The Hindi-Bindi Club Read online

  “On paper, yes. But only on paper. He’s a great guy, no doubt about it, but for someone else, not for me. He felt the same about me. Believe me, we tried. We really did. We knew how thrilled the families would be, how thrilled we’d be, if it worked. We gave it our best shot, but we just couldn’t connect. There was no mental spark.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Nothing. When you connect with someone, you know it. And when you don’t, you know that, too. Nik and I ran out of things to say after ten minutes. It was a constant struggle to come up with conversation topics that interested both of us. If we bore each other already, where would we go from here?”

  “But what about your shared heritage? That’s a connection.”

  “It’s not enough. There has to be more. Shared heritage can be a good start. I see how it gives people a shortcut to narrow the field, find some common ground, but it still boils down to personality types and how they mesh. Goals. Values. Interests. Priorities. Like you said, compatibility.”

  “Okay, Kiran.” What can I do? “If you’re that sure…”

  “I’m that sure.”

  “And it was mutual?”

  “Very.”

  “Then that’s that.” Another one bites the dust. I lay the back of my hand over my forehead. “I’ll break the news to John. He just phoned. He’s on his way over—”

  “He knows. Actually, that’s the problem, Mom. See, um…John and I were emailing, and…Are you sitting down? You might want to sit—”

  “I don’t like the sound of this.”

  “Please sit—”

  “I’m lying flat on my back. Do you want me to get up?”

  “No. That’s good. Stay like that.”

  I wait. Silence. “Kiran, tell me what happened and tell me quickly. He’ll be here any second.” What kind of mess do I have to clean up? “You didn’t get in an argument, did you? Over this Nik business? Is John upset?”

  “No…He…I…”

  The doorbell rings. “He’s here.”

  “I love him.”

  “We all do—”

  She groans. “Let me talk, Mom. I’m trying to tell you I’m in love with him.”

  “Oh, God.” I bolt upright. My head swims. “John? We’re talking about John here? Texas John?”

  “Yes, Mom. And he’s in love with me, too.”

  “Oh, God.” I fall back down. “But…? How…? What…?” I can’t form a coherent thought, let alone put words together. “Maddie,” I manage to say. “What about Madelline?”

  “It’s been three years. He went to the Taj. He said his good-byes. It was beautiful…difficult, but cathartic. He’ll love her forever, but she’s moved on, and he’s ready now, too. To live. The rest of his life. With me.”

  “Oh, God.” I draw my knees to my chest. Stare at a crack in the ceiling. “How did this happen?” I ask the universe more than Kiran, but she’s the one who answers me.

  “It snuck up on us,” she says. “Neither of us expected it. We were trading emails just as friends, nothing more. Then, we started talking on the phone. Again, just friends. No agenda. But the more we talked, the more we found we liked each other. And the more we got to know each other, the more compatible we realized we are.”

  “You and John…?” My voice sounds hollow to my own ears, as if someone else is speaking, not me.

  “Like I said, when you connect with someone, you know it,” Kiran says, “and John and I connect on multiple levels. We’ve emailed or talked every day for five weeks. No matter how long, or how often, we never get bored with each other. Even when we talk about really boring things. How do I explain it? We don’t constantly have to be ‘on’ to enjoy each other. There isn’t any pressure to put our best foot forward. Our attachment feels…well, normal. Natural. I’ve never felt so in synch with another person. Even when we argue. And you know me, so that’s saying a lot.” She laughs.

  I open my mouth, but no words come out.

  Kiran continues, “Before, I always thought love was enough. I thought it was everything, the be-all, end-all of a successful marriage. Now I get what you mean about compatibility. Anthony and I may have loved each other, but we didn’t share the same values. John and I do. He’s The One, Mom. The one I’ve been waiting for. The one I want to marry. He’s going to ask your permission today—”

  “Today?” My heart lodges in my throat. “It’s only been five weeks!”

  “And how long did you and Dad know each other before you agreed to marry?”

  “You can’t compare yourself to your father and me—”

  “Why not? You always have.”

