by Jasmin Kaur
“Well, for one thing, puth—and I hope you don’t mind—I was wondering about your daughter. And her father.”
All the nervousness in Mom’s expression evaporates. “Sorry?” she asks, clearly irritated.
The aunty doesn’t clock the difference. Or maybe she just doesn’t care. “You didn’t really explain much about her except that you raised her alone. Did her father leave you because of the . . . incident with Hari Ahluwalia? Or is Ahluwalia her father? I don’t want to assume that—I hope you don’t mind—I just think you should have explained. Otherwise, people are going to . . . speculate.”
“Listen,” Bibi Jee intervenes before I can even gather my thoughts, “we do mind your questions. And the answers are none of your business. We don’t even know who you are, bhenji.” Bibi Jee’s sarcastic emphasis on the Punjabi word for sister nearly makes me choke on my water. I force down the edges of my smile but anger still smokes beneath my surface.
One of the elderly aunties who had been following the exchange decides to chime in. Her circular glasses have a magnifying effect on her eyes and somehow add more drama to her words. “You know, if anyone in my family wanted to share such a shameful story, I wouldn’t have let them speak a single word of it. Instead, you’re mad that she has questions. Of course people are going to have questions! You think she can just go on TV and make up a story like that—a story about a good man who’s helping Punjabis—and no one is going to question her?!”
Bibi Jee drops her spoon in her tray and shakes her head in disgust. Hurt and anger writhe in Mom’s eyes as she stares back at the aunty. She teeters on tears, just like I do when I can’t get my point across.
“Mom,” I whisper. “Let’s just go. It’s not worth it.”
hope
The spring days begin to slip through my fingers in a haze of essays and oil pastel paintings and double espresso shots. With each passing day, the reality of Mom’s permanent resident status sinks in a little deeper and the relief floods in afresh. Despite all the darkness we still carry on our shoulders, one unbearably heavy burden has been lifted. Last weekend, for the first time in our lives, Mom and I crossed the border into the US. We picked up a few gallons of milk and filled up my truck with a tank of gas, both cheaper in America than in Canada. Although we quickly realized that the US looked pretty much the same as Canada, we basked in the luxury of being able to travel freely (was this what white people felt all the time?). Yesterday, when Mom walked into the kitchen after acing an interview for a job at Bibi Jee’s old office, I nearly shrieked in happiness. There is no more hiding. No more tolerating hell and calling it patience. And school—usually the least of my worries—finally feels like something I have time to worry about. As I dig through my second semester and learn my way around the temperaments of my new professors, the thought of having an entire undergrad of art ahead of me becomes a promising tide that rises steadily above my sorrows.
I’m a bundle of nerves as I approach my professor at the end of our workshop. She’s standing behind her laptop, a stack of essays and abstract art textbooks to her right, intently focused on something I can’t see. “Rhonda, do you have a minute? I wanted to talk to you about my—”
“—just a moment,” she says without looking up. She pulls a black pencil out from behind her ear and quickly scrawls something on a piece of paper. Something about her glasses and cutthroat demeanor reminds me of the boss from The Devil Wears Prada. She could be Miranda Priestly’s slightly disheveled, black-haired, artist sibling. “Okay, yes, how can I help you?”
I rifle through my binder, searching for the proposal I printed out this morning. “I wanted to show you my project proposal before I submit it. I’ve got a copy here.” She looks it over in silence while I hold my breath. She told us not to come to her about a project unless we’ve really thought it through.
“So, you’re doing a project about undocumented people or sexual assault?” Rhonda looks me in the eye for the first time and turns my tongue to chalk.
“Yeah—well—basically—the project is about multiple topics because it’s about—it’s inspired by my mom. She lived undocumented in Canada but she also dealt with sexual assault—”
“The issue is this: I don’t think that you’ll be able to make a powerful visual statement with your painting if you’re spreading your focus across two very heavy topics. You may make a better impact if you focus on one part of her experiences.”
How, exactly, do I explain this to my professor? Mom’s trauma doesn’t fit in neat boxes. It didn’t come with a one-sentence label. “My mom’s experiences are all connected. As an undocumented person and a sexual assault survivor. I can’t separate them because one directly caused the other. And maybe that’s the case with a lot of others like my mom. Their whole lives are affected by their past. I want to emphasize that through this project. That . . . connectedness.”
Rhonda surveys me thoughtfully and nods. “All right. Well, I’d like to see that described in more depth. Come back to me with a more detailed proposal. And then . . . I think you’re on the way to a very compelling project.” She smiles and her approval has me flustered. Damn. Rhonda Ross likes something I came up with?
Jeevan is parked near the bus loop scrolling through his phone when I pull open his car door and hop into the front seat, a wide grin still plastered across my face. He’s wearing the vintage Vancouver Grizzlies jersey I got him for his last birthday.
“Any particular reason why you’re smiling like an idiot?” he asks.
“I’ve got a project idea, Jeevan! A compelling project idea, according to Rhonda Fucking Ross.”
“That’s your art prof, right?” he asks, carefully pulling out of the bus loop. “The famous art critic one?”
