Tanuja Desai Hidier
Seventeen was off to a scary start indeed: An entire construction team was at work in my head, and a funky rhythm hammered on behind my right eye, turning blinking into an Olympic sport. I took a very long shower, downed a liter of water from the spout, and brushed my teeth repeatedly, but I could still taste the hooch.
I'll never drink again.
When I finally exited my room, my brain was pounding so hard I was sure everyone could hear it in the pin-drop silence of the house. My heart was still firmly lodged in my throat as I turned the corner and came into the kitchen.
The party was not only clearly over-it had never begun. The balloons were already deflating, floating halfheartedly off the streams of crepe paper, which now sagged wearily in the middle. My mother was standing before the stove, stirring a huge pot. From the milky-sweet newborn scent I knew it was kheer-my favorite Indian dessert, I suppose because it was so American: rice pudding, basically with saffron and cardamom, a pistachio crown.
"Good morning, Ma," I said. Her shoulders stiffened but she didn't turn around. My father was beside her, praying to Saraswati. That was my goddess, the one he focused on to make his prayer for me.
I didn't remember my father ever praying when I was little, but out of nowhere the gods seemed to have sprung up all over our house: in the kitchen alone, the ivory Krishna in the temple (formerly the cabinet that held the can opener and blender, its door now removed), a bright-orange-trunk, smiling Titwala Ganesha sweetly removing obstacles from the stove top, and the jamming sandalwood cereal-shelf Saraswati, goddess of knowledge and music, strumming blithely away on her veena over myriad boxes of Cream of Wheat and cornflakes. My father paused before each of them for a couple of minutes at a time after his morning shower, waltzing through a prayer circuit that led him through the various rooms of the house with intent glowing eyes and clasped hands, like an enlightened ballroom-dancing real estate agent.
My mother, on the other hand, had stopped praying at about the same time my father had begun. It was as if they were taking shifts: I'll cover the nineties, then you go. I'd never thought much about it, figuring it meant she'd gotten everything she'd wanted. But now, it occurred to me, maybe it meant she'd given up hope.
"Good morning, Ma," I tried again.
"Morning? Your cousin will be here in just a few hours for your birthday dinner and you call this morning? Where are you living, in the L.A.?" I'd completely spaced on the fact Kavita was coming over. Brillo-now they could compare me to her. Another Hindi-, Gujarati- and Marathi-speaking doctor in the making. And better yet, the could also line me up next to Sangita, who I was sure would be with us in prenuptial spirit, for a round of dos and don'ts (guess who'd symbolize which one) for How to Get Your Daughter Married to the Indian Man of Your Dreams.
"Thanks for all the balloons," I said lamely.
"We thought we'd surprise you when you came home from you slumber party," said my mother. "But I think it is we who have been being surprised."
"Yeah, uh. Well, happy birthday," I said.
"Happy schmappy," she said.
"Well, I've got to give you the credit, right?" I was reaching for anything. "We should really be celebrating you, right? You're the one who did all the work-the labor, the delivery, all that. You had me."
"That was the easy part," she said. "It is now that I am needing the epidural." I noticed her accent had thickened slightly; she was definitely pissed.
"Anyways, stop trying to ghee me up," my mom continued. "You and I both know exactly what is happening here. I wasn't born yesterday."
"I nearly was!" I said, trying to make a joke.
"That is very ha-ha. You should be a comedian, did you know that, like that Leno Schmeno gandoo."
My father had returned and was now doing a second round at the Saraswati. The goddess smiled benevolently upon me, looking a little like she was stifling a giggle. Frock, it was going to be bad. He never did second rounds-he was a very efficient man. I lurched forth for a glass of water and retreated back to the table.
My father and mother formed a united front in showing me their backs. I wished they would at least look at me. This was bad invisible.
"Thank Ram Kavita is coming," the back of my mother's head commented. "Enough of these hanky-panky friendships of yours. I thought more of Gwyn."
"Mom, it's not Gwyn's fault. She didn't hold a gun to my head and make me do funnel shots or anything."
For some reason this got their attention. My mother turned away from her kheer-something she never does, usually holding a vigil over each grain of rice through the entire one-hour-plus process-and my father un-namasted his hands. "What's a funnel shot?" asked my mother.
"Who has a gun?" said my dad.
At least I could succeed in the Q&A portion of the afternoon. Funnel shots happened all the time in the parking lot at school dances.
"A funnel shot-no, it has nothing to do with guns. It's when you sit with your head back, like at the dentist, and they pour alcohol through a funnel and it goes straight down your throat."
"Why would a person be doing this?" cried my mother.
"So more alcohol goes in faster," I explained. As soon as I said it I realized both my feet were securely in my mouth, rainbow laces and all.
"Oh Bhagvan!" my mother cried, pulling out a chair and collapsing into it. "My daughter is an alcoholic!"
"Don't worry, Mummy," my father said as he yanked out a chair beside her and wrapped his arms around her. "We will get through this. There are groups who can help, like the AAA."
Was I here? My parents had launched into that third-person thing again, when I was in fact a third person only a few feet away in the same room. "It's AA," I said.
