Sucker Punch: Essays

by Scaachi Koul

But I didn’t worry about my parents being argumentative people because they were well-matched. Papa never said anything to Mom that she didn’t have a retort for. He never got in her face. He was never violent or degrading. Their arguments were a series of Kashmiri insults hurled at each other over things that didn’t matter: how many plants were too many plants in the kitchen, why someone didn’t have their phone turned on while they were at the mall, whether fifty-four degrees Farenheit is an appropriate base temperature for the home. (If my dad is reading this: It’s not!!! Take off one of your six sweaters and turn the heat on!) Their bigger, more consequential fights—if they had any—were kept away from me entirely. So maybe this was normal. Maybe feeling destabilized was a part of marriage. Because after all, I got what I wanted, and I got it by fighting.