Born Confused (35 page)

I watched Karsh as he waited his turn to speak, and wondered now where he fit into it all himself—raised partly in India, partly in the States, and done a little UK time. He was definitely on the local, making all stops. Technically he wasn’t AB but he was E and HIJ now. And he left me pretty C, that was certain.

When it was finally his turn to speak, he strode center stage.

—And this is Karsh Kapoor, also known as DJ Gulab Jammin’, the sari-swathed woman announced.—He assembles together individually distinct media to create a nonverbal postmodern discourse that eradicates the signifier/signified boundary.

Oh no. Even he was going to be incomprehensible.

—AKA I play cool records, said Karsh, not using the mike. I smiled, relieved.—And I’m going to let the music speak for itself. I’ll be holding a basic DJing workshop in Rich Hall in ten. I hope you’ll join us.

I felt for a moment that he was looking right at me.

—He’s looking at me! cried Gwyn. Mona Lisa, the boy was.—I’ve got to check my makeup and get a prime seat, Dimps. Meet me in the bathroom.

And she was gone. I stayed a few minutes through the closing comments and claps and then told Kavita I’d meet them later back at the apartment—she was splitting to study, and gave me an extra key. I ended up at the tail end of the fidgety line of enlightened women waiting to enter the bathroom. And by the time I got in, the space had pretty much emptied out except for Gwyn and—thrillingly!—Zara, who were side by side at the mirror touching up their makeup.

To be more specific, Zara was involved in the delicate act of applying teardrop beads of paint over the sweep of her brows, and tiny rhinestone bindis between them, and Gwyn was watching mesmerized, her own lipstick immobile mid-mirror before her.

Even in this highly unideal lighting (fluorescent), Zara’s luminosity glowed from the inside out, like candles gone deep in the middle. She wore a spangly chaniya choli, gold and satsuma, the dupatta in a twist round her neck, and the gold chains and black beads of a mangal sutra resting upon it. On each of her hands was a pocha,
medallion resting in the center and from it, five chains trinkling up and finishing in a ring for each finger, a bracelet connecting the entire thing to the wrist. She worked surprisingly well with all this jewelry on.

—That is so freakin’ cool, Gwyn said finally, unable to contain herself any longer.—Hey, Dimps, isn’t that so freakin’ cool? What are you doing, if you don’t mind my asking?

—This is bridal makeup, said Zara calmly, speaking in a way where only her mouth moved, leaving her forehead a smooth palette.

—Are you getting married or something?

—He hasn’t asked yet, she said, a slight smile tugging her eyes.—But I figured I might as well start preparing now—it can take me a while to get ready.

—Can I try some? asked Gwyn.—He hasn’t asked either.

—Yet, said Zara.—Shall I apply it? You don’t mind if we use another applicator—I’m a bit of a stickler for cleanliness.

Gwyn hopped up on the counter and slid back between sinks and presented her face to Zara, eyes closed like a sleeping baby or a girl about to kiss. And Zara set to work. Her generosity was touching—she was sharing her gift with a stranger, completely unthreatened by the competition. Well, not that there could be any between them. She was in a category by herself—the way a ravishing animation character cannot be compared to a ravishing person. As she transformed Gwyn’s face drop by drop, Gwyn assaulted her with a barrage of questions, imitating the nonmoving forehead technique when she spoke, to which Zara replied sweetly and expertly.

—And how’d you get your henna so dark? she asked finally.

I noted the jungled-up pattern on Zara’s palms, the letter P swirling in the center of one hand, a K in the other. It was true: Her mehendi was the darkest I’d ever seen.

—Well, you know what they say: The greater the love between a couple, the darker the mehendi, said Zara.—But a tip for even the loveless: Just before sleeping, lay your hands over a tava with eliachi on it, and you can’t go wrong.

I moved forward, captivated.

—Frock, that looks fantastic, I said.

—Would you like me to do you? Zara asked me, indicating her Gwyndi’d masterpiece.

—Oh, no, thank you. I’m sure it wouldn’t work on me.

—And why the fuck not?

She even made
fuck
sound classy. She was now squiggling a lightning bolt out from Gwyn’s bindi’s diamond heart.

—Come on, Dimple, get in the spirit! said Gwyn.—But just don’t make them exactly the same. I mean, you already look Indian enough—me, I need all the help I can get.