"Oh! So you already know this organization, is it?" my father asked.
"What did I do wrong in this life?" My mother's head was in her hands, and she rocked like a baby. "I have J.LO-dressing, single, alcoholic, photographer who has completely lost touch with her Indianness for my only daughter! It is all my fault. Prabhu, what did I do?"
My mom sounded as if she were composing a negative of one of those marital ads in the back of the Indian papers she brought home sometimes from the Bangladeshi grocer's. Most of the ones for the girls started out "Homely girl seeking...." At first I couldn't understand how anyone in their right mind could use this to market their product, until my mother explained that homely here meant domestic, homemaker, homestayer. Like someone who needed to get out more, in my opinion.
And she said photographer as if it were the worst of all! She had to be kidding.
"Ha, that's funny, Ma," I said, forcing a grin and hoping we'd soon be slapping our knees, laughing the whole thing off. But not even the faintest sign of a snicker was to be found in her face. She was glowering at me like a sulky child.
"Daddy," I tried, but that was a no-go, too. He avoided my eyes, developing an abrupt fascination with our floor.
"See?" he told the tiles. "Now are you happy? Why are you having to torment your poor mother like this? Do you like seeing her cry?"
"Of course I don't. And dad, come on, she's not even crying."
I could do the third-person thing too. But suddenly he wasn't having any of that.
"Inside," said my father emphatically. "She is crying." He turned to my mother with a pained expression on his face. "Aaray, Ram, why does she refer to you like you're not here?"
"Look, don't you guys think you're overreacting?" I sighed. "I just had...one. one glass doesn't make me an alcoholic."
"Depends how many times you are filling it," said my father.
"One what? Tank? Reservoir?" said my mother, feisting up and tossing her head back.
"I could get drunken just breathing in the air around you," my dad added.
"Mom, Dad, please," I now told the floor. "I'm really, really sorry."
I was, too. Not only about the alcohol. But about being the kind of daughter who made her mother want an epidural seventeen years after giving birth and who made her father talk to tile and disrupted his neatly organized praying pattern.
"I didn't know how strong it was," I told my parents now. This was true. "I just suddenly got kind of...dizzy."
"Did they slip that pill in your drink?" my mother whispered, scooting her chair closer to mine. "I hope at lease you didn't leave your drink unattended. I have been reading how these sick people use this special pill to take the advantage. It puts girls in an amorous state."
"Comatose state," said my father. I think he was correcting her, but my mother now pounced on him.
"I have been telling you and telling. Now do you believe me? Does it have to happen to your own daughter before you will listen? Oh, my beta...."
All of a sudden my father was the enemy and my mother had thrown her arms around me in a suffocating hug. She smelled of If You Like Chanel No. 5 You'll Love and gentle-on-the-hands dishwashing liquid and spices and I loved her so much and was really sad that I made her worry.
"No, my drink was definitely never unattended," I told her in what I hoped was a reassuring voice. This was technically true, too, and a silence ensued as the processed whether or not that was a good thing.
"And where were you? Who were these hooligans who made you do this?" asked my father. "How do we even know you were with Gwyn?"
"I promise I was with Gwyn."
Promises are a big thing in our house.
"And only Gwyn?" verified my mother, narrowing her eyes at me.
"No....And some of her friends."
"Boys friends or girls friends?"
"Boy friends."
"You were with boyfriends? Was it this Bobby Schmobby hanky-panky character? How dare you go out with him!"
"He broke up with me ages ago, Ma."
"My god!" she cried. "How dare he break up with you! What, he is too good for you? What is wrong with you? You are a homely, lovely, multilingual honors student coming from a good family! What is he looking for anyways?"
"Something taller and thinner and blonder, I think."
My mother made a disgusted noise.
"It doesn't matter, it's old news," I said. "Anyways, Gwyn was with her boyfriend and a friend of his, yeah, but I assure you I wasn't with mine and I do no have one. And we really did go to her house after the movie."
"Promise?"
"Yes."
"Remember what Harish Chandra teaches about keeping you word?"
"Yeah, I remember." I didn't recall the exact quote, but the gist of it was: Keep your word. "And you still promise."
I showed all my fingers and everything.
"I was not plundered. No one sneaked anything into my anywhere. Gwyn didn't make me do anything, no on made me do anything-I didn't, she didn't, you didn't."
I conjugated the whole verb of Not Doing.
"I promise. And I remember what he said."
There was a silence as my parents digested all this. Then: "That's my girl!" said my father proudly. "Thank god we have such and honest daughter. Quoting Harish Chandra and everything."
My mother signaled to my father with a slight squint-wink of an eye that they weren't done being mad with me yet.
"Why did you come home then?" she asked.
Because I was so blitzed I forgot I wasn't supposed to and Gwyn was macking by the microwave.
"Because I wanted to wake up at home on my birthday," I said.
This seemed to be the correct response. My mother sighed, and I heard her weaken. She stared deep into my eyes and it was the first time she'd really looked at me this whole morning, but instead of relief I felt even worse. Her eyes were so sad and so honestly uncomprehending as she asked me: "Beta, why did you have to do this?"