  “Don’t get fresh with me, young lady. You’re talking to your mother, not your girlfriend.”

  “I’m sorry. I—”

  “You haven’t even seen each other.”

  “We’ve exchanged photos. Lots of—”

  “You haven’t met in person, Kiran.”

  “But you have. You made the introductions.”

  I cover my eyes. Yash is going to kill me.

  “Do you think physical attraction’s going to be an issue, for either of us?” Kiran asks.

  No. I bite my lip. That’s not the point….

  When I don’t reply, she says, “Neither do we. Don’t you see, Mom? It’s just like a traditional arranged marriage…”

  Not just.

  Nausea churns my stomach. I feel seasick, not unlike how I felt during chemo. I hug my knees with one arm. Roll onto my side. “Your father isn’t going to see it that way,” I whisper.

  The unspoken shrieks across the miles. John isn’t Indian.

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” Kiran says in a shaky voice. “I don’t want to go down the same road with you and Dad again. It was too hard, for all of us. I don’t know what to do, Mom.”

  You and me both, pillu.

  I take John by the arm and lead him out the door, making excuses to my confused parents. I hail an auto-rickshaw, hop inside, not bothering to barter on the fare into town.

  “Kiran told you,” John says as we rumble down the street.

  “Yes, she did.”

  “You’re in shock.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “You want to put me in cement chappals.”

  “I’m thinking about it.”

  The driver flies over a speed bump, jarring our spines. John reprimands him in Marathi before I can, then continues speaking in Marathi to me, but I shake my head.

  “Not today, John,” I say. “Today, we speak in English.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he says.

  We go to Saffron restaurant in Chandani Chauk. I wait until we order, then grill John.

  “You don’t know what we’ve been through with Kiran.”

  “I have an idea.”

  “I don’t mean to sound rude, John, but you and I need to have a frank discussion here.”

  “I understand, ma’am.”

  Everything I tell him about Anthony he’s already heard from Kiran. I don’t enjoy enumerating her faults, but full disclosure is compulsory. “My daughter is very stubborn,” I say. “And sarcastic. She argues for the sake of arguing. She can be difficult at times, and she’ll try your patience regularly.”

  “Umm-hmm.” He grins. “Never a dull moment.”

  Never a moment’s peace, I was thinking. “Often, she gets an idea in her head and won’t let it go. She can be like a dog with a bone.”

  John nods. “Been there, experienced that.”

  He isn’t surprised by anything I tell him. I don’t get it. “Answer me this, John,” I say. “Why do you want to marry Kiran?”

  “She makes me laugh. She’s tough, but not as tough as she wants people to think. A paper tiger. She’s sensitive, though she tries hard to hide it. She’s smart and makes no attempt to hide that. She’s passionate. Focused. Loyal. Maternal. You want me to go on?”

  “Yes. Please.”

  “We both fell in love with pianists…”

  As I listen to
him, I see that for every negative quality, he has a positive interpretation. He assures me he’s committed to working through the challenges they are certain to have. He had a very successful marriage, and he knows how to have them.

  “John, you know more about Indian culture than Kiran does. I’m not discounting that. But it’s one thing to live with an Indian family as a paying guest and another to marry into one. You have no idea what you’re getting into, what marrying into another culture entails.”

  “That’s not true—with all due respect, ma’am.” John takes out his wallet. “We have an expression in Texas. This ain’t my first rodeo.” He hands me a photograph of a pretty Asian girl sitting at a grand piano, her slender ankles crossed, a single long-stemmed red rose in her delicate hands. “That’s my Maddie,” he says. “Madelline Chang Cooper. Her parents emigrated from Korea. Maddie was first-generation American, too.”

  I cover my open mouth. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. “John, you never fail to surprise me….”

  His ears turn pink. “Thank you, ma’am. I think.” He rubs the back of his neck.

  “It’s definitely a compliment.” I hand back Maddie’s photo. “May I speak with the Changs about you?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And your parents? Have you told them your intentions?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “What do they think?”

