Authors: Uma Krishnaswami

Naming Maya (13 page)

BOOK: Naming Maya

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We fall into bed exhausted that night. Another hot day goes by, and people arrive to buy the furniture, leaving only two beds for us to sleep in. They'll come back for those after we've left. A music collector scoops up a stack of old 78-rpm records. He is a friend of Mr. Rama Rao's. “Oh, thank you,” he says over and over. “This collection will have a good home, I assure you.” Even piles of old magazines and newspapers are weighed and sold. A van with “Seva Ashram” on it in red letters hauls off boxes of old clothes for the homeless. In all the flurry Mom and I have no time to say two words to each other.

The day after the house has emptied, the rains arrive in the city. The clouds burst suddenly. The hot
earth gives up the smells it has hoarded all summer, and in minutes the gutters rush in torrents, and the gaping construction holes fill with swirls of red mud. The
kuyils
in the mango tree grow frantic with delight. So does Mr. Rama Rao. He runs outside into the storm, wearing a woolen scarf wrapped around his head. He waves his newspaper, proclaiming to anyone willing to listen, “Oh, I say, very good, southwest monsoon is here! I was telling you all, we will get rain in Chennai this summer!”

The house feels abandoned without the furniture, without the commotion of relatives gossiping and joking and taking verbal potshots at one another. Without Mami singing in the kitchen, clanging pots and pans to drive away the crows. There aren't even any crowsâthey are probably hiding somewhere, trying to stay dry. I miss the smell of incense in the house. I go to the dining room where Mami's little shrine still sits in its niche in the wall. I pick up the packet of incense sticks, “Jyothy Agarbathi Sticks” in bright red lettering on the barrel box, and light one. The match scratches and flares and soon the sandalwood scent is thick.

I trudge upstairs, thinking I should begin packing my stuff for the next day's flight. I gather up all my rolls of film and put them away in my suitcase. I turn
around and see Mom standing in the doorway, watching me.

“Put as much as you can into the suitcase,” she says. “That way you'll have less to carry on board.”

“Okay.” But she doesn't check me off and go on with the next thing on her list. She keeps looking at me.

“What?” I say, getting squirmy.

She says, “A cat may look at a king, right?”

The phrase is an old joke. Thatha used to say that. I'd catch him smiling to himself and looking at me, and I'd say, just like now, “What?” He'd make me laugh with that cat-king line. I'd ask, “Who's the cat? Who's the king?” And he'd say, “Now, that, your majesty, you have to decide.”

We laugh now, and then I say, “I'm no king. Look how I ruined your party. Some royal behavior that was.

“It's all right,” she says, coming into the room. “I don't think anyone really minded.” She sits down on the bed and straightens out a suitcase strap that has twisted around itself. “You were dramatic,” she says, “but you got my attention. And that's a good thing, because maybe I just haven't given you enough of it lately.”

It's my turn to stare at her, then slowly I continue to put things into my suitcase.

A hundred thoughts from this strange, sad summer hammer in my head like the rain on the pavement. I pick up Mami's Two-Gift book from the floor where I have put it, thinking I will pack it away as well. As I do so the yellow silk cord that holds it together comes undone. The accordion-folded pages flip open. Papers flop out of the book and spill all over the floor.

I pick one up. Mami has hoarded photographs in the book, tucked them into a little pocket on the back page. “Oh, my,” says Mom.

My mother's younger self, six or seven years old, with a round face and a set chin, looks curiously out of a yellowing picture at us, as if she too wants to know about this business of family secrets and what to do with them, when to keep them and when to give them away. She clutches a doll in one hand. The doll stares into the camera, a smile painted on its face.

“It's very unfair,” I say.

“What is?”

“The way things change.” I know Mom has questions, but she does not ask them. She just waits. She offers me a silence that is really an invitation.

“Mami,” I say. “We needed to take care of her, and yet there was a time when she took care of you.”

She nods. “Things changed with us too, didn't they? You, me, your father.” There. It is simple and true.
Things change. She says, “I married someone who was funny and smart and charming. I don't know what happened. Maybe he changed, or maybe it was me. But there you were, caught between us. You were such a tough little kid. Such a will you had, trying so hard to hold us together. I couldn't stand to see you torn in two because we were unable to carry on. At some point I began to realize the marriage was a promise I had to break.”

