Nanna’s Friend’s, Friend’s Son

Nanna enveloped me in a bear hug as soon as he stepped out of the car. I knew he didn’t like to visit Ammamma and Thatha but came along because the alternative was listening to my mother complain about it for days, maybe weeks.

“That bad?” He grinned when he saw my drawn face and I shook my head.

“Worse.”

“What is going on?” he asked when he sat down on the large swing on the veranda to remove his black leather shoes.

Sowmya stepped outside and smiled at him. “Coffee?”

My father nodded thankfully and she went back inside.

Nanna was a tall, lean man and his skin was dark. That was where I inherited the “wheatish complexion” that Ma complained about. He wore a small gray moustache. As his hair was growing white, he looked dignified and handsome. Ma tried to coax him into dyeing his hair as she did, but he refused, saying he had no issues with his age. I think he liked being in his fifties and looked forward to being sixty.

“No one has killed anyone yet?” he asked, rocking the wooden swing slowly with his bare feet.

I was sitting on a chair across from him and raised my eyebrows mischievously. “The night is still young. Thatha is very angry with me.”

“Thatha is always angry with someone,” he said negligently. “What happened?”

My father and grandfather did not get along. Even though Ma and Nanna had had an arranged marriage, Thatha never did quite like the idea of his favorite daughter being married to a man, any man. There was the age-old “he stole my daughter” thorn in the side of their relationship, which could never be removed.

“We had a fight,” I had to tell him in case he misunderstood me. “They were lambasting the United States and I lost it . . . a little.”

My father gave a long sigh as if he understood it was going to be a long night.

“I got angry,” I continued. “And I said something about the States being different from India . . . in the sense . . . that there, no one is forced to have a baby to provide a male heir.” My mouth twisted sheepishly and I waited for my father to admonish me.

He shrugged. “You are right.”

“Really?” My eyes brightened.

“But you had no business telling that to him,” he said, thwarting my hopes of finding an ally in the family over this particular issue. “He is old and set in his ways. Leave him alone.”

“Leave whom alone?” A voice thundered from inside the house and both my father and I were startled like criminals caught in the act.

Thatha stepped outside in his white lungi and the thin ceremonial thread that ran across his chest as it did across every Brahmin man’s chest. Nanna, who was hardly religious, kept losing his thread. It always amused Nate and I how Nanna scrambled to find the thread whenever he had to visit Ammamma and Thatha .

“As long as I don’t take my shirt off, the nosey old bastard won’t make an issue out of it,” Nanna would say if he couldn’t find the thread.

Even though my father disliked Thatha, he was always polite, always respectful. I think that annoyed Thatha more because he could not really point to any of my father’s obvious flaws.

“Namaskaram,” Nanna said, and folded his hands in acknowledgment. “How are you doing?”

Thatha sat down beside me, his mouth twisted in a pout. “Sowmya has coffee for you inside, Ashwin.”

My father looked at me with his kind soft eyes that twinkled from beneath his steel-framed glasses. “Want to come and have coffee with your old man, Priya?” he asked in an effort to save me.

“Thanks,” I said gratefully, and smiled. “If you don’t mind, I’ll talk to this old man for a while,” I said, inclining my head toward Thatha.

“I don’t like being yelled at in my own house by my own granddaughter,” Thatha started without preamble as soon as my father went into the hall. “I feel the way I feel and I will continue to feel that way.”

I stared at the white cloth that was draped around his hips and wondered why south Indian men persisted to wear this garb in the twenty-first century. It was great during the summers, but still, a thin sheet of cloth wrapped around your legs was hardly protection. Added to that was how men did not wear any underwear beneath the lungi. One false, thoughtless move and all was open for public viewing. I had seen my share of penises because of the fascination south Indian men had for lungis.

“Are you listening to me?” Thatha demanded.

“I’m listening,” I said a little cockily. “But I was not raised to keep silent when people unjustly—”

“You were not raised to raise your voice in the presence of elders,” Thatha interrupted me.

“Well, everything that Ma and Nanna taught didn’t stick,” I said, and shrugged. “Come on, Thatha, what were you thinking? That I’m a little shy girl? I’m not. . . . You’ve always known that.”

Thatha took my hand in his and nodded. “No, you were always the one with the sharp temper. Not a good thing in a girl . . . even an American-returned one.”

“I’m sorry I raised my voice, but I’m not sorry about the male heir remark,” I said in compromise. If the old man was going to meet me halfway, I could manage the other half.

“I need a male heir and I thought this discussion was over,” he said.