  “They’re nervous but keeping open minds. They’re anxious to meet Kiran. Mostly, they’re happy I’m happy again. They watched me bury Maddie. They know…” His voice thickens, and he clears his throat. “They know me.”

  If we were in the States, I would reach across the table and pat his hand. But here, it’s not proper to touch in public, so I smile my empathy and hope he understands.

  “As you know, Indians commonly consult astrologers,” I say. “Would you mind if we arranged for your chart?”

  “No, ma’am.” He provides all the necessary details.

  I close my eyes. Draw a long, slow breath through my nose. Fill my lungs. Release at the same pace. Open my eyes. “I’ll talk to Kiran’s father.”

  Through the blue windowpanes of his eyes, I see his relief. “Thank you, ma’am. I swear, you won’t regret—”

  “Don’t thank me yet,” I say. “This isn’t going to be easy. For me, or for you.”

  Texas John just grins and says, “Nothing worth having ever is.”

  “What?” Yash barks into the phone. “No Indian boy is good enough for this maharani?”

  “It’s not that,” I say, but I’m not even going to attempt to have this discussion over the phone. Yash will not listen. This is where Kiran gets her stubbornness. Her father. He and Kiran lock horns precisely because in this one aspect, they’re exactly alike. Neither will back down; each needs to have the last word.

  “You tell me she’s grown in the past five years,” Yash says. “What grown-drone is this? Kamaal aahé.”

  “Come to India, Yash,” I say in as soothing a tone as I can. “Meet John for yourself.”

  “Why should I come there? He should come here. And why should I waste my time meeting someone even Kiran hasn’t met? How do we know they’ll still want to marry after they see each other? They might take one look and say no way. God, I tell you, Meenal, this daughter of yours is going to give me a heart attack!” I know what’s coming next; I mouth it along with my husband: “And send me to an early death, just like my father!”

  He said this in his twenties; he says it in his sixties. Watch now, he’ll outlive Kiran and Vivek.

  I hold the mobile away from my ear. I’m lying on my back across the bed again, my newly adopted position for long and/or stressful phone calls. I learned many tricks this year to cope with toxins, including negativity. Negativity never goes away; you must learn how to handle it. Right now, I must disengage.

  I raise my feet straight up in the air, flex and point my toes, stretch my calves, admire my pedicure.

  I usually favor pinks, but I found red to my liking today. A fire engine red, that’s what I chose from the sweet girl who comes to our flats each week to indulge the women of the house (only the women) with home massages, manicures, and pedicures. All for a minuscule fraction of what I would pay in the States but don’t. There, I consider it a frivolous, overpriced expense; here such a small, easily affordable amount I can rationalize as doing my part to support gainful employment.

  My feet have aged, I notice. Thickened toenails, cracked heels no amount of oils and lotions will repair. Oh, well…I’ve become an old lady. Who shall wear red toenail polish.

  Periodically, when I hear an opening, I replace the mobile over my ear and say, “Yash, I would like you to come to India.”

  Two seconds, and he starts again. “What is this nonsense, Meenal? Have they brainwashed you?”

  I put the mobile down. On the mattress. Next to my pillow. Maybe next week, I’ll try a purple. There was this one shade, a pale lilac that caught my eye. Hmmmm…I lower my feet. Raise my hands. Splay my fingers.

  Baba shuffles into the bedroom dressed in his usual evening loungewear of comfy white cotton kurta-pajamas. He pushes the black frame of his thick-lensed glasses higher on the bridge of his nose, hitches his chin at me, turns up one hand in question. Getting anywhere?

  I shake my head.

  He thrusts out his hand and gestures for the mobile. “Eh, Yashwant! Me Baba bolthath! Huh, thik aahé! Huh. Huh.” He talks for five minutes, ends the call, drops the mobile on the bed. “Meenu,” he says, all seriousness, “more than this, pink was much prettier. This red…” He wrinkles his nose, waves a palm in distaste. “This is not you. Too ghatty. Your husband’s coming next week. Wear pink, huh?” He squeezes my big toe and shuffles from the room.

