As Sweet as Honey

19




Nalani’s bridegroom’s family was to pay a visit. Everyone fussed to prepare, and Nalani herself tried on several saris, supervised by Aunt Pa. Shanti-Mami made carrot halvah, and in addition, sweets from the Chandigar store were bought, along with some savories. She also made idlis and sambar, and prepared two vegetables—a small luncheon feast. We were also told to dress and mind our manners and behave. When Aunt Pa announced, “They’ve come, they’re here,” we ran to the gate. A group walked in, taking off their chappals. Rajan’s parents, we saw, looked like distant aunts and uncles, and his sister wore pretty glasses. Rasi whispered to me that she did not like her sari, and I began to giggle. Imagine our surprise when we found another man walking in behind the sister, instead of Rajan, hands in a namaste for our aunts and family. Was this Rajan’s brother? Where was Rajan?

This was how we met Ajay. He was the fiancé, Nalani’s fiancé. Rajan’s horoscope did not match Nalani’s. So they found someone more suitable, with prospects in the U.S., who had completed his master’s degree.

He had brought Nalani a necklace, and brought us sweets from Grand Street that first visit. Sanjay had on a Beatles T-shirt that he refused to change. The fiancé remarked on it, saying it was really “cool.” He seemed to genuinely mean it, too, and Sanjay glowed. Rasi and I were more withholding of our praise. Meterling peeked in, but stayed away, not wanting to cause confusion in his parents. Everyone knew about Meterling’s condition, but it seemed everyone walked carefully around it, too. The marriage would take place after the birth of Meterling’s baby, in an auspicious time. Nalani was quiet, and later went up to the roof—to meditate, she said, which meant we weren’t to follow.


The next day, the poet visited our house. Her name was Neela Chandrashekar, we discovered, and she had a strong laugh, and arrived with vegetables from the market. She took Meterling for a stroll, and when they returned, arm in arm, Neela said that what Meterling needed was a doula.

A dollar? we wondered. We thought she needed a lot more.

But the word was “doula,” a person who helps the pregnant woman in different ways than a doctor or midwife. Meterling met her the next week. A Belgian woman, with a robust face, she had been in India and Pi for decades, and delivered babies for expatriates and hippies, when the flower children wanted natural, loving births, and now some islanders trusted her to help deliver their own.

She came on Tuesdays and Thursdays, armed with massage oils and therapeutic sacks filled with seeds and hulls. The latter she warmed on the stove to place over Meterling’s shoulders. She spoke to Meterling about what to expect in the final months, how important it was to walk every day, and feed herself nourishing foods, not just halvahs. Anyway, the halvahs and sweets had been mostly in the first three months. She explained that grief was part of the pregnancy, even in women who had not lost their husbands. Meterling’s life would change, and she needed to gently prepare for it.

Meterling at seven months was ready, ready, ready to give birth. Ready to lie down, feel less pregnant. But she was very pregnant. Round and pregnant, told to take walks, keep up her spirits. The doula repeatedly advised healthy eating, what Grandmother had been urging from the beginning. Meterling still wanted to eat round foods as round as her belly to deliver a healthy child, Archer’s child, hers. Eating rice and dal with lots of ghee, mild vegetable curries, drinking lots of water, and waiting, she imagined sensual meals, tiny eggplants stuffed with curry, long pieces of purple okra dripping with flavored oil, saffron-scented pilafs. She wanted to suck on her food-laden fingers, let her tongue slowly catch the drips of thandai, close her eyes as the cumin broths coursed down her throat. Were her nipples becoming hard, was this kundalini brought on by dreams of food? She shook her head to clear her thoughts.