“You brought it up again,” I sighed, and decided to make some amends for my bad behavior. “Thatha, sometimes I don’t like the way you think and sometimes I don’t like the way my entire family thinks. You know what, it doesn’t make a difference. I still love you all very much and I’ll always love you. But that doesn’t mean I have to nod my head when you say something wrong.”

That seemed to get to him. I think the “I love you” part did it. He patted my hand and rose from his chair. “It is okay. Come inside and have coffee.”

Just like that, Thatha forgave me.

Forgave me? What had I done that needed forgiving?

The sun started to set, sliding slowly and lazily into the horizon as we put away the pickle jars in the storeroom next to the kitchen.

“Priya, I have to buy some coriander and some kadipatha for dinner. Are you up for a walk?” Nanna asked me. It was almost automatic for him to find some reason or the other to leave Thatha’s house.

“Ashwin-garu, we don’t really need the curry leaves and I can manage without the coriander,” Sowmya said, worried that she was inconveniencing my father.

Ma looked at me sternly and then looked at Sowmya. “Let them go. You go with your father, Priya.”

I raised my eyebrow and then looked at my father curiously. “What’s going on?”

“We need kadipatha. Rasam without kadipatha . . . is like . . . the States without the Statue of Liberty,” Nanna said. “Come on, Priya,” he urged as he slid his feet into Anand’s leather slippers, which were lying in the veranda shoe rack.

Before anyone could mount any more protest, Nanna and I were out of the house.

“Is it me or is that house very stuffy?” Nanna said, taking a deep breath.

“It’s probably you,” I said, and slipped my hand in his. “You think we can get ganna juice?”

“You will fall sick,” Nanna warned, “but if you don’t mind vomiting and having a stomach infection for the rest of your trip, definitely.”

“I won’t fall sick and I had goli soda today afternoon. Today morning I couldn’t eat the mangoes Ma wanted me to taste but I’ve gotten over that now. . . . hygiene is not an issue anymore,” I said.

“Let us hope that you don’t fall sick,” Nanna said, squeezing my hand.

“Why did Ma want us to go out?” I asked.

“I have no idea why your mother wants us to do what she wants us to do. Has been a mystery for twenty-nine years,” Nanna said. “Now, you can have your ganna juice but no ice.”

One of the less illicit things that I used to love doing and Ma warned me against was eating chaat, spicy food, from roadside vendors and drinking sugarcane juice. Sugarcane juice stands were scattered throughout the city of Hyderabad and came to life during the summer. Long stalks of sugarcane lay on a wooden stand on wheels next to a metal juicer. The juicer was two large wheels with spikes rolling against each other. The stalk of sugarcane along with a small piece of lemon and ginger would be squeezed through the twin wheels. The sugarcane vendor would run one stalk through and then roll the squished stalk and run it through the wheels again.

The juice would be poured into glasses that were probably not washed in clean water, ever, along with a lot of ice. It was my favorite thing to drink after a long day at college. Usually the sugarcane stands and chaat stands were lined up next to bus stops. So while I waited for my bus, I would shell out the two rupees it used to take to get ganna juice. I always asked the vendor to not put ice in my juice. I figured that way I would get more juice and I would not have to speculate where the ice came from. The rumor was that the vendor probably got the ice from a morgue.

“Okay, no ice,” I conceded. “Any news from Nate?”

“No, Nate never has any news,” Nanna said. “He may be back tomorrow but I doubt he will come here. You know he can’t stand Lata or Jayant.”

I shrugged.

“I think Nate has a girlfriend,” Nanna continued and I stopped walking. “What?” Nanna asked looking at me. “Let us walk, we have to get kadipatha.”

I sighed.

“So you think Nate has a girlfriend,” I said, playing along with him.

“Has he said anything about her to you?” Nanna asked, as we reached the small vegetable store at the end of the street from Thatha’s house.

I looked at the various vegetables sagging in their small straw baskets at the end of the day and got a bunch of kadipatha. A few people milled around the baskets, picking up vegetables for the last meal of the day.

“They look half dead,” I said about the coriander my father had in his hand.

“They will do,” Nanna said, and put the kadipatha and coriander in front of the vendor and paid the ten rupees they cost from his old brown leather purse.

“You still have that purse?” I asked. “You’re not using the one I sent for your birthday last year?”

“Nate took that,” Nanna said. “And I am fine with this. So . . . did Nate say anything . . . about his girlfriend?”

“No,” I lied smoothly. “Why?”

