before she dies.

  This is the reason she’s writing, recording her recipes, I realize. But recipes aren’t all that my mother has to impart. It hits me, the sheer magnitude of how much I don’t know, how much I still have to learn, how much I can only learn from her and no one else. All the stories I haven’t heard. The family history. The life lessons.

  Deliberately, I lend a hand in the kitchen, try to take an interest, or at least “fake it until I feel it” for her benefit.

  This morning, we’re making kheer, a holiday dessert. To many, kheer is a kind of rice pudding, but in my family it’s a porridge of vermicelli—chockful of pistachios and golden raisins, and laced with fragrant cardamom and saffron threads.

  I’m assigned to spice preparation, the old-fashioned way, which Mom maintains is the best way to achieve optimal flavor. With a brass mortar and pestle, I bruise sage-colored cardamom pods, extract their sticky black seeds, and crush them into a fine powder. (Note to self: Grinding spices by hand is a good way to take out pent-up aggression.)

  “Mom?” I ask. “How many marriage proposals did you have? Do you remember?”

  Stirring a big pot of milk on the stove, she smiles. “I remember. I had six offers before your father.”

  “And the others, the rejects? What made them unacceptable?”

  “Unsuitable,” she corrects. “Oh, different things.”

  And here they are. Meenal’s Top Five Reasons to Ding an “Unsuitable” Groom Candidate:

  1. His family

  2. Differing goals

  3. Differing values

  4. Socioeconomic concerns

  5. Horoscopes

  According to Mom, the groom’s family was a big, big deal. Living as a joint family really meant marrying the boy’s whole family, not just him. “You can imagine the atmosphere of grown women living together. At best, it’s a sorority. At worst, a women’s correctional center. In all cases, the mother-in-law reigns supreme. I remember there was this one boy we all liked, but his mother…” She shudders. “She was a scary character. She asked me to wash my face, so she could see my ‘natural look.’ What she really wanted was to inspect the natural shade of my skin, to make sure I wasn’t wearing a skin-lightening powder. After they left, Aji vetoed them.”

  “What made Dad stand out from the others?”

  “Everything. Our horoscopes matched perfectly—a match made in heaven, according to the stars. Our goals, values, everything matched. His mother was sweet and gentle. Not the domineering type every girl fears will make life miserable for her daughters-in-law. Still, Ajoba had some reservations,” she says about my grandfather. “Dad’s family wasn’t well-off financially. His father’s death left him with many responsibilities. And, if we married, he would take me far away. In America, there would be no servants. A wife was expected to do all the domestic labor. I wouldn’t be able to see or talk to my family more than once a year. All these things worried Ajoba, but when Dad came to the house, he so impressed everyone…. He turned all the minuses into pluses!

  “His family was humble but cultured. His profession and the lure of an American green card made him a catch. Though America was far from my family, it was also far from his. I could run my own household. I wouldn’t have servants, but I would have modern conveniences. Refrigerator, dishwasher, washing machine, dryer, vacuum cleaner. It sounded very exciting, like a movie. Ajoba saw Dad as a practical boy with great potential. Aji noted Dad was tall, fair, and handsome. That didn’t hurt.”

  I laugh. “I’ll bet.” I recall many a time when my gray-haired granny swooned over the popular Hindi film hero Amitabh Bachchan, and she likened my father’s appearance to the star’s.

  I learn my parents “interviewed” each other before they agreed to marry. They also had a chance to talk alone. The adults told them to go out onto the balcony. That way, they could keep an eye on them—in those days, girls of marriageable age from good families were always chaperoned to protect their reputations, their honor. They couldn’t risk anyone questioning the girl’s virtue. That would ruin the family’s name and the girl’s chances for a good match, as no decent family wanted an “impure” wife for their son. Of course, such impurities didn’t tarnish the halos of angel sons one bit.

  Bam-bam-bam! I clobber spices with my mallet, er, pestle.

  Mom tells me she and Dad were both very nervous and trying hard not to show it. They knew that was the only conversation they’d have before they had to make up their minds, make their decisions. Dad was only in town a few weeks—Harvard’s winter break—and he planned to return to Boston a married man, not uncommon, even for today’s modern arranged marriages. Mind-boggling, I think, what little interaction the couples have before arranged marriages…and the enorm
ous success rates. Obviously, there’s something to it.

  Outside, the clouds move in, a thick wall blocking the sun, and the kitchen darkens. We flick on the lights, recessed bulbs over the range and stained-glass lamps that hang over the center island, creating a cozy glow. In the cocoon of the kitchen with my mom, I have the same snuggly feeling as curling into bed with a good book on a rainy day…only better.

  I ask her, “Did you discuss any deal-breakers beforehand? Things you wouldn’t tolerate in a marriage?”

  No shocker: Dad said that while he respected modern career women, he didn’t want to marry one. He wanted a wife who would be content as a homemaker, so if Mom was even remotely thinking of working outside the home one day, she should do them both a favor and marry someone else.

  Shocker: Mom said that if her husband hit her, even once, she’d leave. No apologies. No second chances. She would pack up her bags and children and go back to her parents—she’d live with society shunning her before she died in an abusive home.

  Hearing this, my mouth gapes. “That was bold.”

  She grimaces. “It was, wasn’t it? I might not have thought to say it, or had the courage, but my friend Usha was killed in a dowry death.”

  “Dowry? But I thought…Am I off in my time line? Didn’t they make dowry illegal before then?”

  “It was illegal, the same way speeding’s illegal. It still happens. Often.”

  With Usha, her in-laws kept demanding money and gifts from her family, and sons from her. She wasn’t conceiving, and her monster-in-law was in the habit of regularly caning her, so it wasn’t any stretch of the imagination when Usha “accidentally” died from burns in a kitchen fire.

  “You always read about dowry deaths in The Times of India,” Mom says, “but that was the first time it happened to someone I knew, from a supposedly good family.”

  “How awful,” I say.