Ganga turned the gas stove on and poured water into a metal pan. On the counter near the stove, she placed a large cup and brass tea strainer filled with a few pinches of black tea leaves.
“You finished that new bottle of whiskey last night,” Ganga said. “You don’t need more alcohol today.”
Ganga stood watching the water. Mrs. Ray left her in the kitchen and walked out to the balcony and lit a cigarette. At least at night she could smoke in peace without all the neighbors peering in.
“Tell me something,” Mrs. Ray said, when Ganga brought her steaming cup of tea out to the balcony. “Which one of us do you think will die first? I’ve been doing yoga almost every day, you know. Doesn’t it trouble you not to know how old you are? I don’t understand how you villagers just approximate your age. How will you know when you might die?”
Ganga placed the cup of tea on the small wooden table by Mrs. Ray’s feet.
“It’s good that you’re doing yoga. Now you need to drink and smoke less,” Ganga said. “You know how it affects your mood.”
“Don’t lecture me with your mouth full of chewing tobacco. How did you get to and from Kalkaji tonight anyway?”
“I took the train. It’s as modern as the radio says. You should try it sometime. There are different compartments for ladies and everyone behaves very well.”
Mrs. Ray had not yet taken the new train in Delhi, and it felt like a lifetime since she had last taken a local train in Mumbai by herself. She was eighteen then, and studying commerce at St. Andrews College, and every weekday morning she boarded the regular compartment of the 9:14 a.m. Churchgate local. That day a middle-aged worker fell out of the compartment and onto the tracks, his head smashed open. She was late for class and took only the bus from then on.
“What were you doing with your cousins this late? It sounds rather suspicious, you know. Do you have a man in your life? We’re too old for all that now, Ganga. It’s done for us.”
“I’ve told you a dozen times,” Ganga said. “I was talking to them about returning to Siliguri. You never listen. Now stop all this self-pitying and come inside and get ready for bed. The neighbors can see you when you smoke out here.”
“You will never leave,” Mrs. Ray said. Rupak left, the Jhas were leaving, Ganga couldn’t leave. Mrs. Ray wanted to again thank Ganga for never leaving, for being Mrs. Ray’s family, but instead, as always, she said nothing.
“I can’t carry chicken curry all the way back to New York, Mom,” Rupak said to his mother on the morning of his departure. “Ma.”
Mrs. Jha ignored him and his use of the word Mom and kept stirring. The onions sizzled in the hot oil, the garlic jumped, and the smell of fenugreek rose up from the pan. Her mother had taught her how to make this chicken curry and it had always been Rupak’s favorite. She hoped Rupak’s wife would someday learn how to make it. Wait, no—she was supposed to say she hoped Rupak himself would someday learn how to make it. She sometimes forgot to be a feminist. But she felt this dish needed a woman’s touch. She dropped the pieces of chicken—on the bone, always on the bone—into the pan and used the wooden spoon to push them around and coat them with the gravy. Even before her husband had developed his crazy ideas about not having maids around, this was one dish she always made herself. She tried teaching one of the maids, but it wasn’t the same. Mrs. Jha was never the type of woman to express her emotions through food. She was perfectly happy being at work helping rural weavers package their work for urban markets all day and making a quick call around three p.m. to tell the maid which vegetables to cook for dinner. But her methi chicken curry was hers alone, and if she had to let her son go across the world all by himself tonight, the least she could do was pack him a proper hot meal. She lowered the heat on the stove, covered the pan, and turned to the fridge to take out a bottle of coconut water. Coconut water came in bottles these days. She poured two glasses and handed one to her son.
“That smells good,” Rupak said.
“You should learn how to make it so you don’t go hungry in America.”
“I hardly starve there, Ma. And I doubt I’d get half the ingredients for it in America. I don’t even know what the English word for methi is,” Rupak said.
“Fenugreek,” Mrs. Jha said. “And maybe it’s best you don’t learn so you keep coming back to me for the chicken curry.”
Mrs. Jha used to cook it on Sundays, the one day of the week when the three of them would sit down for a proper lunch together. They would all wake up late and have a lazy morning. Mrs. Jha would often drop by the Rays’ home for a cup of tea. Mr. Jha would go downstairs for a walk and chat with some of the other husbands in the neighborhood. Or he would go to the barber for a head massage and shave. Rupak watched television or, if the weather permitted, went downstairs for a few rounds of cricket with his friends. Mrs. Jha would return home before the men and cook methi chicken or prawns with mustard—it was always one of those two dishes for the main course on Sundays. The maids would make rice, daal, and a vegetable dish, but Mrs. Jha took charge of the main dish. While she was cooking, Mr. Jha and Rupak would come home and take turns having hot showers, and the same smell of the sandalwood soap that Mr. Jha had been using since 1983 would mix with the food and fill the rooms. It was the one day of the week when they listened to music loudly—Mr. Jha would put in old Geeta Dutt cassettes, and in the kitchen Mrs. Jha would sing along to the high-pitched songs while the curry simmered on the stove. She hoped Rupak remembered those afternoons. Everything was changing so quickly now. Taking the chicken all the way to Ithaca and reheating it in a microwave was not the same as eating it hot from the kitchen on a lazy Sunday afternoon. But it was something.
She would put it carefully in many plastic bags and pack it in his checkin bag. It was a twenty-four-hour journey and airports and airplanes were always cold; the chicken would be fine.
“Ma, seriously. I’ll eat it before leaving for the airport tonight.”
Rupak did love the methi chicken curry she made and missed it often in Ithaca, but even if it survived the journey, which he doubted it would, Elizabeth was going to pick him up from the airport in Syracuse in her open-top Jeep Wrangler, and she probably wouldn’t appreciate it smelling of methi chicken curry, even if you called it fenugreek.