Born Confused (33 page)

—There aren’t any bad words for you, Gwyn, I said. Then I swallowed and said it, hard as it was, because to see Gwyn happy was well worth a moment’s discomfort, was worth much more than that.—In fact, he already said you were special.

—Wow,
she said, slamming back against the vinyl and smiling the big smile she reserved for when she had no reservations, revealing as it did a stunning number of cavities.—He told you that? No one’s ever said that before.

She leaned forward again and squeezed my hands.

—You know, it seems it was only a few days ago I was telling you to find a prince for me, she said, looking excessively nostalgic considering it
had
been pretty much a few days ago.—Little did I know it would be the one for you! Gosh, Dimple, you really are my best friend; it’s like you were there to bring us together. You can
definitely
give the speech at the wedding—hell, you can even give me away! I mean, I’m kind of shocked you guys didn’t like each other. But believe me, I’m not complaining, not at all. Because this one’s the one. I confess it. I can feel it. I’ve never met anyone like him.

—Yeah, I said.—I know what you mean.

—You think he’s the one, too? Wow! You know, I’ve almost stopped trusting my own feelings, but if you agree, it’s settled.

She took my face in her hands, squeezing my chipmunk cheeks towards each other and gazing into my eyes with blue-rimmed skywide pupils.

—I’m so glad you didn’t like him! she laughed.—Can you imagine?

She abruptly let go and picked up my pickle and chomped on it. Half of it gone, and she put it back down. And I don’t know why but I nearly started to cry.

—Gwyn! I said.

—What? What’s the matter? It’s just a pickle.

I bit back tears.

—Well you weren’t eating it, right?

—I was saving it, I said.—Never mind.

—What are you so moody about? my mother asked when I got home. She hadn’t even turned to look at me so I didn’t know how she could tell; she was up on a stepladder in the corner of the family room, attempting to hang a mobile with a mess of metallic ornaments on the hook that had been there since we’d moved in.

—What makes you think I’m moody?

—I can hear it in your footsteps. Shuffle shuffle, mope mope, like those slacking people in the unemployment line.

—Yeah, whatever, I said.—Mom, what are you doing?

—I am channeling the energy flow.

—Say what?

—You see, these corners all symbolize different areas in life—like the lines in a palm—and it is best to put mobiles or fountains or chimes in them to deflect the bad vibes and keep them working at their optimum. There was a whole special on it just now. Feng shui, they are calling it—but, between you and me, this was invented in India. You know, like the back door theory.

My mother believed back door exits and entries stripped the wealth from houses. (Was this yet another ancient Indian proverb? I’d asked her once. Yes, and besides—what robber in their right mind is going to be entering by the
front
door? the ever-logical one had replied.)

—What area is that you’re doing?

—The financial sector. First things first.

—Mom, what about love?

—What good is love without money? Did you know one out of every…certain number of couples divorce over money problems?

—Health?

—How to pay for the hospital? We can only get so many favors from our medical profession friends.

—I can’t believe you! I cried.

—I told you you were moody. And now you are not believing your own mother who birthed you, to put the cherry on top of the kettle black. So, what is it?

—No, nothing, I said.—Well, okay, it’s just Gwyn’s insisting that we go to that NYU conference thing.

—Will Karsh be there?

—Of course.

—And the problem is?

That Karsh would be there, pretty much. But I figured I wouldn’t share this.

—That Gwyn is—I don’t know. She’s
special,
said my mother fondly.

That word again.

—What a supportive friend, she continued, untangling the threads of the mobile. The metal clanged as the pieces began to unravel.—You know, we misjudged her direly around that hankypanky triple A time—she really is a good influence on you. I daresay we owe her a great deal for opening your heart.

My heart didn’t feel very open. In fact, I think I’d stretched it a little beyond capacity, like an advanced yoga move on a novice, and now it was snapping ligaments and fracturing bones and getting generally grumpy.

—She wants to borrow our clothes and records and all to get prepared.

—Wonderful! I am just delighted by all this interest she’s taking in Indian customs. She is a serious one. I never realized it from her grades, but that girl—when she puts her mind to something she always gets it. You could learn from her.

