The Hindi-Bindi Club Read online

  The December air is sweet and invigorating, cold enough for our breath to steam but not for our teeth to chatter. I pull on my leather jacket, leaving it unzipped, and we linger to catch up a bit before going inside. She updates me on the Chawla clan, and I give her the highlights of my upcoming assignment in Georgia. Belatedly, I register the B.M.W., Mercedes, Lexus, and Volvo S.U.V. parked around the culde-sac and wonder if my mother’s having all her Indian friends over. Uh-oh…

  “Is the—” I catch myself before I say “Hindi-Bindi Club,” the age-old nickname we offspring gave our mothers’ gatherings when we were little. “Are all of my aunties getting together tonight?”

  “Yes, yes, everyone’s coming, but we didn’t know you were home. Or, no one told me.” She plants one hand on her hip, the same endearing gesture I remember since childhood. “Do I have to scold your mom?”

  The thought makes me smile. A wry smile. I doubt anyone’s ever scolded my mother. They would have no reason. Unlike me, she’s never misbehaved in her life, to my knowledge, and I’d be shocked if anyone told me otherwise. “No, Auntie. Mom doesn’t know. It’s a surprise visit.”

  “Oh.” A slight pinch around her eyes. A wince? Before I can be sure, it’s gone. “Oh! What a wonderful surprise!” She claps.

  Okay, I’m nervous again, my performance anxiety compounded by the awaiting audience. I’m not sure if it’s better or worse to have the aunties witness my homecoming, not sure how I’ll be received by my mother, let alone the Hindi-Bindi Club en masse. I expect I’ll be the proverbial pink elephant in the room.

  Saroj Auntie sighs. “Too bad Preity isn’t flying in sooner, and staying longer. But she’ll be here the day after Christmas, with hubby and the little ones.”

  “Mom mentioned that.” Woo-hoo. Indian Barbie and Corporate Ken, home for the holidays. Could this possibly get any better? I force up the corners of my mouth. “Can’t wait.”

  Taking my hand between hers, Saroj Auntie gives me a there-there pat-pat. “You kids scattered all over the map, didn’t you? Preity in Minneapolis. Rani in San Francisco.” She names others who have left the area. “So hard to keep in touch with your busy lives, isn’t it? I’ll give you Preity’s email. Drop her a note later tonight. Let her know you’re home. She’ll be so excited.”

  Ah, the forced kinship of the second generation. I smile and nod, like we all learned to do. Make the appropriate noises. Shift my weight from one foot to the other. Pray Saroj Auntie doesn’t come up with the brilliant idea to call Preity tonight and put me on the phone—put us on the spot—like the old days.

  There’s an assumption—or is it an expectation?—among some Indian-immigrant parents that because they are so tight with each other, their children are likewise best buds. Or should be. In my experience, not speaking for anyone else, that isn’t the case. Foisted on each other because of our parents and shared heritage, we’re friendly acquaintances more than friends, per se. Cousins, not siblings.

  “Come. Come,” Saroj Auntie says. “I’ve monopolized you long enough. Your parents will be so happy to have you back.”

  Maybe, maybe not, I think as I airlift the sole surviving roses and sling my purse over my shoulder. I’ve never been an angel like her Perfect Preity. Just ask my parents, who live to compare me with such exemplary role models. “Why can’t you be more like so-and-so?” So-and-so was most often Preity Chawla. The only reason I wouldn’t call her a Mama’s Girl is the fact she’s a Daddy’s Girl, too.

  Rani, on the other hand, was just as close to her parents without the nauseating perfection. She was my saving grace, a foil to Miss Goody Two-Shoes, especially during her goth stage. WiBBy, I called her. Weirdo in Black. I could always counter Preity’s shining example with Rani’s, though this seldom appeased my mother, who attributed all of Rani’s transgressions, as she saw them, to having an American father. “This is what happens when we compromise our values,” she would say, though never directly to Uma Auntie, the one who committed the alleged compromising in marrying Patrick Uncle. Theirs was a “love match.” Gasp!