She knew, then. She knew about me in the middle. Me between parents, between grandparents, between names. Between promises made and kept like Two-Gifts. But in the end, you can't live your life by them, because people come and go.
Payasam
spills, and you can't keep trying to cover it all up. Sumati would say, “It's how it is.” Joanie would say, “Just do what's right and it'll be okay.”

When my parents split up, it never occurred to me that Mom needed caring for too. She planted a perpetual smile on her face and kept on going. She went to graduate school. She got a degree. She got a job. I lost her to all those things. She did what she could for me, dropped me off and picked me up from piano lessons and soccer, came to parent-teacher conferences. She did all the things she had to do, so I never knew how she felt about it all inside.

We share this thing that has happened in our family, Mom and me. It is not good or bad that we share it. It just is. The only bad thing is we never talked about it.

Mom says, “You'll still have the last couple of weeks of your summer vacation, before school starts.”

I say, “Yes.” Hanging out with Joanie, going to the pool. It's all only days away, but it's also a whole world away. A shrinking world, however. “Sumati gave me her e-mail address,” I say. “I promised I'd send her a message when we get back.”

“What a good idea,” she says. “It's wonderful you get along so well.”

“Maybe we can come back and visit them again some other time.”

“Maybe,” she says, “or they might come visit us.” Maybe. No guarantees, but there's that world, growing smaller again. I could spin it on the tip of my finger. Just sitting here, talking about possibilities, is an amazing thing. She says, “So this hasn't been such a dreadful trip for you after all, has it?”

I think of Mami, and Sumati, and Ashwin with his little-kid jumpiness, and Lakshmi Auntie with an opinion about everything. And Mr. Rama Rao going on about the weather, and his wife with her endless stories about servants. I listen to the rain thundering
down outside, and it feels as if the land is getting the good scrubbing wash it's needed for so long. I say, “No, it hasn't been dreadful. Not at all.”

“You've been a great help to me,” she says, “and to Mami. You made it possible for us all to help her.”

“Is she going to be all right?”

“Some days yes, and other days maybe no. Her memory might go on getting mixed up.”

It seems so unfair that such a thing should happen to someone with so many stories to tell.

But then Mom smiles. “I think she's going to keep her son and daughter-in-law on their toes,” she says.

“She'll keep them hopping,” I agree. We laugh, and it's as if some of Mami's laughter has touched us.

I think of something else. “Mom, do you suppose I should send Dad some pictures from this trip? Think he'd want to see them?”

I watch for a shadow to cross her face. I add quickly, “You knowâI thought he'd like to see some of the better ones.”

“Sure,” she says. “I don't see why not.” We are silent for a moment. The only sound is rainwater pouring off the roof gutters. Then she goes off to pack, and I turn back to my suitcase. Pretty soon, it fills up with clothes, and toiletries, and a few books I have salvaged from Thatha's old shelves. Finally, I pack two wads
of tissue paper. Each contains a small baby elephant carved in wood, with a curving trunk and large, friendly ears.

It's a Two-Gift, trust. You keep some, you give some away.

Author's Note

The city of Chennai is in the state of Tamil Nadu, in southern India. The language the people speak there is Tamil. Many of the Tamil words in this book are included in the glossary, even though most of them are understandable from the context of the story. Maya is raised in the United States and she knows some Tamil, but when people talk fast she's sometimes a bit lost, so she figures out some words by asking questions, and others by doing some quick guessing. That's not a bad way to learn a language! After all, when you listen to a piece of music, it's possible to hum along even when you don't grasp all the words.

A few of the words Maya and her family use are not Tamil but Hindi, a language of northern India whose words have crept into use all over the country. Others are English words commonly used in India, but without the same meaning that they have in the United States. That is because British English was used in India during two centuries of colonial rule. Since independence, people in different parts of the country, including Chennai, continue to put their own stamp on the English language.