"We didn't think you'd have to be like them," said my father quietly. I didn't know how to tell them: Of course I had to be like them. But how was I ever going to be like them? That was more than half the problem. I was born different-it started from the skin and seeped all the way in, till nothing matched.
"I'm sorry," was all I could say.
My mother always looked for an excuse to get mad, but she also always looked for an excuse to get unmad, too, and today was no different.
"I know it is not just your fault. It is this America-you cannot escape it, like those golden arches everywhere you turn. It is hard to resist it. But if I'd known the price we'd have to pay for this land of opportunity was our own daughter, I might never have left. It's really made me wonder. I did tell you I ran into my old school chum, Radha Kapoor?"
"Yes, at Friendly's, I was there."
"She has a son."
"I know, I know: computer engineering, NYU, all that."
"So you were listening! That's my dikree," said my mother. "Well, anyways, I've invited them over for chai."
Rewind.
"You what?"
"Why you were-recovering-all morning, your father and I got to thinking. Frankly, there is no time to waste. You need a nice Indian boy," my mother concluded. "Someone to be a good influence, to keep you on track. He will appreciate you. He will not be too good for you like some other useless characters."
But I didn't want an Indian boy to appreciate me. What did being appreciated by a geek, or by someone who looked more like a cousin or brother, mean anyway? I could handle nerddom all by myself, thank you. What I wanted was even half a glance from someone cool, someone who played the guitar or made movies or had long hair, or even-jackpot!-all three. Someone who all the girls stared at but who turned and peered out over a slick pair of sunglasses at me, with all of them there, watching. I didn't want, I worried, someone who was not too good for me. I wanted, in short, someone who would never give me the time of day. But I was really in position to argue.
"When are they coming?" I asked slowly.
"Next week," my father informed me. "And they can't wait to meet you." I could sense the storm ahead. It was going to be a tough one with my parents in matchmaker mod-but how could I refuse? I wasn't exactly all the way over on their good side at the moment. The heat was on even more than I'd realized.
"Ma! The kheer!"
We all leaped up to stop the overbrewed milk from splattering to the floor. I got there first, scooped up the mitts, and lugged the pot to safety one range over.
My mother fluttered her hand in front of her chest.
"I don't know where my mind is these days," she gasped. "Thank you, Dimple. I'll just finish up and then...and then maybe we can open your presents." They had bought me the color processor from the camera store! And the color head for my enlarger, the chemicals, the paper-right down to the print drum! I couldn't believe it-I hadn't seen the boxes or anything. Granted, they had also purchased a couple of those frames for me: one a gold-plated cheesefest with a matching grinning retriever hugged by a Pampers-perfect boy advertising it; a groom lifting a bride's veil in the heart-shaped second one, sun dipping behind and plunging them into silhouette. I doubted it was about the frames; I had a feeling it was my parents' way of justifying the other purchases, their little P.S. to remind me of what kinds of pictures I was to be taking exactly with these new toys.
But I could hardly complain. Thanks to their overwhelming magnanimity, I know had pretty much everything I needed to try out color.
Finally, I tore open the package they made me save for last. Inside, padded carefully between layers of tissue, was an unbelievably resounding salvar khamees, one of those Indian outfits consisting of loose-fitting pants with a long top and scarf, or dupatta. The deep crimson fabric screamed sanguinely open. A river of nearly neon gold dye wound noisily through its length. The salvar was ornately embroidered with gold and silver and garnet beads and little bells that made a racket even as I lifted it out of the box. All in all it was, in fact, so loud I could hear it. Heavy, too-funny how all those little driblets could add up. It looked nothing short of a wedding combo: red, the color of fertility, was the bridal hue in most Indian unions (white, the color without color, being that of mourning).
"Maybe you can model it for us," said my mother. "Now," said my mother.
I returned to the room feeling a fool in the blaring outfit. The dupatta was sheer, gold, gewgawed, and enormous-I hadn't known what to do with it, and now it trailed behind me like a glitzy, gory bridal train. I was about to trip on all the fabric. My folds had certainly themed the presents well this year: I would definitely be needing my brand-new camera kit if I ever put these duds to film: frock, they could turn black and white to color!
But one look at my parents and there was no way I could complain just yet. They were beaming at me as if I were walking down the very aisle (even though Hindu ceremonies involved going in circles, which was much more my forte). "Baapray, beta, you look...why, you look just like your mother did on our wedding day!" my dad proclaimed, visibly moved. He turned to my mom and smiled. "Ketli sunder chhokri chhe."
Nil chance I could dis my new look now. My mother was busy draping the dupatta till it formed a crisscross across my body, like a Miss America banner. She stood back to survey her work, clearly pleased.
The two gazed at me now not only approvingly but adoringly. I realized then that my father's comment, coupled with this outfit, had transformed me in their eyes. They weren't seeing the hungover bad girl who felt dressed like a circus attraction; before them was the good Indian daughter, kheer-saver and homely girl, demurely previewing her wedding day duds. In other words, they weren't seeing me at all.
Tanuja Desai Hidier. Born Confused. (first published in Seventeen magazine).