INDIAN.
“No! Let us not!” I was pleading with Karen. She was her usual obstinate self. She wouldn’t budge and was insistent.
“We are visiting your brother at New Jersey and spending a week with his family!” There was finality in her voice. “Can’t you understand? A stay for a week will only help me understand your family traditions!” She was wagging her finger as if to warn me “Then only will we think of our marriage, Can’t you see it, only then, I can impress your parents!” she lowered her voice and was virtually pleading with me.
She seems to have decided, and that left me speech less, and wondering at my future course of action. I saw her walking back and could not help thinking of what my family would think of her. “You know Karen!”, I told myself, “You with your Arabian stallion’s gait, your white skin and your blue eyes, the insolent stroking of your blonde hair, you in your short skirt and your shirt with its buttons carelessly left open at the top, you are certain to terrify my parents living in Konangipettai! Your presence is bound to create a typhoon in my family circle, and added to that, think of my cousin, who is already branded as my wife since her birth, Hamsaveni, she is certain to shed a few tears, and who knows, she may enact a suicide attempt too! And my God! Did I forget him, my maternal uncle with his bushy moustache and blood red eyes! He is bound to descend with his sickle and his muscular henchmen, with all his threats and violent gesticulations! And amidst all these, this girl, Karen! She wants to impress my family! Ha! A big joke!” I could not suppress my smile.
“Karen!” I called her again, my tone was patient and persuasive, “Karen! Understand! Let’s go to India! We can go and return in a jiffy! A lightning trip! don’t you ever worry!” my voice was pleading.
“No! She was vehement “I have heard and read a lot about Indian culture and its family traditions! Why do you think I loved you! You know why? Just because I liked your system and its family traditions, and so that, we can at least spend our vacation twice a year India, once in summer and once in winter, with your parents!” Karen was adamant and looks to have planned her post married life.
“Hey American lady! Have you ever thought what it means to take a shower in cold water early in the morning at four O’clock, and go to a temple with hymns and bhajans on the lips, when asked to do? Don’t you ever think that it is like taking a shower in the night, and leaving for your work early in the morning just after brushing your teeth and spraying yourself with perfume! Oh! Yes! Every thing looks romantic/good, when read in books, but you are far, far away from it Karen!” I mused, afraid of speaking out loud, for the fear being divorced even before the wedding.
On hind sight, I should have declared that I had no relatives in USA, when she made enquiries about my fraternity. The worst tyranny was her selection of my first cousin, Raghavan's family to imbibe the traditions and habits that went along with Indian way of living. Raghavan was a funny personality and all my friends who ever had met him by accident, would only ring up to say “I have never met a person like him yaar! Too difficult yaar, to get along with him!” and so on for the next hour. And Karen had made a call to such a person to announce her intention. Raghavan too had responded in her favor “you are welcome” he had told her “And we have planned a visit to Niagara and you too can join us!” he had assured her. His assurance to her had only added to my discomfiture and I felt as if I had swallowed citric acid by this gesture of his.
Problem commenced right on the night of the day we had reached Raghavan’s place. Profusely sweating, and wet with perspiration, Karen got out of the bed sensing that the AC was not functioning and began knocking my door. And, I was left with no other alternative than to knock at Raghavan’s door to wake him up. Half awake, his wife opened it and watching us standing there, “Raghav!” she called “your brother is calling you!” she announced. Raghav came out bare bodied, tightening his 4 yard dhoti’s knot, perhaps purchased from Nalli Kuppuswamy and Co., in Chennai.
Karen was fretting and panting, and I was afraid that she may choose to remove her T-shirt to beat the heat. “I am unable to sleep, the AC is not working!” she complained. Raghav understood her predicament, and said
“Why! I had provided you with a table fan!”
“The breeze from that is not sufficient! It’s a small fan! Why! Any problem with the AC?” Karen enquired.
“No! Nothing of that sort! The electricity bill was mounting! You see, Karen! Once you have a family with children, the expenses need to be minimized, don’t you agree! That’s why we refrain from using AC” and he went on to add “Okay! I will do one thing! I will shift the table fan from my room too! I will manage without it”. Karen wasn’t satisfied with his response and sensing that, I interrupted and told Raghav “Raghav! For this one week, don’t bother about money, I will take care of it, Switch on the AC.” I requested.
