As Sweet as Honey

46




Freshly roasted, freshly ground, served in stainless-steel tumblers, coffee on Pi put all contenders to shame. Shanti-Mami was still cooking for Grandmother, and it was she who served us, with tears in her eyes. She also opened tins full of savories and sweets—Mysore pak and thatai. My grandmother’s face seemed softer and more lined, her hands betraying tremors. We sat in the front room, which now had a bigger television set, the seven of us, on the floor, in chairs and on the charpoy, all talking at once, gesturing and laughing. It was a wonder Oscar didn’t just clap his hands over his ears. Instead, he played with the hot rods Sanjay had brought him, while the dogs nosed him affectionately.

Meterling sat with Simon’s arm around her. She was trying not to cry, I could tell. When you see someone after a long time, you wonder where the time had gone. What had really prevented you from keeping in touch, visiting? It is a terrible feeling, because the reasons are so selfish and petty. We hadn’t tried hard enough, and at some point, we forgot. I had held on to her hand on seeing the old house, and exiting the car, barreled into Grandmother, who held us close. Grandmother did cry, and said it was a cold, but then said, well, why should she not cry; it was an occasion that called for emotion. She smelled as I remembered, only felt frailer.

Sanjay stretched out on a mat on the floor, Scrap happily curled next to him, telling Aunt Meterling of his plans to study yoga. This was news to all of us.

He told us he wanted to put school off for a year, and studying yoga the way he wanted required a full immersion in the subject. He would go to a shala in India, wake at four every morning, practice until nightfall, with breaks for meals and rest, and classes for chant, Sanskrit, and philosophy. It sounded like the ideal life for a South Asian, a prospect that should have made everyone proud—a real brahmachari role. Instead, everyone had objections.

“But why can’t you just do yoga on your own?” asked our aunt.

“That sounds extreme, Sanju. Are you sure these yogis are reputable?”

“Are these places clean?”

“Mostly there are Westerners in these places, I hear.”

I hadn’t heard Sanjay called “Sanju” in ages. Grandmother reminded him of the guru with seven Rolls-Royces.

Patiently, Sanjay explained that yoga was not cultish, that it didn’t involve Rolls-Royces and rampant sex. He was only going to India, he said, to study with someone in Mysore, which is hardly a foreign country, but that prompted another discussion entirely. I marveled at his patience. It was as if he had grown up in the space of the year. A well-aimed paper ball tossed at my head interrupted my musings. Well, nearly grown up.


After the second cup, before jet lag hit me like a strong wave, I toured the house. It was a ritual I did in New Jersey, and I did it here. My mother used to joke that it was my way of making sure everything was in its place. I went room by room, laying my hand on the mahogany bureaus and almirahs, tracing the dust on the wooden-framed mirrors. I looked out the windows, to see the views of coconut and mango trees, and beyond, the neighbor’s walls and windows. I went up to the roof to stand by the clothes dried to stiffness on the line, noticing that the badminton racket that had been unstrung still lay the same way in the corner, near a broken umbrella. Plastic chairs were casually arranged to view the stars, breathe the night air. How could my grandmother climb the stairs to get up here? But it was her eyes that were going, not her legs. That is, she could still climb, resting heavily on each step, a smile like a sunrise on her face if anyone was there to greet her.


Nalani and Ajay joined us the third day. In the intervening years, Nalani had become a doctor, and she and Ajay had decided to remain in the city. After dinner, standing shyly before us, Nalani told us she was expecting. Ajay and she had tried for a baby many times before, miscarriage following miscarriage, and conception occurred when they were long past hoping.

“You know, we put in an application to adopt and it was accepted. We’re getting a child from Trippi! Ajay says we might get them both at the same time. Imagine, two children at once!”

She was rosy with the news. We exclaimed our happiness. I hadn’t realized how much I missed her, my older sister-auntie. She was due in five months.