  When I informed my parents of Kiran and John’s intentions, Ai gasped and blamed herself. Why did she interfere? Did she make some mistake in her puja, accidentally switching John and Nikhil?

  I reminded Ai that Kiran’s fate is what it is. What is meant to be will be. We are all players in destiny’s plans, vehicles through which God operates.

  As fate would have it, after Yash arrives, it’s Baba who makes the strongest case for John during the family gathering.

  “The boy is Indian,” Baba says, “in the most important way. His heart is Indian.”

  All around, heads wobble. I see in Yash’s eyes, in the way only a wife can, that he is moved by the overwhelming endorsement of my family, but he remains quiet, stoic. That night in bed, he holds me close, burrowing his face against my neck. He’s scared. He has every reason to be. Cancer taught me that true courage isn’t the absence of fear but perseverance in the face of fear.

  “God, Meenu. Why another American music-wallah?”

  “Because, like John, she’s attracted to the exotic. He is exotic to her.”

  “Didn’t she learn from her mistakes?”

  “Yes, she did.” I stroke the back of his head, still bald because he can’t tolerate stubble and lacks the patience to let it grow out. “The question is, did we?”

  Yash raises his head. Frowns at me. “What does that mean?”

  I trace his brow, ironing out the wrinkles with my fingers. “Ask yourself, as I did, when you’re sick and dying, what’s more important, your self-righteousness or your daughter’s love? And when your soul leaves this body, departs this life, which would you rather take with you? We can’t have everything, so we have to decide. What is it we value the most?”

  These are the tough questions Uma put to me in the hospital, when I flatly refused counseling, and now I put them to Yash.

  “Kiran isn’t a child anymore,” I say. “For better or worse, her personality has been formed. We can influence her decisions, but we can’t impose our will on her. She doesn’t need us, or our approval, but she still wants both. For how long, I don’t know.”

  “In other words,” Yash says, “if we want our grown daughter in our lives, it has to be on her terms.”

 
; “No, in other words, there are no terms.”

  Yash shakes his head. “You lost me, Meenu.”

  Before cancer, I would have given up at this point. Given in to thoughts like: How can he not understand what I’m saying? Haven’t I said it enough times, spelled it out in the clearest possible terms? If I bash my head against this wall anymore, I’ll knock myself unconscious. The temptation to quit is still there, but I can’t succumb. This is too important. Yes, it’s true everything can’t be conveyed, contained, in words. But if it’s important enough, we have to keep trying—using new ways, and the old—to stretch our boundaries, increase our awareness.

  I used to think saying the same old words, over and over, was wasting my breath. But what, then, is chanting? Doesn’t repetition of a mantra heighten consciousness? Revisiting the old, familiar, over time reveals new meaning. Truth comes not at once but in layers. Life isn’t a straight line but a circle. And this year, I feel myself coming full circle….

  I breathe deeply, find my center, and try again, beginning with familiar building blocks, “Is there only one way to have a relationship with God? Only one way to worship? Only one path to moksha? No. We don’t believe in any ‘my way or the highway’ terms with God, do we?”

  So far, Yash is with me. “And God is love of the highest. The purest. The truest. God is the ultimate truth. It follows, then, that there are no ‘my way or the highway’ terms with true love. If you truly love someone, it’s immaterial who’s right or wrong, who wins or loses. There are no sides. We are all One.”

  Yash groans. “Meenu…” I’ve heard my husband’s sounds enough to know what they mean. This kind of groan is physical pain. I’m hurting his head. A plea to let up.

  I gentle my voice and forge ahead, building on familiar but less abstract concepts this time. “With every new discovery, the world feels like a smaller place, doesn’t it? Remember when we watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon? You were so excited, you phoned your mother, even though we couldn’t afford it, and the first thing your mother said when you told her was, ‘Kai, Ai la bandal noko maaru, Yash.’ She was convinced you were pulling her leg. Today, the rickshaw-wallah has a mobile. A village with no plumbing has a cyber-café. The world isn’t shrinking, our awareness of all the possibilities is growing, right?”