—I’m just realizing that.

—Dimple, don’t be too selfish about sharing your culture with her. At least we
have
a culture to share. The poor girl—what does she have? Pokémon and McDonald’s and
Survivor.

—But that’s what I have, too, Mom. And Pokémon’s Japanese.

—It isn’t only food that goes through the umbilical cord, beta, said my mother from her podium, dramatically rolling her cotton top up a smidge to reveal her belly button. She promptly snapped it back down as if two seconds was all the human eye could take, or deserved, of this mystical sight.—Memory and dreams and history—all the things of the third eye—these pass through, too, like spiritual food.

Her face was intent. I could nearly see her third eye dilate. It was the same look she’d had when she had Kavita and Sabina on the floor doing sun salutations.

—Mom, I don’t know, I said, gazing where her navel had been and wondering if there was still a vacancy in the eleven-star suite behind it.—It’s just that, I feel like I don’t even have the culture myself. And now I’m actually being asked to give it away.

—Beta, you were born with it.

—Mom, I was born in the USA.

—But India is in your blood. It’s not going anywhere without you.

She stepped off the ladder, the mobile now securely in place, and stood back to survey her work. The silver sailboats quivered in the current created by the air conditioner, splattering discs of sliding light all around the room. It was like a daytime disco.

I pictured the sun rising over these boats from an ashram window I had never seen. But I could see it as clearly as if I’d been there. Felt as if it had happened to me.

So if I couldn’t fully open my heart, and I begrudgingly opened my cupboard, I would work on my mind. I’d give Gwyn the records, okay, the clothes—whatever she required. But once she was out of my hair I’d become the incontestable expert on South Asian identity.

Later that evening, I launched my plan of attack with my father, pouncing upon him moments after he’d stepped in the door and, car keys still in hand, flicked on the television.

—Dad, do we have any books on, you know, Indian stuff?

My father’s eyes were flicking side to side and down, following the inscrutable ticker tape running on the screen.

—Indian stuff? he said with his Dow Frown.—Could you be less specific please?

—You know, like Gandhi and Nehru and the gods and all that.

My dad actually turned away from the numbers, which was pretty much the equivalent of my mother’s turning away from a pot of nearly boiling milk.

—You did
not
just say Gandhi and Nehru and the gods and all that!

I nodded. Of course I had. Unless he could come up with a Jesus Christ and god Almighty/Cheese and Crackers Got All Muddy translation, I didn’t see what else I could have said.

—Are you telling a joke? he cried, setting down the remote. He cupped my shoulders with both his hands and smiled down his bifocals past the perfectly ball-tipped nub of his nose and into my eyes.—Of course we do! Am I hearing correctly, Mummy?

—You are hearing most correctly, said my mother, proudly pausing in her watering of the palm plant.—Gwyn and Karsh are having a very positive influence on our daughter, Daddy.

—Well, it’s just this NYU conference is coming up and I want to be a little prepared, I said.—That’s all.

My father looked like he wanted to break out the Beaujolais. He threw his hands up delightedly.

—Prabhu, I feel like breaking a coconut! he cried.—Follow me.

In the study, not only crammed in no particular order on the bookshelves and blue trunks but also stacked over the unfilled-in warranties in the cardboard boxes that had once housed turntables and standing fans, microwaves and cassette decks, and even the Smith Corona typewriter: books. Books on Indian mythology, Gandhi and Nehru biographies, a personal history of Partition; travel guides; books on elephants, on Indian classical dance (which I realized now had to be my mother’s), the British Raj, the overturn of the British Raj, the princely states; the poetry of Rabindrinath Tagore, the stories of Satyajit Ray; the
Mahabharata
and
Ramayana;
guides to Indian architecture, alimentation, and Ayurvedic treatments. How had I missed these?

I had my work cut out for me. I made myself comfortable on the corner beanbag and opened a mythology book, the one with the brightest of Ganeshas blooming on the cover, his curved trunk twining nearly the length of the page. My father smiled and tiptoed dramatically back out the study door.

