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NAINA WALKED ALONG the pathway of the Georgian-style house slowly and carefully, trying to hold up both her sari and her umbrella. Though there were lights along the walkway, there was an engulfing, womb-like darkness in the suburbs, the kind one never experienced in New York. She stood by the door, waiting to ring the buzzer. Her nervousness escalated like a lightning bolt, leaving her body and reaching upward to meet the lightning bolt in the sky. Two lightning bolts coming together. One the result of divine power, the other borne of human weakness.
She could hear the high-spirited voices of people inside the house. There seemed to be a lot of people. But then today was Holi, the Hindu festival of color heralding the arrival of spring, and Rachita and Sushil, being the generous hosts that they were, would have invited the whole Indian crew from Montcrest and surrounding towns.
This was Naina’s second time to New Jersey in recent years. The previous time, just a couple of weeks earlier, was for Aditi and Samesh’s thirtieth wedding anniversary party, a lavish affair but with no more than ten or eleven couples. They had been inviting her to parties for years, but she had always made up some excuse. Still, that had not deterred them from calling her every single time. And it was a thirtieth wedding anniversary, a big deal, and they were good people, and they had been good friends. She had found herself wanting—no, it was more like needing—to go.
Judging by the number of cars parked and the numerous streams of voices she could hear inside, this party definitely seemed bigger, which meant she would encounter people she hadn’t seen last time. She raised her trembling hand to ring the doorbell, but it stayed up, inches away from the bell.
So far, Naina had been pleasantly surprised by how her worst fears had not come true. She had brushed the New Jersey people off for the past few years, yet when she showed up, she had been received with much more warmth than she had expected. Friends like Aditi and Samesh, Rachita and Sushil, Richa and Naveen, and Lata and Abhijeet, whom she had always liked more than the others, seemed genuinely happy and admiring of the fact that she had found a job and created a satisfying life for herself in New York. And to her surprise, they had not probed, as Indians were prone to doing, about her abrupt disappearance from their lives or her unexpected reappearance except to say things like, “Naina, hey, you forgot about us. We just weren’t cool enough for you, na.”
And then embarrassment would course through her like a cowering flower skulking away as she would attempt to offer some sort of explanation that was always more long-winded and feeble than she had intended. But even before she could finish her story, waves of hands and voices would interrupt her. “Let bygones be bygones, Naina. We understand how painful Harish’s passing must have been for you and you didn’t want to be reminded of anything to do with him. We understand. Don’t worry. You don’t have to explain anything, Naina. We’ve known each other too long. Come, come, have something to eat. We have garam samosas.”
This was, for Naina, a blessing. To be thought of as the poor wife who couldn’t bear the thought of coming to New Jersey because it reminded her of her beloved husband.
She planned to do nothing to correct that image.
Of course, not everyone had such a benevolent perspective and a couple of women had openly given her the cold shoulder, saying nothing except a couple of pleasantries and offering fake smiles. But at least no one had said anything unpleasant or hostile at Aditi and Samesh’s anniversary party. She could not count on that happening again at this party.
Naina opened her mirror and looked at herself under the porch light. She adjusted her filigreed gold pendant, added some eyeshadow, and brushed her hair one last time. She hadn’t worn a sari in a long time and hoped she had done the pleats right so the whole thing wouldn’t unravel in front of everyone.
Finally, she plucked up the courage to ring the doorbell, and it unleashed fast-paced, rhythmic, lark-like sounds. She jumped. This was new. And so incongruous with the soporific feel of the place.
“Happy Holi, Naina. Happy Holi,” Sushil said, the host, hugging her. “Welcome, welcome. So good to see you. So glad you could make it. Come, let me take your coat.”
The minute Naina walked into the house, she could feel all eyes in the living room turn toward her, some discreetly, some unabashedly. Numerous dark-colored irises enclosing her in their orbit. Leaving her flailing like an animal in a zoo. Some people smiled, some even waved. She collected herself and nervously smiled back.