“No, I only had Marianne in the fall. Rhonda’s this artist who started painting when she was, like, five. The one who’s an asshole but also kind of a genius?”
“I got you. So, she liked your project? Is that a big deal or something?”
“Jeevan, YES! She’s so freaking critical of everything. Like, even the classics. She talks shit about the Mona Lisa, for fuck’s sake.”
“To be fair, I don’t really see what’s so great about the Mona Lisa. She’s just an aunty without eyebrows.”
“True.”
“Anyways, that’s good, man. I’m happy for you.” His silver Audi slows at the crosswalk as a smattering of students pass by. “That feminist video thing was intense, huh?”
“What feminist video thing?” I ask, analyzing a fresh crack in my matte black nails.
“The news report thing . . . from Punjab.”
“News report?”
“Hold up. You haven’t seen it?” His deep brown eyes steal a glance at me, and I shake my head. “Shoot. Okay. Go on YouTube. Search up Me Too Hari Ahluwalia and Kiran Kaur or something.”
Within seconds, a shit ton of videos pop up. I tap the one with the most views: three hundred and fifty thousand, so far. In the thumbnail, four Punjabi girls wearing jeans and salwar kameezes hold signs that read “#MeToo” and “Stop corrupt politicians!” and “Stop rapist leaders!”
“Protests continue in Punjab as students refuse to support Hari Ahluwalia after the brave testimony by Punjabi-Canadian woman Kiran Kaur,” says a robotically calm voiceover while the screen displays a picture from Mom’s Punjabi Channel interview.
Then a girl in a fuchsia salwar kameez and matching turban appears. She speaks directly into the camera, her charcoal eyes completely ablaze. “We’re here at Chandigarh University on behalf of the Feminist Students Society because we want to remind the university and the whole of Punjab that Punjabi women do not stand by a rapist pretending to be an inspirational young leader. We don’t care if people think that Hari Ahluwalia is at least better than the others. We support Kiran Kaur as survivors and supporters. Her voice has reminded us that we, too, can raise ours. And we will be here all day, protesting Hari Ahluwalia’s talk at the university. Punjab’s university stude
nts say Me Too. We say enough is enough.” The camera pans out and pivots to the left, where a crowd of dozens of students of all genders stand outside a towering university building, carrying signs and linking arms. They begin to chant, “BELIEVE THE VICTIM! BELIEVE THE VICTIM!”
“Jeevan,” I gasp, lips arching into a smile, “this is sick.”
“Right?” he smirks. “Trippy how word traveled so fast. One interview and look at the ripple effect.”
I’m low on data but I rewind the video and play it again. And again. Each time I watch, warmth sizzles and thunders within me, a storm brewing just like the one in that girl’s eyes. I know Bibi has her fears. Her doubts. I know those asshole aunties at the gurdwara tried to crush Mom’s spirit beneath their own steaming-hot bullshit. But this—these young women who took my mother’s words and trusted them—they fill me with all the reassurance I need. And I hope they do the same for Mom.
“Jeevan?”
“Uh-huh?” He nods, almost peeling his eyes off the road to look at me.
“You know I’m grateful for you, right?” I think back to the sight of him sitting next to Mom in the café. To all the times when he’s shown up in a heartbeat. “Means a lot that you’re here. For Mom and me.”
His cinnamon-sharp smile warms me in a different way than the video. “Relax, bud. Would I really be a friend if I wasn’t here for you through some heavy-ass shit like this?”
There’s a pang in my stomach as the dying ember of another boy’s smile crosses my mind. “No. I guess not.”
My phone lights up with a Gmail notification and I tap it open. “Just got an email from Prem.”
“What’s she saying?”
“She says, ‘Hi, Kiran and Sahaara, I’m forwarding a request from Nandini Rajalingam, editor in chief at Woman Magazine, India.’ The hell?” I murmur in disbelief. Woman Magazine is the largest editorial fashion publication in India, so popular that it’s still available in print after most of the glossies went digital. What could Nandini Rajalingam—the Anna Wintour of South Asia—possibly want from us?
I scroll down and quickly skim the message. Then I reread it slowly, certain I’ve misunderstood Nandini’s request.
“Jeevan,” I whisper, glancing up from my phone. “They want to fly my mom out to Mumbai. As the guest of honor for their Women of Power gala.”
despair
“So what?” She half shrugs and then slips back into the comfort of her thick winter kambal. She pulls the jaguar-print blanket over her face.
“What do you mean, Mom? This is amazing! These girls are starting an entire movement ’cause of your interview. Your words literally got all the way back to Punjab. Isn’t this what we wanted?”
“Sure. Exactly what we wanted.” She sighs. “I’ll talk to you in the morning, all right? It’s getting late.”
It’s five o’clock. I gingerly sink into her foamy mattress, worry gurgling in my stomach. “I don’t get it. I thought you’d be happy about this.”
She pulls the blanket away from her face to look me in the eye. “Sahaara, what is there to be happy about?”
“Not everyone feels the same as those aunties at the gurdwara. Doesn’t this video prove that?”
“Have you seen the Global News one?”
“What?”