—Girlfriend, you’re trying to look Indian? said Zara.—Well, as you said yourself, be all that you can’t be. I hear you.

She capped her makeup pencil with a satisfied smile.

—There you go. Don’t say I didn’t dress you for it.

—Thank you so much, said Gwyn.—You know, I don’t even know your name.

—Zara, she said.—Zara Thrustra.

—What an interesting name! Me, I’m Gwyn. Gwyn Sexton.

—That’s not so bad either.

—I’m…

—Dimple, said Zara.—I know.

I couldn’t believe she remembered; my hand froze a moment on the stall door.

—Well, I’ve got to go nab my man, Gwyn said.—Catch up with you there, Dimps. Zara, it was a pleasure.

—It still is, said Zara smiling.

When I came out, Zara was entering the stall beside me. I washed my hands, glancing under her door. Those studded slippers that tilted the feet to nearly vertical. The deluge continued as I admired the heels—now that I was up close, I saw they were embedded with coins in different currencies, bits of scrap metal and plastic, pricked balloon and beer bottle glass. Like she’d stepped into life and it stuck. I hadn’t seen all the detail before. But then I’d never before looked under a women’s room stall to have the heels facing me either.

And then I had a strange thought. I remembered what Sabina had said:
She puts the balls into Bollywood.
It made sense now, and I wished it didn’t. I suddenly longed for a world where things were as they appeared. Now, my own seemed to be turning upside down and around. Like Gwyn’s house when we were kids, but then it had been of my will, and now it had ambushed me, and I couldn’t make it go back so easily. But maybe that’s how things really were—upside down and around, a carousel with the earth for a sky and heaven at its feet.

This new world no longer seemed to fit in the tiny defined space of my viewfinder. I didn’t know whether I wanted to laugh or cry, and I held Chica Tikka close. That’s why I’d liked black-and-white photographs; things were clear, made manageable in them. I wished I could feel more like that inside.

The flush went off, sending me running.

By the time I entered Rich Hall, the room was packed and Karsh was just wrapping up his intro.

—So now you have the basics, he said. He was standing before two decks, rubbing his hands together as if about to make fire.—Does anyone dare come up and try a little beat-matching?

The question was barely out of his mouth before Gwyn shot to the front of the room and opened her brand-new messenger bag. She began lifting out her (my dad’s) records and holding them up for all to see like a game-show hostess, or a kindergarten teacher with a picture book.

—Well, Karsh, I thought I’d give it a go with my own Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bonsai favorites. Dil something and another. Which I happen to have right here.

—
Bhonsle,
corrected Karsh, smiling.—You don’t pronounce the N.

Gwyn smiled back, unfazed. She stepped up beside him and, dropping discs to platter, set to work. She cued up, counted out loud with the headphones hanging off one ear. The needle sank into the groove and, sitars sparkling and voices twined, the songs settled together as if there had never been a frontier to cross. The crowd cheered her on; even the sulky girl who’d raised her hand first looked at me and shrugged with a
well, if she’s got it, she’s got it
look.

Karsh gave her what he claimed were increasingly tougher tracks to mix. And Gwyn rose to the challenge, even seemed to have copies of many of them in her bag.

Watching them there—she, teardrops arching gracefully over tearless eyes, dressed like a bride DJing her own wedding, and he beside her, mouth proud, stepping back to let her have her space, be a star, dancing a little dance to the beats that fell from her fists like gems to the platter—I could see no border between them. Joined by music and a night of conversation, the seam was invisible, invincible.

But I could feel a frontier rising up between us nonetheless, leaving them harmonious on one side and trapping me with my useless information on the other. Even here. Again. The other side of the lens.

It was too much to take and I left. Out the door, out of air.

That evening, Gwyn and I met up at Waverly and Waverly as planned; Kavita and Sabina had split to pick up some slumber party victuals for us. Gwyn was still blathering on about her DJ experience. She’d hung out with Karsh till well after the workshop—he’d had to cut out for some work stuff, or she could have played with him forever.

—That’s great, Gwyn, I said dully.

—You know, you could take a little more interest in something that’s this important to him, and to me. He even asked why you walked out on the conference. That’s just plain rude, Dimple.