Rachita, Sushil’s wife and the hostess, rushed toward Naina, gushing Happy Holi and bringing her a plate of gujiyas, a sweet traditionally served at Holi. “Okay, Naina madam, can you eat this or is that too bad for your lovely New York figure?” Rachita said, looking plump as usual in her red salwar kameez with Swarovski crystal beads.
“Of course I can,” Naina said, trying to stop her voice from wavering. “I love gujiyas. Thank you.”
And then Sushil arrived with two glasses of wine, one white, one red.
“Okay, so this is a Chilean red and this is an Italian Pinot Grigio,” Sushil said. “Which one would you like? Hopefully, at least one is adequate for a real New Yorker.”
“Oh, Sushil, you will never change,” Naina said, feeling genuinely touched. “You’ve always been the best host in the world.”
“And what about me?” his wife Rachita said, her hands on her hips.
“All right, both of you are the best hosts in the world. Happy? Khush?”
As Naina made her way into the living room, checking to see if her sari was still neatly tucked in at her waist, she was, not surprisingly, first greeted by her favorite people, all those who had been warm to her at Aditi and Samesh’s wedding anniversary party. Followed by the women who exchanged pleasantries and offered her their phony smiles. Though they feigned no interest in her, Naina could feel their eyes on her back, monitoring her movements, assessing her figure, her sari, her heels, her jewelry, and her hairstyle.
And then, as she stood to one side, picking up a seekh kabab from one of the server’s trays, the barbs started.
“What, madam went to New York and became too big for her old Jersey pals,” the caustic yet helpful Ranjana said—who had not been at Aditi and Samesh’s party—coming up from behind her. Ranjana was a pear-shaped woman with a pear-shaped face, uncommonly thin lips, and a big red bindi on her forehead. She was gesturing with one hand and sipping a Coke as usual with the other. Never Diet. Always regular, sugar-filled coke.
Naina wasn’t certain how to respond, but she didn’t have to worry. Ranjana wasn’t done.
“What, we weren’t glamorous enough, cool enough, smart enough for you after thirty years? Think you are too special? Let me tell you, we are very cool and smart too. Don’t ever forget that. Just because we don’t go hopping from one bed to another like those goras (white people) and keep sleeping next to our husbands, whose snoring, by the way, gets louder and louder every year, doesn’t mean we are no good.”
Why couldn’t this woman just shut up? Shut the hell up. Just leave me alone and stop staring, Naina wanted to shout. This woman had the worst stare—a stare that felt as if it were dismembering her.
“Let me tell you one more thing, Naina,” Ranjana said, placing her now-empty glass of Coke on a table so she could gesture with both her hands. “Though I don’t hold any grudges against you, as you know, I am a very frank person. You reap what you sow in life. You give up on people and they give up on you.”
“I know that, Ranjana,” Naina said, finally. “And New York hasn’t been just glamorous and fun. I . . . I . . . have reaped what I’ve sown . . . And it’s not always been easy.”
“What do you mean by that?” Ranjana’s eyes were wide and greedy. She wasn’t one for missing an opportunity to snatch gossip.
“Nothing. Just that you’re right. Everyone reaps what they sow.”
“You haven’t changed a bit, Naina. Still so secretive.”
“Neither have you, Ranjana. Still so nosy. Excuse me.” Naina started to walk away to find better company when she was accosted by a stick-like, gold ring-encased finger pointing at her.
“So, Naina, forgetting all your friends, forgetting their birthdays, forgetting their anniversaries when you were just a few miles away,” Sheela said in her raspy voice, a tall, rail-thin woman known for her generosity, and whose son Karan was very close to. “Very bad, Naina. Very bad. You were just in New York, across the bridge, not in Siberia, you know. When you needed us, we were always there for you.”
Naina lowered her gaze, not knowing what to say. Sheela was right. All she could finally say was, “Sorry. That’s all I can say.”