Tamil Glossary

(Pronunciation guide: “th” indicates the sound as in the word “thick”; “
th
” underlined is pronounced as in the word “they.” All syllables in Tamil are equally stressed.)

akka
(uhk-kah): big sister.

appalaam
(uhp-puh-lahm): fried or roasted lentil crispbread.

aviyal
(uh-vee-yuhl): stew made with vegetables in a coconut-and-yogurt sauce.

ayyo
(ay-yoh): exclamation, similar to “Oh, dear.”

bajji
(buhj-jee): vegetables dipped in gram-flour batter and fried; a snack food.

chappals
(chuhp-puhls): flip-flops.

Devi (
th
ey-vee): the goddess in any of her various forms.

Durga
(
th
oor-gah): a fierce goddess created from the combined energies of the gods.

Ganesha
(guh-nay-shuh): the elephant-headed god of Hindu tradition.

ghee
(ghee): clarified butter.

halwa
(huhl-vah): sweet dish made with wheat, Cream of Wheat, or other ingredients, often spiced with cardamom and saffron.

Hanuman
(huh-noo-mahn): monkey god in the Hindu tradition.

illai
(ill-lie): no.

Kali-yugam
(kuh-lee-yoo-guhm): the age of sinners, the last age before the final destruction of the universe, after which the cycle begins all over again.

kameez
(kuh-meez): loose tunic worn over
salwar
. A northern Indian dress now common everywhere in India.

kanna
(kuhn-nah): affectionate term, like “darling.”
kolam
(koh-luhm): temporary household art, in which drawings are made on the floor with rice flour or rice paste.

kunju
(koon-joo): animal or bird baby.

kutti
(koot-tee): little, as in “little one”; used affectionately.

kuyil
(koo-yil): songbird belonging to the cuckoo family. The male is black with red eyes, the female speckled. The song of the kuyil is said to foretell the coming of the rains.

Mahishasuramardhini
(muh-hee-shah-soo-ruh-muhr-
th
ee-nee): long composite name for the goddess, meaning “killer of the
asura,
or demon, Mahisha.”

mami
(mah-mee): literally, Mother's brother's wife, but generally used, especially by children, to refer to any older female.

Maya, Mahamaya
(mah-yah, muh-hah-mah-yah): names of the goddess who put the tyrant Kamsa's armies to sleep and saved the infant god Krishna.

murukku
(moo-rook-koo): crunchy snack food made with rice paste and spices.

namaskaram
(nuh-muhs-kah-ruhm): common greeting among Hindus, palms joined and raised to just in front of the face, head quickly bowed.

oonjal
(oon-juhl): swing, like the large wooden swings in many houses in Chennai, capable of seating several people and hung from the ceiling of a house or porch by large wrought-iron chains.

paapa
(pah-pah): child or young one.

paavum
(pah-voom): poor thing.

payasam
(pah-yuh-suhm): a milk sweet made most often with rice or noodles thinner than angel-hair pasta, spiced with cardamom or saffron, sometimes garnished with nuts.

ponnu
(pon-noo): girl.

raja
(rah-jah): king.

rajakumari
(rah-juh-koo-mah-ree): princess.

Rama
(rah-muh), also referred to respectfully as Ramar (Rah-muhr): an incarnation of the god Vishnu. Rama fought a war to free his beautiful wife, Sita, whom the demon Ravana had kidnapped.

rasam
(ruh-suhm): dish flavored with sour tamarind, garnished with mustard seeds and chopped coriander, and eaten with rice.

salwar
(suhl-vahr): loose cuffed pants worn with a kameez on top. A northern Indian dress now common everywhere in India.

sambar
(sahm-bahr): spicy lentil dish with vegetables, flavored with tamarind and usually eaten with rice.

sathyam
(suhth-yuhm): truth.

Sita
(see-thah): Rama's wife, subject of many songs and poems.

sojji
(sohj-jee): farina or Cream of Wheat, used to make halwa.

Tamil
(thah-mizh): language spoken in the state of Tamil Nadu. The last letter of the word Tamil (phonetically
written as
zh
) is actually a sound unique to this language, and not found in English at all. Some people pronounce it like the
le
in
whale
, some like the
r
in
roll
.

thatha
(thah-thah): grandfather.

thayiru
(thuh-yee-roo): yogurt, usually made at home with scalded milk and culture from a previous batch.

vellaikkara
(vel-lie-kah-rah): white people, generally used for all people of European descent.

yenna
(yen-nuh): what.

BOOK: Naming Maya

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