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Yes, there was a time when my beloved sat dithering, unable to make up her mind, and yes, I grew impatient and gave her the bloody push that made her get off the damn fence. But the free fall, the blind drop, the beautiful flight into her new future, why, that was all her own.
lesson. Maybe the Indian way is better after all. See how much money you spend on therapists and grief counselors and all? Even my own son keeps telling me to take that capsule—what is it called?—Prosaic or something. That’s because your periods of mourning don’t last as long as they need to.
Funny, Tehmina thought to herself, how poor white children always look so much dirtier than poor children in India. Either the dirt didn’t show as much against brown skin or what she’d always heard about cleanliness being next to godliness in Hindu culture was true.
Rustom always used to say, “Two things you should never refuse another human being—food and education.”
You think you know me, my daughter-in-law, but you don’t. For instance, I bet you don’t know that I’m a space traveler. But I am. And I do. In my mind, I travel through time and space in ways you cannot even dream of—from Ohio to Bombay to Ohio again; from the land of the living to the land of the dead, where my Rustom resides; from my wallpapered bedroom in this house, to my painted bedroom in Bombay, of which I know every inch—where the embroidered handkerchiefs are kept in the bottom drawer of the chest of drawers; what books are on the bedside table; the color of the frame that holds the
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“See, there, in Bombay, I feel like a person—a person whose life has meaning, whose life follows a path. Here, despite all of Sorab’s efforts, I can’t help but feel like an ornament, a decoration.
most people have only one place they call home.
“But you’re white,” Tehmina protested. “Yes, but not white like Susan. Not like my daughter-in-law. I’m more like you, Tammy. I know the world is made of blood and pus and sweat and shit. And I’m not afraid of that. People like your daughter-in-law, they think the world is sugar and spice. And the strange thing is, that for people like them, that’s the face the world wears.”
“Sorry,” she said. “We Americans are so arrogant. We can’t get our tongues around somebody’s name, so we expect them to change their names for us.
“Never begrudge another man his success, sonny. Remember, all of us live out our own destinies. All our lives run on a parallel path—someone else’s success neither pulls us down, nor does his failure boost us up.
It’s just that . . . there are some things, some thoughts so elusive that they wiggle like fish out of the web of words. Some differences were so great that they were beyond language, beyond explanation.
How to describe to her his first few years in America, when he had felt that rootlessness that only immigrants feel, so that he felt as if his head was touching the skies of America while his feet were rooted in Bombay, as if he was straddling two continents.
That’s the advantage of being married, he thought. There’s someone always on your team when you’re battling the world.
Tehmina had to admit that Cavas’s disdain for everything Indian felt like a rejection of her.
Tehmina didn’t get it—how could a boy who had grown up on the crowded, tumultuous streets of Bombay, who had jostled with the noisy crowds to catch a train to college, who had eaten pani puri and drunk sugarcane juice from roadside booths, who had witnessed the whole carnival of human experience—the millionaires, the lepers, the jewelry stores, the slum colonies—how could such a boy encase himself in a timid, clean, antiseptic world that was free from germs, bacteria, passion, human misery?
Rain and snow. The perfect way to describe the difference between Bombay and America, Tehmina thought. One was loud, chaotic, tumultuous, and erratic. The other was calm, antiseptic, genteel, and polite. So ironic it is, she thought. In Bombay, where everything is dangerous, people live their lives bindaas, fearlessly, almost thoughtlessly. Here, where there is no reason to fear anything, these people are afraid of life itself. How can they survive like this, watching and weighing everything? From terrorism to germs to the flu, these people were frightened by everything.
So many times, she had noticed, Rustom stoutly spoke up for their daughter-in-law, even siding with her against his own son. It was Rustom’s own way of putting the harmony and well-being of his son’s family over all else, she knew.
Does everything in this country have an expiration date? she wondered. Even grief and mourning?
Using words that no self-respecting Indian would ever use—words like manipulative and codependent and controlling. Heck, in India we have one word for all these things, Tehmina had thought: We call it love.
Tehmina heard the bitterness in his voice and marveled at it. All of Sorab’s friends seemed so bitter when they talked about India. The education system, the corruption, the postal service, the slow-moving traffic, the bureaucracy—they seemed to criticize everything. Is that why they left in the first place—because they were so angry about everything? And had Sorab—her sunny boy with his sweet disposition—had he felt the same way? Or did he see the things to cherish—the strong family bonds, the way neighbors looked out for one another, the busy, warm aliveness of the streets, such a contrast
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the most amazing thing was, they became happy in America. Kids who had been pencil thin, melancholy, depressed, quiet, and shy became confident, strong, talkative, happy. How could a country change someone’s basic personality?
Deekra, a life is made up of more than your immediate family, she wanted to say to him. It is made up of all the people around you—your neighbors, even the ones you can’t stand; your friends, whom you’ve known longer than you had known your husband; Sunil, the milkman who cheats by adding water to the milk he delivers to your doorstep; Krishna and Parvati, the homeless couple across the street; Shiva, the legless beggar who frantically wheels the skateboard he sits upon toward you to greet you with a smile; Rohit, the bhaiya who sells the freshest bhelpuri in town; Hansu, the servant who has
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the simple complexity of her life.
The thought of not pressing guests to help themselves to more food was as alien to her as eating with their hands was to most Americans.
That’s where India lives, you know, in her villages.
“Ever is a long time, jannu. Life takes so many turns and detours. One never knows.
The moving finger writes and having writ Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
But Tara. Born white in America. Living in a good, middle-class home, even if it didn’t belong to her. Able to afford a car, even if the muffler didn’t work. Able to send her children to school for free. Able to go into a grocery store and spend less of her income on food than people in any other country. All this and it wasn’t enough? If someone like Tara couldn’t be happy, what chance did people in the rest of the world have?
Darling, this indecisive dithering and wavering has gone on for too long. It’s time to choose. So choose.”
“Why fret about the future if today be sweet? It’s all you have, darling, is today.
You decide based on what you know today. You. Choose. Today.”
She would not wish any of them success or prosperity or wealth because the magic was in the dreaming. She knew that now. America had taught her that. How wise, to talk about the pursuit of happiness and not of happiness itself.
Sorab laughed. “Good old Mamma. But this is all thanks to you, anyway. It was you who brought me to Joe’s attention.” “Darling, gold can lie below the surface for a hundred years. But sooner or later, its luster attracts someone’s attention. This is the result of your own hard work.”