“Okay, okay, at least you’re back now,” Sheela said, smiling weakly.
“Yes, I am . . . I am.”
Other acquaintances who appeared as awkward around Naina as she imagined she appeared around them stood near the mahogany-framed French doors overlooking a huge garden. They exchanged clumsy pleasantries, their eyes shooting darts of unasked questions. Two of these people, Nilanjana and Kanchan, were the women who had commented on her going to Rutgers at an advanced age. Now, both plumper and both in fuchsia-colored salwar kameezes, they spoke to her in markedly uncomfortable voices, saying things like, “So all is well?” “New York must be so different from here, no?” “Is Amaya still living in New York?”
About half-an-hour or so later, Naina needed a break. She went to the bathroom where she stayed for a few minutes, leaning against a wall with her eyes closed, inhaling the jasmine-scented candle on top of the toilet. The questions kept swiveling in her head. Why was she here? Why hadn’t she come back sooner? Why did this place seem just the same? Why did this place seem different from what she had remembered? Why did it discomfit her? Why did it make her feel at home? She looked out into the garden through the window, barely able to make out the sounds of the crickets, and saw a red feeder in the dark. Rachita loved hummingbirds just like she did and probably got to see them regularly. The thought made her wistful and evoked images of Amaya. If only Amaya would call her back—Naina hadn’t heard from her in two weeks, their meetups were now sporadic at best—they could go to the New Jersey Botanical Gardens together. Though Amaya’s uncertain behavior made her terribly anxious, she had, grudgingly, learned to live with it, accepting it as the price to be paid for her terrible mistake.
Naina came out of the bathroom, and Sushil offered her another glass of wine, which she gladly accepted, but resolved to not drink more than two glasses. People would talk, plus she had to drive her rental car back to the city.
She stood near the dark wood bar, away from the crowd, looking at the living room, which she hadn’t seen for about five years. There was the same tawny-colored sofa with curved arms and carved wood, matching chairs, the big Victorian-style table made of glass and wood with carved, scalloped edges jutting out, and the intricately patterned light mustard and orange Kashmiri carpet. The chandelier, with dripping crystals, still presided over the room like Queen Victoria presiding over her Empire. There was the familiar collection of Mughal miniatures above the sofa, vibrant paintings depicting royal portraits, court scenes, hunting life, and battles. One new addition Naina was both surprised and pleased to see was a print by the well-known Indian artist S.H. Raza, known for his abstract, colorful paintings exploring themes of Indian spirituality. The print had a big black dot in the center and colored V-shaped bands above and below it. It looked like a cosmic diagram, and made her think of her kundalini yoga classes. The flow of the bands, akin to energy moving; and the dot, akin to concentrated meditation. Something she hadn’t quite yet mastered.
Naina tried to recall the many times she had spent in this living room. The birthdays, the anniversaries, the dinners, the Christmases, the Diwalis, and the Holis. She especially remembered the Diwali card parties—sitting on that tawny-colored sofa and participating in light gambling, a customary activity among North Indians before the Hindu festival of lights. Everyone would gamble without restraint in the jocular, high-spirited atmosphere of the festival season. Rachita, meanwhile, would keep the samosas and chaat coming into the wee hours of the night. For some reason, Naina always seemed to win the most money in this living room; she could never forget those feelings of exhilaration whenever she got three aces or three kings or three queens in her hands. It had been so long since she had played cards.
During Diwali, this house always glowed with flickering clay diyas, and all the guests would invariably trot down to the basement where there would be a big altar with over-painted idols of Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity. And then, in front of the huge altar, they would all sing “Om Jai Jagdish Hare,” the devotional Hindu hymn she had always sung on Diwali ever since she could remember, fumbling over the words.
