The Hindi-Bindi Club Read online

  5. Add tomatoes, cayenne, coriander powder, turmeric, and the ground, toasted cumin and anardana (or amchur if using, but not lemon juice). Sauté until tomatoes melt and the sauce thickens.

  6. Stir in chickpeas, water, and salt. Increase heat to medium-high. Bring to a boil.

  7. Reduce heat to low and cover. Simmer gently, stirring occasionally, until sauce thickens, about 15–20 minutes.

  8. Remove from heat. Remove and discard cardamom pods, cinnamon stick, cloves, and peppercorns.

  9. Stir in lemon juice if using. Stir in tomato paste and garam masala.

  10. Garnish with fresh coriander. Serve with lemon wedges.

  Meenal Deshpande: Yeh India Hai (This Is India)

  One’s mother and one’s motherland are superior to heaven itself.

  SANSKRIT PROVERB

  My Indian bones can’t stand another cold winter. This year, I’m wintering in India. I’ll spend time with my family and stay warm.

  There’s something about strangers on a plane, I reflect as I board my flight, observe the others settling in. For better or worse, they’re often compelled to share their life stories. When you’re trapped on an international flight, you’re at God’s mercy in more ways than one. Ordinarily I like to chat with strangers. I never know what I’ll get, like the toy surprise at the bottom of the box. But, on an international flight, whatever you get, you’re stuck with for six hours or more, so I proceed with the utmost caution. And carry sound-cutting headphones.

  I slide into my seat for the first, seven-hour leg of my twenty-hour journey: Washington, D.C., to Paris. Getting as comfortable as I can in the inches allocated to me, I adjust a pillow in the small of my back, drape the blanket over my legs, and gaze out the window at luggage being loaded onto a conveyer belt.

  A bespectacled gentleman takes the seat next to me, nods, and smiles. “Where you are going?”

  “Mumbai. You?”

  “Gujarat.”

  “Going home?” I ask.

  “Gi. You, too?” At my nod, he asks, “How long you were here, in America?”

  “Forty years.”

  “Achah, you are living in America. You are N.R.I.” Non-Resident Indian.

  “Yes,” I say. “I have family here and there.”

  “Very good, very good.” He smiles and wobbles his head. “Which you’re liking better, India or America?” Everyone wants to know this. They might as well ask whom I like better, Vivek or Kiran.

  “I like them both,” I say. “They’re both my homes.”

  It’s not enough.

  “But you must be preferring some things about India, some things about America.”

  “Yes.”

  “What things?”

  And so it goes.

  Things I prefer in India… Real men ask for directions. Spirituality. Hospitality. Community. Respect for elders. Cultural diversity. Multiple languages. Traditions and celebrations. Family values. Family values. Family values.

  Things I prefer in America… Cleanliness. Relatively low corruption. Safety. Education. Efficiency. Use of please and thank you. Orderly lines (queues) and the concept of “first-come-first-served.” Infrastructure. Conveniences. Work ethic. Respect for manual laborers and subordinates. Acceptance of outsiders. Cultural diversity. Accurate, detailed maps.

  * * *

  FROM:

  “Meenal Deshpande”

  TO:

  Undisclosed recipients

  SENT:

  January 5, 20XX 06:45 AM

  SUBJECT:

  Paris

  Family & Friends,

  Bonjour from Paris! I’m writing this from a“cyber-café” at the Orly airport. I’ve always been curious about these places where you can pay to use a computer, like a copier in a photocopy shop. But you know how it can be with trying new things, especially all by myself…Scary! But this time, I said to myself: no excuses, Meenal, be adventurous!

  And here I am.:)

  I purchased 1 hr of computer access time because I wasn’t sure how long it would take me to figure this out. As it turns out, it’s easier than I thought! You just enter a temporary code, almost like the way you do at the car wash, and then it’s the same as using your computer at home!

  50 min left. Oh well. What to do? Next time I’ll buy 15 min instead of 1 hr.:)

  Now I’m going to walk around a while and stretch my legs before my next plane leaves. I will call/email when I reach Mumbai.