“Another lovely video about me. I was better off not even watching it.”
A Google search of Mom’s name and the news network leads me to a video titled “Illegal Immigrants and Refugees: The Great Debate.” Five stern-looking panelists gather around a glass table. Four of them are men. All of them are white.
I skip to the two-minute mark. “So, this woman comes to Canada two decades ago, overstays her student visa, never—not once!—does she apply for refugee status—and when Immigration finds her after twenty years, she has a whole story laid out about how she was fleeing this politician in her home country. I’m sorry, I’m not buying any of it. But, of course, the crybaby liberal snowflake generation is going to lap this stuff up and our spineless prime minister will cower before them.”
“Well, Mark, I see where you’re coming from,” a blonde-haired woman begins, “but I’d also like to point out that Canada is a place where people come fleeing barbaric practices and governments around the world. And perhaps this woman was so afraid of the complete craziness and lack of humanity in her homeland that she didn’t know Canada was a place where she can live freely, where civilized Canadians would respect her choices over her own body instead of barbarically forcing her to make choices that she didn’t want.”
“Holy crap.” I pause the video. “She’s saying this shit like it wasn’t barbaric brown women who took us into their home and supported us. Like white people have never elected predators. Does she not get how racist this is? I can’t . . .” My words trail off when I catch sight of Mom’s face. She stares at the wall, eyes glazed, like I’m not even in the room.
“Mom . . . talk to me.” My fingers graze her palm, but she simply blinks. “What’s going on? What’s on your mind?”
“I’ve made so many mistakes, Sahaara,” she whispers. “If I knew . . . if I wasn’t so bloody afraid . . . I never would’ve put you through this. I swear, if I just listened to Joti, all of this could’ve ended years ago. I’m a fucking fool.”
My eyes bulge at her extremely rare use of a cuss word. Then I laugh. “So, are you telling me that you’re blaming yourself, when you and Maasi were literally new immigrants, just trying your best to figure out a completely screwed-up situation? You’re blaming yourself”—I swallow the rock in my throat—“for raising me the best way you knew how? Do you understand, Mom, that I don’t blame you? I blame you for nothing. None of this is your fault.”
Something like desperation is etched in her features. Her eyes trace the entire map of my face and I can’t help but wonder if she’s searching for a forgiveness that she never needed to seek from me. She purses her lips before she asks, “Why would that magazine want me to be their guest of honor?”
“Are you kidding? How is that even a question?”
She shakes her head but says nothing more, returning to the mysterious world of her own thoughts.
“The fact that Woman Magazine wants you at their gala should tell you how important your story is. People are listening to you around the world right now.”
Mom is as unmoved by my words as she was by the protest video. Despite my exasperation, an idea strikes. “Okay, I know you obviously don’t wanna go to India or anything . . . but what if you just take the phone call from that Nandini lady? What if you hear her explain in her own words why they chose you to speak?”
She shrugs, indifferent. “None of this matters, Sahaara. None of this fixes anything.”
“Please, Mom. Just try this. For me?”
depression feels like
submersion beneath two tons of water
but somehow, continuing to breathe
simultaneous static and cold and fire
in every corner of my brain
every bad moment blooming
to eclipse every good day
each person who never loved me
returning to tell me why they were right
knowing all the reasons why i should
stay alive but not believing them
this bed and these blankets growing
larger and larger until they engulf me in a safe
cocoon
sahaara sitting right at the edge
and calling to me from a faraway shore
her voice muffled by this desolate ocean
reaching for her hand
as if it is an anchor
using every bit of my strength
to hold on
at four in the morning
mom and bibi jee are awake
for amrit vela meditation
and i rewatch the girl with the dragon tattoo
learning. studying. seeking catharsis.
from the only superhero
who
deserves the title
like muscle memory
i know the scenes that make me tremble
the parts i need to skip
the parts i need to rewind and play
again and again
and again
i pause at the exact moment
when lisbeth stands in the elevator
fingers outstretched
reaching for his forehead
making him cower in fear
at a woman he will never dare
to touch again
i wish i could write to her.
will her into existence.
turn her into more than words on paper
and compelling acting before a camera.
pray to her like a patron saint.
leave an offering of white peonies
and thornless roses at her feet.
i wish i could find a lisbeth
within me.
i am unraveling
Why do I exist?
The question gnaws at my skin. Digs into my bones. Claws at the aching thing beneath my chest. I get the science of it. The feelingless monstrosity of his sperm implanting in my mother. The process of his haploid cell fusing with Mom’s to form the genetic code that would create me. One part him. One part her. An equal mixture, forever inseparable. And then there’s the psychology. All of us begin with an emotion. A single act of love, or ambivalence—or, in my case, cruel, calculated violence—jump-starts the process that brings a human being to life. A whole living, breathing, thinking, crying, smiling, suffering person gets created because a selfish, momentary feeling passes through someone’s body. But is that all I am? Am I just the mechanics of how I came to be?
Each time Mom looks away, I sneak a glance and tell myself that I can ignore the creature growling under my skin. That I can learn how to live with it, tame it, even if I never look him in the eye and force him to reckon with the truth.