Naina could still picture Harish standing next to those French doors and drinking whiskey, him falling asleep on the sofa after one of the dinners and spilling the reddish-brown tamarind sauce from Rachita’s chaat on the Kashmiri carpet during a late-night Diwali card party. Both Harish and she had jumped up, quickly got towels from the kitchen, and tried to wipe out the stubborn stain. Poor Harish, he had been so embarrassed, his thin face looking even thinner, almost like a scarecrow. And his stammer, which only came out when he was nervous, quivered as he profusely apologized. Naina felt warm knots of tenderness gathering in her chest, the memory of him coagulating in her.
Everyone today, except for her, was still a couple. Everyone had a warm body to sleep next to while she slept in a double bed next to a lifeless mass of pillows; everyone had someone to fasten a stubborn necklace while she spent forever, contorting herself in the mirror to get it right; everyone had someone to always go to dinner with while she, if she couldn’t find anyone, sat opposite an empty chair. Even Karan and Amaya were in relationships now, though she suspected neither was going to last.
“What are you doing here all by yourself?” Samesh asked, walking up to Naina in his cream-colored kurta pajama, still looking thin as a rail. “Come, come, join us.” And she joined a group, consisting mostly of her favorite people, clustered near the S.H. Raza print.
“So, Naina, where do you keep your car in Manhattan?” Abhijeet said.
“I don’t have a car. Cars are more of a liability in New York, and if I need to go out of the city, like this evening, then I just rent one. But really, in the city, you don’t need one with all the taxis, buses, and subways.”
“Really?” the group said in a chorus.
“But aren’t the subways dirty and dangerous?” Lata said, Abjijeet’s wife.
Naina smiled. Ah, the suburban stereotypes of the city. “Well, I wouldn’t call them clean. But they are not dangerous. Very, very convenient. You avoid all the crazy Manhattan traffic.”
Lata blinked her tiny kohl-lined eyes in surprise and wrinkled her already-wrinkled forehead.
“So, how large is your apartment?” Samesh asked.
“About eight hundred square feet.”
Again, everyone’s faces contorted with astonishment, and Naina had to suppress the urge to laugh.
“Eight hundred square feet?” Lata said, blinking again. “Your old living room was bigger than that.”
And the questions continued—about New York, about her work, about Amaya, about Karan, whether either of them had any “good news,” meaning a wedding in the near future. But the topic of any romantic interest in connection with Naina never came up. She intuitively suspected some might speculate that a romantic interest might explain her long absence from Jersey, but no one said anything. Such things were not supposed to be spoken about—at least not loudly. Like when Sita, Samesh’s cousin, got divorced after twenty-five years of marriage and married an American man, she was always seen alone at the few Indian parties she attended, and most people never mentioned her divorce or her new husband. Only a couple of people would awkwardly ask a few perfunctory questions about Howard, her new husband.
Rachita announced that dinner was served. Starving, Naina rushed toward the Queen Anne dining table where the feast was laid out, buffet-style. There was chicken curry, lamb biryani, fried okra, spinach with cottage cheese, black dal, yellow dal, chapatis, naans, parathas, and her favorite—cucumber and mint raita, a thinner form of yogurt. It was white and creamy, and bits of cucumbers peeped out from it, like little green girls clad in white veils. As Naina was pouring raita on her biryani, Usha, a relative of Sheela’s whom Naina had sporadically met over the years, came up to her.
“So, Naina, looking all slim trim, glam sham. Looks like New York is really suiting you.”
Usha’s voice was sugary like Coke, but Naina could sense it was not real Coke, but Diet Coke, fizzing with artificial sweetener. She tentatively smiled, saying an even more tentative thank you. She went and sat next to Aditi on the tawny-colored sofa. Aditi, a scholarly-looking radiologist with her thick wavy hair neatly tied back in a ponytail, was, as usual, wearing a traditional sari. A purple South Indian silk sari bordered by pyramidal patterns inspired by South Indian temples woven in gold. Naina’s sari was much more modern, something that she had bought just a year before Harish died—six yards of rust-colored silk with an embroidered border made with gold thread, beads, and semi-precious stones. Now, sitting next to Aditi, Naina wondered if she looked too show-offy.