“Idiot!” he shouted “What does it matter as to whose money it is! Wasteful expenditure! I don’t like it and in case you have lot of money, then give it to me!” he went on and addressed Karen.
“Karen! This fellow spends money like water! Remember! You have to keep a watch on his expenditure after marriage!” he began advising her at that ungodly hour, adding to my discomfiture. Unable to convince him, I went in search of the AC switch and switched it on. Watching my effort, Raghav gave a villainous laughter like that of the famous Tamil villain, M.N.Nambiar. “I knew you would do that!” he was chuckling and went on to say further amidst chuckles “I knew you wouldn’t be able to control her! That’s why I chose to pull out its fuse and throw it around my head into the trash can! You know! Using a fan instead of AC is helping me to save two dollars and forty cents per day!”
He went in to bring his fan from his bed room, setting before Karen’s bed as if arranging to shoot a scene of a storm in a movie. The rest of the night was spent amidst sweat, with frequent bouts of Raghav’s child crying due to the heat adding to our misery.
The morning saw Karen running out of the bathroom, screeching and shouting.
“Raghav!” she was calling him on top of her voice “The paper roll/ towel seem to be exhausted and it is not there in the bathroom!” Karen was complaining.
This time Raghav gave a Prakash raj (Well known Tamil actor) laughter, and said “It was never there to get exhausted! We don’t buy paper towels or napkins nor do we use them!” he announced.
I gave him a dirty look and protested “This is too much! Atleast for the sake of your guests, you should’ve purchased it!” I said in consternation.
“I’ve kept a bowl inside the bath room! Aye! Listen!” He was looking at me coolly “Teach Karen as to how to use it!” and went on “Did we ever in our life, have we ever seen and use such a stupid thing?”, and then he turned his attention to Karen.
“You know what Karen! Back in India, in most of the villages, we don’t have bathroom or toilet. There are some open spaces….” I struggled to cover his mouth with my hand even before he went further and took him aside.
Our expectation of Raghav transforming after his marriage went wrong. Instead he was successful in changing his wife too, to his thinking. Karen watched Mrs. Raghav just managing her cooking with just four vessels and a soiled cloth and without either mineral water nor with a filter fixed to the faucet. She was indeed petrified to see the family consuming water direct from the tap without any filtration.
Raghav was turning philosophical. “Karen! I keep asking myself before I buy anything! Do I need it and can I survive or not without it? And if the answer is that I can, then I won’t buy it, and, I credit the cost of that material in my account as an earning, for the sacrifice I had made! And this is my policy!” he said loftily, as if propounding a theory in economics, adding further to Karen’s nervousness.
I blamed my fate for the subsequent journey to Niagara in the car with the glass window doors pulled down and the AC switched off just to save gasoline. The running around at Niagara to locate a hotel in which one could bargain and reduce twenty dollars only added to my agony, leading me to curse my star. And as to Karen, watching Raghav and his attitude, she lost her patience and had decided that he was the typical representative of Indian families and their perspectives. On the way back from Niagara, She bade us all “Bye”, once for all and had left the place in a huff.
My short-lived love affair with Karen and her departure left me sleepless through out the night. I was tossing around in my bed, when, I heard Raghav and his wife conversing. I got up and went closer to the door to hear them speak, and I could listen to them clearly. “Poor fellow! We have caused his love affair to break. From now on, he wouldn’t even look at Karen’s face!” Raghav was telling his wife.
“Don’t you worry about your brother!” she was convincing Raghav. “It is she who was hasty and lost him, not your brother!” and went on to add “You don’t have to change the policy for the sake of others, do you have to? Come on! Be fast! Check the accounts! I am feeling sleepy!” she said.
Raghav opened the account books “Two lacks to srinivas’ uncle’s heart surgery, thirty thousand to Ganesh for his college fees, hmm..and then to those fellows who are engaged in social work at Kumarapalyam, to their organization, ten thousand, and remember that Ganesha’s temple at Puliyakulam, we had asked them to offer mass lunch on Friday, to them, let’s give five hundred dollars! And I think that is all we can manage this month!” Raghav went on speaking as he wrote the cheques, while his wife was pasting the stamps over the envelopes on which she had written the address.
ooOOOoo
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