“Well, we would like Nate and . . . you . . . all our children, to understand that we are open to hearing the truth,” Nanna said, subtle as the chili powder in Ma’s pickles.

“Really?” I said, as we walked toward a sugarcane juice stand close to the vegetable store.

“So . . . do you have a boyfriend?” Nanna asked.

I ignored his question.

The light from the setting sun was still illuminating the skies; it wouldn’t get dark for a while and in the summers it never really got pitch dark. The sky always looked a little blue, even in the dead of the night.

“Amma, want one?” the sugarcane juice vendor asked, holding a glass filled with frothy greenish brown juice.

“No, no,” Nanna said. “No ice. Two glasses and wash them properly.”

As if washing the glasses would make any difference whatsoever to whatever germs and bacteria we would ingest with the juice. I knew I shouldn’t, but it was too tempting, just like the goli soda had been. I could taste the sweetness of the juice; the long-forgotten memories came rushing back to my taste buds and the desire to take just one sip became irresistible.

“More ginger,” I told the vendor, as he went about his business.

“So, do you?” Nanna asked again.

“Do I what?” I evaded on purpose.

Nanna made an irritated sound.

“Is that why Ma asked me to go with you?” I questioned bluntly.

“Don’t change the subject,” Nanna said. “Tell us if you have a boyfriend. If you do, we will accept whatever . . . I mean as long as . . . you know . . . he has to be suitable.”

“And what if he is, say . . . a sardar?”

“A sardar?” Nanna asked, the terror in his voice palpable. “Come on, Priya, have a heart.”

I sighed. A Sikh would at least be Indian.

“So you wouldn’t accept any boyfriend.”

“We would, we would,” Nanna said hurriedly. “I mean . . . you should at least tell us why you are stalling. You are twenty-seven and we would like to see you married. Play with some grandchildren.”

Nanna was a sucker for children. When he built the house they were living in, he insisted that in all the bathrooms the latch on the outside should be slightly lower so that his grandchildren would be able to open the bathroom door to go inside and the latch on the inside should be slightly higher, so that the children would not be able to lock themselves in.

He had also purchased a beautiful wooden rocking chair. “Babies cry and if you rock them they stop crying and go to sleep,” he would say.

He had been waiting for grandchildren for as long as I could remember and I felt sorry for him and guilty because children had not figured in my plans yet. I knew I would have children someday and I wanted to have children someday, but it was one of those “yeah, I also want to go to space” kind of thing you reserved for the indeterminate future.

“Nanna, I’ll marry when I’m ready,” I said, fearful now of telling him anything about Nick. If a sardar was going to give him heart palpitations, an American would give him a seizure.

“But you have to be ready sometime, Priya,” Nanna said wearily. He gave the sugarcane juice vendor fifteen rupees and picked up his glass of frothy juice.

I tentatively sipped mine and sighed in pleasure. “This is what I really miss. This and chaat.”

Nanna drank his juice in two gulps and set his glass down. “We are not going to eat any chaat. Sowmya is making a nice dinner. Your favorite, mango pappu.”

I finished my ganna juice slowly, savoring the taste through the last sip. As we started to walk back I quietly waited for Nanna to say whatever else he had to tell me before we reached Thatha’s house.

“We are staying here tomorrow. I am taking the day off,” he said over the sound of honking cars, sidestepping trash on the pavement.

“I know, I brought a change of clothes. I’m planning to sleep on the terrace tonight like Nate and I used to when we were kids,” I said.

Nanna held my hand tightly in one hand and a plastic bag with the coriander and curry leaves hung from the other.

“Do you remember Mahadevan Uncle?”

Mahadevan Uncle is one of Nanna’s friends. In India, I have no idea why, but all of my parents’ friends are called uncle and auntie. For the longest time I had trouble calling Frances, Nick’s mother, by her name because she was so much older than I and I felt I was being disrespectful calling her by her first name.

“Sure, I remember Mahadevan Uncle. He has two sons, doesn’t he?”

“Yes, both married,” Nanna said, and then crushed my hand some more. “Mahadevan Uncle has a friend. His name is . . . well, everyone calls him Rice Sarma.”

“Rice? Why?”

“He works at ICRISAT and he has done some big-time research in rice. Has won some major awards; the President gave him one just last year,” Nanna continued. “Good people.”

“Hmm.” I refrained from saying more. I could see where this was going.

“Rice Sarma has a son,” Nanna said, and then waited for a while to see how I would respond. When I didn’t say anything, he continued. “His name his Adarsh. We saw his pictures. Good-looking boy. Lives in Dallas. Works for Nortel Networks. Is it a good company?”

