The Chaudhurys lived in a modest two-level home that was still much wider and taller than Harit’s house. It was much newer, too. His own house often felt like it was performing a miracle simply by not collapsing. Every desi house had its own version of Indian cooking smell, and the one here—heavier on onion than was typical—had been undercut by air freshener. The Chaudhurys’ living room wasn’t garnished solely with embroidered Indian art or gold plates or plants. Instead, Ranjanaji had brought her own touches, like Western paintings in pastel swirls and odd little dishes in sharp colors and, even, a black statue of some non-Hindu goddess dancing while a row of birds paused in flight above her delicate hands.
Harit saw all of this eventually. First, he followed Prashant through the side door, through a laundry room still shining from cleaning fluid, into the kitchen, which was the biggest room in the house. There was Ranjanaji, wearing an apron that Harit knew they sold at Harriman’s—red apples on its front. It made a peculiar sight given her maroon salwar, which boasted several sequins and an intricate trim along its hem. She looked noticeably better in Indian clothing. Not just because she was Indian but because she didn’t seem to be pretending.
They exchanged Namastes, though hers was rushed, given the number of things she had going on. To look at all the food, a hundred guests were expected. She had a series of pots on the stove and an even more impressive number of covered dishes on the island. She had made samosas, of course, then pakoras, aloo gobi, mattar paneer, chole, some eggplant concoction that looked highly experimental, raita, and a jolly-looking mass of dough for roti that had yet to be parceled, rolled, and cooked.
“Hope you brought your appetite,” Prashant said as he strode out of the kitchen. Harit would have taken offense at how quickly the boy discarded the intimacy they had constructed during their car ride, but he was too busy noticing that Prashant hadn’t said a word to his mother. Ranjanaji took note of this:
“Please pardon Prashant. Ah, how alliterative!” she said, tittering, not noticing or caring that Harit didn’t understand what that word meant. “I’ve just gotten used to how he disappears for stretches at a time. I tell you, kids these days see their phones as faces. They carry on more conversations with those things than you and I do with each other.”
Harit wasn’t really listening to her because he was remembering his biggest fear about the evening: how to deal with her husband.
Harit tried, in these moments before Mohanji appeared, to imagine what an Indian man like Mohan would think of him. Even though Harit had few male friends besides the Indian boys that he saw sometimes in the stockroom, he knew that Indian men had little room for emotional engagement when it came to each other. (Teddy had shown him an article in The New York Times on the custom of men holding hands in India, but Harit chose every day to forget that this had ever happened.) They measured in material things—a fact that Indians tried to conceal from Americans. Americans, according to Indians, focused on making everything bigger—houses, cars, bank accounts. The only things they focused on making smaller were their bodies, which revealed the excesses of their gluttonous eating. Although Indian men tried to act as if they were different, they were very much the same. Their responsibilities were to provide for their families an Americanized sense of material wealth while still sticking to the Indian courtesies—in essence, to justify a well-turned sitting room, a spacious kitchen, and a fancy car by pointing to a child’s mathematical prowess, a rigorous schedule of temple-going piety, and carefully planned marriages.
None of this seemed surprising to Harit. These were the same old things that people said about immigrants of all stripes. What was continually surprising was that these Indian men didn’t seem to realize that they were falling into the stereotype. Each carried himself with a combination of poise and slovenliness that he thought was unique, but since Indian men never discussed these things with one another, they could never fully understand what they had in common.
Although it was clear from this home that Mohanji wasn’t stupendously wealthy, Harit was sure that Mohanji would look at him as inferior in every way. Unmarried and living with his mother—without the promise that a family represented, Harit was hardly worthy of much. He prepared himself accordingly, crossing his arms behind his back and rocking gently to calm himself down.
“Ji, I’m so glad that you came,” Ranjana said. She was jumping from task to task, pulling a stack of napkins out of its plastic skin, liberating plastic forks, knives, and spoons and placing them in a trio of foam cups, producing a fully stocked tray of spices and garnishes out of thin air. Harit couldn’t help but feel that the bond that had brought him here was broken, that the party as an entity mattered more to Ranjanaji now than he did. He tried to dispel these thoughts. She was a hostess, and naturally, it was her job to attend to her guests. The more successful the party was, the more successfully he had joined them. The less attention paid to him, the better.
The party had been scheduled to start at 7:00 P.M., and although Harit knew it was customary for the guests to be delayed in arriving, he didn’t think it was customary for the man of the house to remain out of sight. At last, Mohanji appeared ten minutes later. Harit watched him through the arched doorway between the kitchen and sitting room. Mohanji was busy sweeping imaginary dust off shelves, tabletops, and the TV. His hair was still dripping from the shower, and there seemed to be remnants of shampoo still mixed in with his streaks of gray. He was the kind of man who grunted at the littlest thing. Finally, after running a hand through his slick hair and pulling a last cushion into place, he darted into the kitchen, ready to say something to Ranjanaji. He stopped when he saw Harit.
“Namaste, ji,” he said, barely putting his hands together. Harit had hoped that there would be an understanding between the two of them that the night was awkward enough without making their interactions even more strained, but that wasn’t going to be the case. Mohanji clearly had a problem with his being here, and Harit couldn’t fault him for that. Everything involving Ranjanaji, it seemed, was required to be strange.
*