  Love,

  Meenal

  * * *

  On the plane to Mumbai, I take my seat and watch passengers board. Most are Indians, and I hear many regional languages. My heart goes out to a young mother traveling alone with two small, fussing children. They sit in the bulkhead row of the center section. Poor things. I remember when that was me with Vivek and Kiran. Between the singing, whining, and crying, I thought the other passengers would throw us out the emergency exit door if they could.

  The young mother keeps glancing around, her face anxious. A flight attendant stops to say she’s located the baby’s bassinet, and she’ll bring it when we’re in the air. “Let me know if you need anything,” she says. “We know how hard it can be traveling with small children, and we want to do everything we can to make your journey comfortable.” She stays and chats a bit, inquiring about them, and the mother smiles and relaxes.

  “Ma’am?” The rumble of a deep voice startles me. I was so impressed with the flight attendant’s warmth, I didn’t notice the young man standing in the aisle next to my row. Tall and blond, he has a receding hairline, a heart-shaped forehead, and a pink baby face. “I’ll be sitting next to you,” he says in a slight drawl and asks if he can fetch me another pillow or blanket or anything from the overhead compartment while he’s up.

  “No, thank you.” I smile. “I’m fine.”

  He ducks his head and folds his frame into the aisle seat beside me, tucking in his booted feet and long legs.

  “You fit,” I say.

  “Barely.” He grins. “Where you coming from?”

  “Washington, D.C. You?”

  “Austin, Texas.”

  I nod. “My son’s in Houston.”

  “Yeah? How’s he like it?”

  “Better than Dallas. Not as much as Austin.”

  He chuckles. “Same here.”

  Here we go again…

  As the plane accelerates, I peer out the window. I love takeoffs. Speeding faster and faster. Climbing into the sky. The aerial view of the world. The geometric shapes of the land. With international flights, I’m continually awed when these big, lumbering birds take flight. A tiny part of me always thinks, no way can this huge lug make it off the ground, but it always does, taking to the skies like a magic school bus.

  Once we level out, I turn my head to my neighbor, thinking: Let’s get niceties over and go to sleep, shall we?

  “Are you traveling to Mumbai on business?” I ask.

  “Actually, I’m living in India right now with a host family. I was just home for Christmas. Now I’m headed back to Pune.”

  “Oh. I’m going there next week. Our family divides their time between Mumbai and Pune.”

  “That’s pretty common, it seems,” he says. “Like New York. Lots of people live in the city and have retreats on Long Island or upstate.”

  “Good analogy.” I learn he did his undergraduate studies in the Big Apple and tell him Kiran went to Columbia Medical School. “What are you doing in Pune?”

  “Learning Marathi,” he says, making me do a double take.

  I laugh, amazed and delighted. “This is a new one…”

  “Yeah.” He rubs the back of his neck. “I get that a lot.”

  “I’ll bet. So why in the world are you learning Marathi? Trying to impress an Indian girlfriend?”

  “No…” He grins, the pink of his cheeks deepening. “I’m a music professor at U.T.-Austin, and I’m studying Indian classical music. I want to learn Marathi to understand the music bet
ter. I’m studying and teaching at Symbiosis University. Been there almost two years. I finish in May.”

  “Mug thumala chan Marathi boltha yet ashnar?” I say. Then you must be speaking very good Marathi.

  “Aho, me sagla Marathi bolu shakto.” Yes, ma’am, I can say anything in Marathi.

  My jaw drops. I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it. This blond-haired, blue-eyed, pink-cheeked cowboy from Austin, Texas, speaks beautiful, grammatically flawless Marathi like a native!

  Our conversation proceeds exclusively in Marathi.

  “Which do you prefer, Mumbai or Pune?” he asks.

  “I like them both, for different reasons. I love the sound of the ocean, but it’s cooler and drier in the mountains, which I prefer. Communities mix more in Mumbai, but Pune’s catching up. Pune’s quieter. Less polluted.”

  “Compared to Mumbai, yes, but Pune’s local people say it’s more congested than it used to be. Urban sprawl is everywhere. Bangalore and Mysore have much less pollution than Pune. And a lot more greenery.”