  Uma and Patrick McGuiness date back to the Boston Days, too. Uma Auntie did her Ph.D. at Boston College, where she was best friends and housemates with Patrick Uncle’s sister, Colleen. Colleen’s family lived in nearby Charlestown, and they adopted Uma Auntie. She and Patrick Uncle got to know each other over time, very slowly, very innocently, because traditional Indian thought dictated: Good Indian girls don’t date, nor do they choose their own husbands. And a well-bred, upper-caste Hindu girl choosing to marry out of caste, out of religion, out of country? Baap ré. Loose translation: Oh, Lordy.

  It was the double move, India to Boston, then Boston to D.C., that cemented the friendships of our parents. And for the mothers especially, having daughters within a year of each other. First came Preity (naturally), then me, then Rani. Growing up, we had a weekly playgroup. After we started grade school, our moms ditched us and lunched on their own. Always, our families gathered every month or two for a weekend shindig, and, often, we celebrated major holidays together. The “Indian friends circle” included others too, but our three families—Deshpandes, Chawlas, and McGuinesses—formed the core, a hub with spokes.

  “Are Rani and her husband going to be here?” I ask. “Mom didn’t know, last we spoke. Something about a gallery exhibit?”

  “Right, right,” Saroj Auntie says. “There was some mixup with dates and whatnot, but they worked it out. Uma Auntie and Patrick Uncle are flying out there, then everyone’s flying back here together in time for the holidays.”

  “Good,” I say. A buffer between Preity and me.

  I was thrilled to learn from my mom that Rani’s recently gained commercial success with her modern adaptations of Warli art, a primitive Indian village style that resembles ancient hieroglyphics. Her husband’s kind of an odd duck, but then Rani’s always been on the eccentric side herself. He’s great for her, I hear. A good catch, my mother says, a marked change of tune, making me wonder if she means it as a passive-aggressive dig: Even Rani, of all people, married better than you.

  I remember when Rani first brought her then-boyfriend home from college for the holidays, something none of us ever dared: introducing a boyfriend/girlfriend to the Indian friends circle. The aunties and uncles still hadn’t recovered from her turning down Stanford for Berkeley (blamed on the American-heathen influence of Patrick Uncle, naturally) when she announced to a kitchen full of bug-eyed aunties, “He’s a computer geek, but he’s my geek, and I’m crazy about him.” Judging from their reactions, you would have thought she said, “That’s right! He’s great in the sack!” Never have I seen a group of women more in need of an economy-sized bottle of Valium. (Note: I wasn’t around to see my mom tell the aunties about Anthony and me.)

  Together Saroj Auntie and I walk toward the arched entryway and walnut double doors. To the west, the cherry lollipop of the setting sun glows between the pine trees. My father planted the row of trees along the property line the summer before I went to college, each a wimpy Charlie Brown Christmas tree look-alike. Now, treetops soar above our two-story house, limbs intertwine, needles blanket the grassless ground, and the brisk scent of a forest perfumes the winter air.

  So many years in the blink of an eye.

  “Will you stay until the New Year?” Saroj Auntie asks as I ring the doorbell. I have a key, but it doesn’t feel right to use it.

  “I’m not sure yet.” Depends on how long I can stand the whiplash between past and present, especially since my older brother Vivek won’t be here. He and his wife Anisha opted to spend this round of holidays with her family in Houston since they were here with his for Thanksgiving. Vivek is my parents’ favorite, by a long shot, which I would resent, except he’s my favorite family member, too.

  “If I knew you were coming home, I would have brought your favorite samosas.”

  “Oh, Auntie. Did you have to tell me? Now I’m craving them.”

  She winks. “I’ll drop off a care packa
ge.”

  My scowl turns upside-down, and my inner child emerges with a high-pitched “Thank you.” Just as I hug her, my mother opens the door.