“Yes,” I said tightly.

“He is a manager there,” Nanna said. “He did his engineering in BITS Pilani.”

BITS Pilani was a very good school for engineering in India and I could see my father was laying it on thick. Producing the perfect groom for me. My heart sank. How was I going to get out of this one without telling him about Nick? How could I now not tell him about Nick?

“Oh.”

“And he did his master’s at MIT and has an MBA from Stanford,” Nanna said, as he measured my facial expression for results.

“Impressive,” I said. Good God, what next? Would he tell me that the man was six feet two and looked like Adonis?

“He is six feet two inches tall,” Nanna continued as if on cue. “Your mother thinks he looks like that movie star Venkatesh.”

Venkatesh was a Telugu film actor I used to be fond of seven years ago. I hadn’t seen a movie of his since I left India, but I was impressed that Ma was using him as bait.

“So what?” I pretended ignorance.

“We showed him your photo—”

“You did what?” I extricated my hand from his and faced him. We had reached Thatha’s gate and we stood there, I angry, he contrite.

“Well, what did you want us to do? Wait until you are fifty to get you married?” Nanna went on the offensive even as his face remained defensive.

“He seems perfect. Maybe Ma should marry him,” I quipped.

Nanna opened the gate. “He is here on vacation. Tomorrow afternoon, they will be coming here, at Thatha’s house for tea.”

I stared at my father. “You are not putting me through one of those cattle-seeing ceremonies.”

“You are not cattle and stop overreacting.”

“Overreacting? His family will show up . . . that’s why Ma packed my silk blouses. Damn it, Nanna, you’ve known all along. This isn’t news. You’ve known since I got here.” I was appalled that my father had joined my mother in tricking me.

“Don’t use words like damn,” Nanna said, and shrugged. “Like I said, we can’t . . . won’t wait till you are fifty.”

“I won’t sit there and be watched by him and his family like I’m a cow for sale,” I said sharply.

“It won’t be like that, Priya Ma,” my father tried to console.

I brushed past him and marched into the house. I flung my straw slippers from my feet onto the veranda and went inside the hall.

I barely acknowledged Jayant who had arrived while my father was sticking the knife in my back.

“I’m not going to be here tomorrow afternoon,” I told my mother. She was sitting on the floor, leaning on a cushion, and I towered over her, my hands at my waist.

“You will be here,” Ma said without even flinching. “None of these shenanigans will work with me. Your father will put up with this—”

“Really? What will you do if I leave tomorrow afternoon when Nanna’s friend’s friend and his oh-so-perfect-son arrive?” I demanded.

“Priya,” Thatha said sternly. “Calm down and don’t yell in my house. Why don’t you go help Sowmya in the kitchen?”

I almost raged at him but bit my tongue back. This was not the time to get on the feminist soapbox.

I wanted, I so very much wanted, to stay and fight but I didn’t want to behave like a child and prove their point that they didn’t think I could take care of myself, find my own husband.

“You should’ve at least asked me before you invited them,” I told Ma in a soft voice. She shrugged again and looked away from me.

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell Ma that this was why it was so hard to respect her. Respect was a two-way street and if I didn’t get any, I couldn’t give her any either. Feeling utterly betrayed by both my parents and my grandparents—my entire family—I walked out of the hall.

In the kitchen, Sowmya was soaking lentils in water for the mango pappu.

“Can I help?” I asked sourly, and she smiled gamely.

“Peel the mangoes, will you? I have to cut potatoes for the curry,” she said, handing me a peeling knife and two green mangoes.

I stood on one side of the sink and she on the other as we worked on our respective vegetables.

“They’ve set up a pelli-chupulu for me,” I said bitterly.

Sowmya nodded. “Radha Akka told us when you went to the vegetable store.”

“How can they?”

“Come on, he sounds perfect. I have someone coming tomorrow evening and he is a lecturer in a private college and looks like Brahmanandam, not Venkatesh,” Sowmya said with a broad grin.

Brahmanandam was a comedian in the Telugu film industry. He made people laugh but didn’t have anything going for him in the physical attributes department.

“That’s not the point,” I said.

“You think that you are too good for a pelli-chupulu and only people who look like me have to go through it?” she asked quietly, and my eyes flew wide open, denial dancing on my tongue ready to pour out.

But she was right. That was exactly what I thought.

I wanted to make an excuse, a good one, and that was when it slipped out; I was busy trying to make Sowmya feel better about her several pelli-chupulus and my belief that I was much better than she was.