  “At my age, you’d think not a lot surprises me, but this…this…” I laugh and shake my head. “A year and a half, and you’re speaking better Marathi than my children!”

  He laughs, too. “A year and a half at the college level. In their defense.”

  “Amazing. We should have sent them for a year abroad. I never even thought of it.”

  “Maybe the grandchildren.”

  “Maybe.” I smile. “My name’s Meenal.” I offer my hand.

  He takes it. “John Cooper. Pleasure to meet you, ma’am.”

  Texas John proves an excellent travel companion, providing the optimal balance of quiet and conversation. At Vivek’s age, he’s sadly already a widower, having lost his beloved Madelline, a concert pianist, to ovarian cancer three years ago. I don’t mention my own ordeal. I’m fed up with this damned disease defining my life, my identity. I just want to be Meenal—not Meenal the Breast Cancer Survivor—and for my three months in India, I plan to be.

  Before his wife passed away, she made a list of things she wanted him to do for her. A long, handwritten list. He carries a copy with him, and I’m honored and touched he lets me read it.

  Maddie’s List for John, she wrote at the top in block print, with a heart on each side. On five pages, she listed numerous tasks, which would surely take a lifetime to complete, but he’s made a good dent, as evidenced by checkmarks. He smiles when I point out learn to play the sitar, hike the Himalayas, and see the Taj Mahal.

  Delicately, I ask if he knows the history behind the Taj, checking to make sure he knows the white marble architectural wonder is a mausoleum built for a deceased empress, not a palace, as many mistakenly think.

  He knows. That’s one of the reasons Maddie chose it—the symbolism—and why he’s delayed going. “It’s gonna be tough.” He thumps his fist over his broad chest, the way one does to settle a cough. “Hits close to home.”

  Bichara mulga. Poor guy.

  I pat his arm. “You go when the time is right. You’ll know.” I tap my own chest, the part that’s real, that still feels, between the prostheses. “In here.”

  Later, after we eat and sleep, watch a movie, sleep some more, when the projection screen displays our plane’s location two hours away from the Indian border, John tells me that he enjoys hearing the story of the Taj told by different people, picks up something new each time.

  “Would you like me…?”

  “If you wouldn’t mind.”

  I smile. “Not at all. Moms love to tell stories, right?” I take a sip from my water bottle, rest my head back, and begin the tale of Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan and the love of his life, his favorite wife whom he gave the name Mumtaz Mahal—meaning in her native Persian “beloved ornament of the palace”—who died at the age of thirty-eight while giving birth to their fourteenth child.

  When the time comes to fill in our immigration and customs forms, John and I exchange contact information. We deplane in Mumbai in the early hours of morning. The warm, muggy airport feels good after the bone-chilling air-conditioning. We march through two immigration lines like a procession of ants, Indian citizens in one line, visitors in another. I’ve always been a little annoyed to be viewed as a foreigner in my birth country. I’m so glad dual citizenship’s finally an option.

  At the counter, I fork over my American passport with its Indian visa stamp. A few basic questions and I’m on my way to the luggage carousel. What a zoo. I maneuver my luggage cart through the bodies and spot one of my suitcases already pulled from the conveyor belt. As I raise the handle to tow it, John approaches.

  “I got it,” he says. Hefting the sixty-pound bag onto the cart, he teases, “You remembered to pack the kitchen sink.”

  I laugh. “Hey, I’m ten pounds underweight this time!”

  Funny how the things I carry to and from India have changed over the years. In the Boston Days, I packed food, toys, makeup, sneakers, and linens (clothes, bed sheets, tablecloths) to take to India. And Indian snacks, sweets, spices, sandals, clothes, and jewelry to bring back to the States. Today, we get so many things here and there. One hardly has to go without. The need to transport precious goods isn’t anywhere near as dire anymore.

  This trip, I stuffed my suitcases with things like pretzels, baking mixes, flavored gelatin and pudding, mayonnaise, shelf-stable cheese spreads, powdered salad dressing, instant soups, and pasta sauces.