—Any questions, you know where to go! he said, before closing it.

Well, I’m not sure where he was thinking, but it wasn’t to him.
The next morning while he was finishing his chai and my mother was beginning hers I blurrily joined them.

—Who was Krishna’s wife? I asked, separating the dry flakes from the soggy in my cornflakes.

—Jashoda, said my father.

—No, no, said my mother.—Radha.

—Are you sure, Mummy? said my father.

—I’m sure, she said firmly.—It’s not in the book?

—I don’t know, I said.—I didn’t see it in the book. It seemed to be written for people, you know, in the know.

—Let me call Hush-Hush Aunty, said my mother.—She organizes a lot of the temple activities—she’ll know.

—And I’ll check on-line, said my dad, sheepishly cowering behind the high-tech alibi.

—You don’t
know?
I said, amazed. The number of soggy-side flakes was growing rapidly as I sat with my spoon in midair.

—It’s not that we don’t
know,
said my father.

—It has just been such a long
time,
explained my mother.

—We just need to confirm, added my father.—That they haven’t, you know…changed it.

—What, Hinduism gets updated every year or something? I grinned.

—Dimple! That is enough! This is an exception, said my mom. My father had already disappeared down the corridor in search of the computer.

But a few days later when I was met with a blank upon posing a question regarding the avatars, I asked if we should go to the http something.

—I have an even better idea, said my father.—Maybe one of these days we can just go to the temple. It will give you a break for your eyes, and that way you can see the real deal—it’s been a while since I went myself, and you must have been just a little girl that last time. You and me. Would you like that?

It had been ages since I’d done anything with him, just the two of us, other than count the seconds for my mother to get there and relieve the unspoken tension. Only thing was, I just didn’t have enough time. The conference was fast approaching, and the books in my hands and the Web on the screen seemed a faster way to take in the most info possible.

—I’d like that a lot, Daddy, I said.—But would it be okay if we did it another time? Like as soon as the conference is over?

—Oh, don’t worry, don’t worry. I understand—you are very busy these days. Whenever you have time, beta.

He smiled, his lips stretching over too many teeth.

—At least we are talking now, isn’t it?

It was true. In fact, I couldn’t remember why it had ever been the case that the two of us had had so little to say to each other; since I’d started staying at home reading and joining him for his morning chai, it seemed we had plenty to share. Mainly, we had plenty of questions. But surprisingly many of these were the same.

And as the days went on, my mom grew to be more and more in touch with Hush-Hush Aunty and Radha, sometimes hitting redial to ask them more of my upcropping questions. And my dad, he was turning into an incontestable Webmaster, his list of favorites running to the screen bottom when scrolled open.

My neck cricked and when I took breaks from the books distant
objects swam till my vision adjusted. It seemed I’d been holed up and reading for ages. Was college like this? But I had to admit, it was fascinating, some of it. There were really sad stories about Partition, when India was divided into India and Pakistan, and how the people you’d drunk tea with for years turned into your enemies overnight, sometimes betraying you in a heartbeat, sometimes risking everything they had to protect you. And Gandhi was a more complicated man than I’d imagined—there were stories that didn’t match up between the British and Indian books. History wasn’t that easy a thing to learn, seemed to be what I was learning. It wasn’t a static story about dead people. It was a revolving door fraught with ghosts still straining to tell their version and turn your head, multifaceted and blinding as a cut diamond. In a book of folk tales I read a story of five blind men who were asked to describe an elephant. Each described the part he touched, crafting an entire creature from the tail alone, the trunk or ears, the belly. All of the versions true; none the entire truth. It was a bit like this.

And a funny thing happened then. The more I read, the more I forgot why I’d begun reading in the first place. And now at meals, we’d sit down together, my mother and father and me, and they would enthrall me with tales of freedom fighters in our own family! Hear No Evil Uncle—derailing trains at midnight to bring the cities to a halt. My grandmother spinning all the clothes to khadi. And I found even I was able to enthrall my parents; they would sit amazed as I recounted something to them they’d never learned or had simply forgotten, left to collect dust in an unused attic of the mind.