“I have a boyfriend . . . a fiancé,” I blurted out.

“What?” The potato Sowmya was holding rolled away from her into the sink. She grabbed it and stared at me through her nine-inch glasses.

“Yes,” I said. I had stepped in it with one foot so I might as well dip the other one in. “He’s American.”

“Your father will kill you and, if not, your Thatha will,” Sowmya said as she clutched the knife she was using to peel potatoes against her chest. “When . . . how . . . ? Priya? What were you thinking?”

“He’s a nice guy. I love him,” I said and it sounded like such a line, even to me. “I didn’t plan it.” Another line. “It just happened.” I felt like I was tripping over clichés, one after the other.

“No, Priya. You can’t do this to us. Anand . . . that was bad enough, but this, this will destroy your Thatha and your father,” Sowmya said.

“What do you want me to do? Dump Nick to marry some guy my parents think is good for me?” I demanded.

“Yes,” Sowmya said firmly. “That is our way.”

“Oh, screw our way,” I said, and threw a raw mango on the counter.

“What will you do?” Sowmya asked, picking up the mango I had thrown and checking to see if it was bruised.

“I don’t know,” I confessed and had an overwhelming desire to cry.

TO: NICHOLAS COLLINS <NICK_COLLINS@XXXX.COM> FROM: PRIYA RAO <PRIYA_RAO@YYYY.COM> SUBJECT: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: GOOD TRIP?

YOU WON’T BELIEVE THIS BUT SOME NICE INDIAN BOY IS COMING OVER TOMORROW AFTERNOON TO “SEE ME.” BLOODY HELL! HOW DARE MY PARENTS DO THIS TO ME, NICK? THIS IS HUMILIATING. THEY EXPECT ME TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS BARBARIC RITUAL OF ALLOWING SOME MAN TO COME AND ASSESS MY WORTHINESS AS A WIFE.

WHAT HURTS IS THAT MY FATHER IS IN ON IT, TOO. I EXPECTED THIS FROM MY MOTHER, BUT NANNA . . . HE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ON MY SIDE.

I AM GOING TO TRY AND CALL YOU AS SOON AS I CAN. BUT DON’T WORRY ABOUT ANYTHING. IT IS JUST . . . DAMN THEM. I HAVE NEVER BEEN THIS ANGRY BEFORE. I HAVE TO TELL THEM ABOUT YOU NOW, BEFORE THEY PUT ME IN A SPOT WITH THIS IDIOT INDIAN BOY THEY HAVE DECIDED IS JUST PERFECT FOR ME.

I WISH I WASN’T HERE. I WISH I WERE BACK HOME. I WISH MY PARENTS CARED MORE ABOUT ME THAN WHAT THE NEIGHBORS WILL THINK.

PRIYA

TO: PRIYA RAO <PRIYA_RAO@ YYYY.COM>
FROM: NICHOLAS COLLINS <NICK_COLLINS@XXXX.COM>
SUBJECT: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: GOOD TRIP?

SWEETHEART, I AM SO SORRY. BUT YOU WERE EXPECTING THIS, WEREN’T YOU?

I DON’T MEAN TO PATRONIZE (AND YOU SOUND SLIGHTLY MELODRAMATIC!), BUT I’M SURE YOUR PARENTS CARE MORE ABOUT YOU THAN WHAT THE NEIGHBORS THINK. REGARDING YOUR FATHER, GIVE HIM A BREAK. HE WANTS TO SEE HIS DAUGHTER MARRIED AND HE WANTS HER TO GIVE HIM SOME GRANDKIDS. HE DOESN’T KNOW YOU’RE ENGAGED TO A HANDSOME AMERICAN, SO HE’S TRYING TO DO HIS BEST.

I KNOW IT’S HARD TO TELL YOUR FAMILY SOMETHING YOU KNOW FOR SURE THEY DON’T WANT TO HEAR AND IF IT’S TOO MUCH PRESSURE, DON’T. JUST DON’T MARRY SOME INDIAN GUY WHILE I WAIT HERE TWIDDLING MY THUMBS. PLEASE? WE HAVE A JOINT MORTGAGE! IN SILICON VALLEY THAT’S AS SOLID AS A MARRIAGE!!!

IT’S OKAY IF YOU DON’T WANT TO TELL THEM ABOUT US. JUST RELAX. I DON’T WANT YOU TO HAVE AN EMBOLISM BECAUSE OF ALL THIS STRESS. DO WHAT YOU’RE COMFORTABLE WITH.

TAKE CARE, SWEETHEART, AND CALL ME.
NICK