  I stand with the cart while John fetches the remaining bags. Uniformed boys scramble around me. “Madam, do you have anything to declare? I can take you to the Red Zone quickly. Only five hundred bucks.”

  Only! The most you’d tip in India is one hundred rupees—and this in a five-star hotel.

  “No, thank you,” I say.

  “You have electronics?”

  “No, I don’t.” I eye the Green Zone. Long, long lines.

  “Madam, I’ll take you out in five minutes from Red Zone,” the coolie insists. “You don’t have to worry.”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Madam—”

  I hold up a palm in front of me like a stop sign, cutting off his sales pitch.

  John appears at my elbow. “Madam doesn’t need your help,” he says in Marathi.

  At the coolie’s startled expression, I can’t help smiling. A Marathi-speaking cowboy is good entertainment.

  I point to John’s lone suitcase and carry-on duffle bag. “That’s all you have?” At his nod, I say, “Light traveler.”

  The cumbersome luggage and security screening process is something like the checkout of a self-serve supermarket with very heavy groceries. First, you unload your seventy-pound suitcases from the luggage carousel and load them onto a cart. Then, you push your cart to a security screening line, where you unload luggage from the cart and load it onto a conveyor belt to be X-rayed. Finally, you load it back onto the cart.

  John pushes the cart to our final security checkpoint. A guard checks our passports and paperwork. Then we’re out the automatic glass doors that take us into the warm blanket of a tropical winter night.

  I heave a sigh. “Free at last.”

  “You can say that again.”

  A crowd waits behind an iron railing, on the lookout for arriving family and friends. I spot Dilu-dada and Giru-dada waving and grinning like little boys. Little boys with ajoba faces.

  “That’s me,” I say.

  Up front, a shuttle service representative holds a sign reading Mr. Cooper. “And this is me,” John says.

  I hug my brothers and introduce my new friend, whom they promptly invite over, offering tea, food, a bed for the night. That’s Indian hospitality for you.

  John thanks them, requests a rain check, and invites us to a concert in Pune where he is playing sitar. We promise to try to make it. Dilu-dada and I escort him to his shuttle van. We make sure he’s all set before we take our leave and join Giru-dada and Ramesh, our driver of five years, who’ve loaded my bags into the trunk of our silver
Hyundai Accent.

  Ramesh grins from ear to ear, as overjoyed to see me as my brothers. “Namaste, madam. How was your trip? Was everything okay?”

  I smile at the trio. “It sure is nice to be back in India.”

  When I was a girl, joint families usually lived in a single house or flat. Now, joint families often occupy multiple flats in a single building, appealing because nuclear families have a bit more personal space and autonomy, but the extended family’s still together.

  As the eldest son, Yash provided for his side of the family two adjacent flats in Mumbai. On my side, Baba and Ai had a big windfall when they sold our family bungalow that enabled them to purchase two sets of two adjacent flats—four flats in total—in Mumbai and Pune.

  Dilu-dada and Giru-dada told me that a renowned builder has broken ground on a multistory complex a few blocks from ours in Pune. The flats have gone fast; only a few remain. I’m anxious to visit the sales office, check out the designs and floor plans. I’d love if Yash and I could have a flat nearby, especially new construction.

  India is a great place to be old. Society heaps respect upon your feet like marigold petals. Your son (at least one), his wife and children live with you. They’d never dream of putting you in a nursing home. They don’t consider elderly parents a burden. Nor guests, even when they stay for weeks, sometimes months. Western concepts of privacy are alien; an Indian is rarely alone, rarely wants to be, rarely likes it.

  In India, I am never lonely.

  * * *

  9 January

  Dear Kiran,

  Greetings from Mom in Mumbai! How are you? How is the groom search progressing? I’m anxious to hear the latest!

  You must be surprised to receive a handwritten letter. Aji and I were talking over tea and Shrewsbury biscuits from Kayani Bakery, and she said what a pity it is that with new technology, we’ve lost the art and beauty of writing letters by hand…email can’t replace the personal touch of seeing and feeling what you’re right now holding in your hands. Our handwriting lives and breathes.