I looked up at the sky. The stars always seemed bigger in the tropical sky, and it seemed there were more of them.

“But that’s only part of the good news,” said Nalani.

We waited.

“Rasi, we have someone we want you to meet.”

“Sure. A lawyer?”

“No,” said Nalani. “In fact, it’s a young man.”

Our merriment vanished.

Sanjay spoke first.

“Nalani, Rasi hasn’t even graduated yet,” he said.

He turned to Rasi, waiting and cringing a bit for her reaction. It would be sharp and quick, and idiotically, I thought, Don’t let Rasi be brutal, because after all, Nalani is pregnant.

Rasi shrugged her shoulders, and then nodded. “What’s he like?” she asked.

I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until I let it out. Sanjay and I glanced at one another. Maybe Rasi was humoring Nalani, but Rasi humored only Meterling, no one else. Only Meterling was spared her tongue, so I knew something was up. But Rasi didn’t look upset or crafty, just calm. Nalani embraced her, and hugged us all.

As Americans, or more rightly, islanders living in the States, which is the way our family would see it, I wondered if Nalani expected resistance. But she was so open-hearted, it probably never occurred to her that Rasi might not agree, might argue against arranged and sanctioned meetings. For the boy in question would have been sanctioned, vetted thoroughly by our family.


Later Rasi said she was expecting it.

“I’m twenty. One can choose the battles.”

“But this is a big battle.”

“All I’m going to do is meet him. It’s not as if I’m going to marry him and get pregnant tomorrow. Or vice versa.”

“Rasi!”

“Oh, grow up, Mina. Life is also practical. I’ll go to law school, and I’ve been in a lot of relationships.”

“You’ve been in two.”

“You forget how important some things are, like knowing the same food, the same customs. I want to be able to eat with my hands in front of the guy!”

“Are you kidding me? Food? Eating with your hands? Rasi, this is your life!”

“Like I said, I’m just going to marry—I mean, I’m just going to meet him.”

I could only look at her.

“Maybe he can cook. You know, I get home from school, exhausted, and he’s got nice hot bajis waiting for me—c’mon, I’m kidding!”

“So, you’re not going to meet him?”

“Of course I’m going to meet him. Look, it will be just this once. If I go ahead now and meet this guy and say no, then the next time I’m asked to meet someone, I can say, ‘Look, I tried once, and it didn’t work out.’ ”

“That’s terrible logic. People—the family—are a lot more persistent.”

“C’mon, do you really think I’m going to marry some idiot just because Nalani thinks it’s a good idea?”

I didn’t answer.

“Forget it—and just deal with it, Mina.”


Deal with it? It made no sense. How in the world did Rasi think her plan was going to work? Why did she even want to pretend she wanted to get married all of a sudden? Then I thought—oh, it couldn’t be—but could she be pregnant?

“What are you talking about?” said Sanjay. In the background, we could hear the dogs barking. “First of all, if she were, she’d have told us. And second, to get married doesn’t make sense—unless they got married within the month. And third—there is no third. That’s it. She is just—ornery.”

Ornery. I hoped Rasi would be able to tell us about pregnancy or an abortion, anything. But who was this new Rasi, this one who was fine with arranged marriages, of all things? It was as if the person I knew had transformed. I think I felt left out. She was being pushed out of the nest, which is one way to view marriage arrangements, but I always thought she would soar on her own, in a dramatic sudden sweep of wing. What I resented was the boy, whose name was Laksman, just as I had once resented Ajay. Who was he? Of course, I had time to adjust to Ajay as he courted us, because it was a package he got, not just Nalani, but all of us. At first, we had all resented Simon, too, but then I was ten, and now here we were, and—ha! This was Rasi’s plunge, her sweep, her dramatic gesture: thinking of marrying Laksman! She really was agreeing to disagree, just like she was saying, and I knew that she would squash the idea of marriage like a bug. The nerve of Rasi, playing us like this!