“Your anniversary party was really terrific,” Naina said. “The music, the food, the flowers . . . everything. Thanks for inviting me.”
“Arre? What’s wrong with you?” Aditi said. “Why have you turned so formal shormal? How could we not invite you? How long have we known each other for?” She shook her head. “We will always invite you. Now, it’s up to you whether you come or not.”
Naina lowered her gaze.
“Okay, baba, sorry, sorry, sorry. I understand. Of course, I understand.” Aditi smiled broadly at Naina. “Samesh and I were so happy you came. It’s so good to see you.”
Rachita announced that dessert was served. There was a big bowl of rasmalais, gooey cottage cheese balls in sweet milk. Naveen, a balding man with a belly to rival that of a pregnant woman, was the first to help himself, heaping his plate with four or five rasmalais.
“Naveen, what are you doing?” Richa, his wife, rebuked.
“I’m just enjoying Rachita’s food.” Naveen shrugged.
“But so many rasmalais . . .”
“Oh, janeman, don’t worry about my figure. It’s too late in life for me to start dieting.” Naveen turned to Naina. “Not all of us can have a Bollywood star figure like Naina.”
Naina grinned. She had forgotten just how funny Naveen could sound. And what a different world she was in. One where people were unabashedly heavy and readily joked about weight and age—in contrast with New York where most were slim and trim and would consider it offensive to mock anyone for their flab or advanced years, even as they themselves tirelessly strived for the toned youthfulness the city epitomized.
“Look, it’s still bloody raining outside,” Naveen said later, after taking a bite of his third rasmalai. He shook his head and made a clucking sound with his mouth. “You know Holi is just not the same in America. Look at us. We are celebrating at night when we are supposed to be drunk and asleep at this time from too much color and too much bhang (an Indian liquor) during the day. But who’s going to give us a holiday for Holi here? Who?” He took a swig from his beer mug. “Last year, I was in India for Holi and, man, it was so much fun. Arre, not only was there the usual color and water stuff, but my nephew brought a whole boatload of eggs. Nothing could beat that, let me tell you. Eggs cracking on people’s behinds.”
Everybody burst into laughter.
“That’s disgusting, Naveen,” Aditi said.
“Sorry doc, but it was a lot of fun.”
And then Naveen recounted more tales about his Holi experience in India and Aditi continued to look disapprovingly.
By this point in the evening, Naina had started enjoying herself. Here she was listening to the sorts of stories that, besides Soma and Deepak, nobody else could tell her, listening to animated crosscurrents of Hinglish conversations that felt so comfortingly familiar, hearing the cascades of intonations and expressions that were deeply embossed in the fabric of her consciousness.
“Hey, does anyone remember 1987?” Sushil said. “The weather was in the eighties in late March, and we all played Holi at Harish and Naina’s place. Naina, you were completely wicked- I remember that. Sneaking up on everyone and throwing buckets of water. And that color in the water . . . it didn’t go for days, and I had to explain to the Americans that I looked like a multi-colored joker because of some Hindu festival. Though my boss never said it, I could tell that Jack thought I came from a jackass of a country . . . And my behind is still sore from the water balloon you aimed at me.”
“You probably deserved to have that water balloon thrown at you,” Naina retorted as images from that day swirled joyfully in her head.
Once again, everyone burst into laughter, their voices rippling like firecrackers in the living room.
Naina left at almost one in the morning. Several people invited her to spend the night at their houses, expressing concerns about her safety, but she declined. Instead, she got back into her rental car and was struck by the fact that she was the only one going home by herself with only her own company to look forward to. As she drove on the deathly quiet, winding streets of New Jersey, she couldn’t help but wonder if it would always be like that. Or if there was a way for her to change it.