  My smile freezes. My entire face feels encased in a plaster cast. The prodigal daughter returns pops to mind but stops short of my mouth, for once.

  The first thing I notice is that her hair is shorter, too. Short-short. And sassy. Very unlike her personality.

  Saroj Auntie squeezes my shoulder. “Special delivery for Yashwant and Meenal Deshpande,” she says in a singsong voice. “Will you accept your parcel, madam?”

  Lamely, I thrust out the roses, hoping she’ll see them for what they are, an olive branch. My hands keep steady—from my training—but inside I’m shaking, evidenced in my voice. “I-I was just in the neighborhood…”

  My mother’s wide eyes mist, and her chin dimples like an orange peel.

  My gut clenches in apprehension. Don’t cry, Mom. Please don’t cry. I can’t handle her tears. Never could. Growing up, the rare times I witnessed a single teardrop, I didn’t even have to know the cause to blubber right there on the spot.

  Blinking, she takes my peace offering only to hand it off to Saroj Auntie, then locks her willowy arms around me in a tight embrace. She feels different somehow, I can’t pinpoint why, but she smells the same. Of clove shampoo and Johnson’s baby powder. Of warm cooking spices and sandalwood incense. Of her. Of home. And just like that, I remember every childhood injury she nursed, every boo-boo she kissed, every time she was there for me when I needed her. Blocking out the times she wasn’t, I close my eyes and hug her back.

  She loves me, even if it doesn’t feel like it most of the time, even if I don’t live up to her unrelenting expectations. My mother loves me, and I love her.

  Whatever else happens, I must not forget this moment.

  Just because people don’t love you the way you want, doesn’t mean they don’t love you the best they can.

  Nine aunties turn out, a great showing for a weeknight, everyone comments. Though they’re as sweet and solicitous as ever to me on the surface, I catch their furrowed brows, their anxious glances between my mother and me. They seem to hover over her. More than just lending a helping hand. Protective. Worker bees guarding their queen.

  Do they think she needs protection from me?

  At the thought, I feel small, hurt, guilty. In their eyes, I’m the bad guy. The Bad Daughter. Outnumbered, I shrink from the crowd.

  It’s my mother who rescues me, coming to stand beside me, the most popular girl in school befriending the outcast on the playground. Taking me under her wing, she rubs a hand over my back, eyes sparkling, nose wrinkling with her contagious smile.

  “It’s so good to have you home,” she says, loud enough for everyone to hear.

  “Thanks, Mom.” My voice comes out hoarse, strained. I’m sorry it took so long, I want to say to her, but not with nine pairs of ears listening.

  We stand like that a moment longer, an island in the Sea of Aunties, then she gives my arm a squeeze and asks, “Will you get the good silver, please?”

  I nod, thankful for a task. From the china cabinet, I fetch eleven settings of heavy sterling plates, bowls, and cups, each engraved with MEENAL DESHPANDE and my parents’ wedding date. I stack them on a side counter in the kitchen while Saroj Auntie uses hot mitts to remove items from the double ovens, placing them on the granite island per my mother’s instructions.

  “Smells wonderful, Meenal,” she says, lead vocalist in an echoing, appreciative chorus. You know it’s the truth when it comes from Saroj Auntie. Never one to give false compliments just to be polite, she has no qualms voicing a negative opinion, however unpopular. She can be blunt to the point of rude and flamboyant to the point of tacky, but she’s so charismatic you can’t help but love her. And she’s right about the incredible aroma….

  Of course, we’ll have to air out the house, but if you’ve ever tasted Indian food, you know it’s worth it. Surveying the buffet, I forget all about samosas. Two appetizers. Three entrées. Four veggie dishes. A thick, hearty stew of daal—lentils. Picture-perfect, separated grains of buttery-nutty basmati rice—basmati means “queen of fragrance.” A tower of round, light-brown chappatis—soft, thin whole wheat griddle bread.

  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 str
aight 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.