—Sorry, Gwyn, I said.—I guess it just got too hot so I went outside for some air.

—You headed on into a heat wave for air?

I didn’t feel like arguing—and I didn’t feel like getting into the Zara topic just yet, not without Sabina and Kavita here to back me. And, frankly, I just didn’t even want to deal. I could already hear Gwyn ridiculing me for my feverish imagination; I could already feel a headache coming on.

We gave ourselves a tour of the apartment as we talked. And this tour soon enough distracted us from our conversation. The first thing that struck me was the number of books. Uncountable! They were stacked from floor to ceiling, wall to wall. Many of them were what I assumed was Sabina’s Women’s Studies stuff—
The Second Sex,
and lots of spines with
Feminist
and
Recreating
and
Alternative
and citrus fruits in the titles. And there were at least as many India volumes as we had in our house, some in the original Sanskrit.

—Man, said Gwyn.—All these books sound straight off the
conference program. Don’t they have any fun stuff? I mean, Sabina is supposedly doing Women’s Studies, right? Then how come there isn’t a single
Elle
or
Cosmo
in here?

There were two rooms in addition to the bathroom: an all-red bedroom that barely fit a queen-size, with a door that kept swinging open even when I tried to shut it behind me, and this living room, complete with couch and inflatable furniture, which ran right into the kitchenette. It was quaint, but minuscule, and I wondered how one person could live in it let alone two. No wonder New Yorkers were always out.

—This wouldn’t even serve as a decent closet, said Gwyn.—Though still, it would be a closet in Manhattan, so that’s something, I suppose. Where does Kavita sleep? On the sofa? That can’t be very good for you.

—Well, Kavita was in the apartment first, I think. So it’s probably Sabina out here.

—Yeah, but knowing the Sabz personality, it’s probably Kavita out here.

—True, I conceded.

—So where do we sleep?

—I don’t know. The floor I guess.

—The floor? said Gwyn, wrinkling her nose. She seemed to immediately think better of it and unscrunched it.—Okay, I can deal, I can deal. It’ll be like roughing it—if only Dylan could see me now!

Just then the door opened and Sabina and Kavita entered, bearing a stack of big flat boxes.

—Two extra large pizzas coming right up! cried Kavita. She was wearing a turned-around baseball cap; it rose a comical couple of inches off her head with all that hair piled under it.

—One straight-up cheese, for the vegetarians, announced Sabina.—The other too bloody disgusting to discuss.

—Hamburger, pepperoni, sausage—the works! grinned Kavita, now noisily pulling out plates and glasses and the spice dubba.—I talked her into it.

—She’s such a bad girl, clucked Sabina.—If you saw the Meatpacking District at the wee hours when they’re unloading all the carcasses and shit your world would be blown. I’m telling you you should go—you’d never eat meat again.

—Then why would I go, silly goose? said Kavita. She looked at Sabina with a surprisingly challenging expression on her face.—And tell the truth, yaar: You’ve gone to the Meatpacking District in the wee hours and seen this, isn’t it?

—Well, no. But I read about it in
The Times
or somewhere.

—You know, you don’t even have any magazines here, Gwyn informed her now.—What’s up with that? It’s not normal. I was just telling Dimple…

—Okay, okay. Upma read about it, said Sabina, brandishing a knife.—But that doesn’t make it any less valid.

She plunged it into the pizza and began cutting. Moments later, after changing into our slumberwear, we were all picnicking on the floor.

Sabina cracked open a bottle of wine, the cork gulping out. I was happy to drink again; the mood was an oddly intense one in the room: Gwyn and Sabina seemed to be overexcited—they just couldn’t shut up about the conference, recounting everything to us as if we hadn’t been there ourselves. I was trying to maintain observer status but to be honest was completely disturbed by all the goings-on of today. Kavita was fairly quiet, too, silently sprinkling cayenne on slice after slice.

—She is one brilliant woman, that Upma, said Sabina, downing her wine in a go.—That dialogue I had with her today was one of the most stimulating I’ve ever had in my life!

—Uh, thanking you very much, said Kavita through a mouthful of pepperoni.

—Come on, Kavity, you know what I mean.

—What dialogue? That seemed to be more along the lines of a monologue, as far as I could see, said Gwyn.