Well-Behaved Indian Women

by Saumya Dave

  At first, Simran assumes the guy is just friends with one of the many guests her parents invited, since their network includes every Indian on the East Coast. She focuses on the carpet, ashamed that her eyes hang on him. He isn’t conventionally handsome but still falls into the attractive category. (Not that she prefers conventional looks anyway; she may be the only woman who doesn’t find Brad Pitt hot.)

  As she scans the room, she notices a lot of people are facing his direction.

  But then she takes another look, and his face registers. She knows him. She’s read about him multiple times. How is he here?

  “Holy crap. Do you know who that is?” Simran leans toward Vishal and catches a whiff of his minty Armani Code.

  Vishal shrugs. “No. Why, do you?”

  Simran takes a deep breath. “That’s Neil. The Neil. Neil Desai.”

  Vishal responds with a blank, wide-eyed stare. Simran can see that the only thing this means to him is that this guy’s parents gave him a name that automatically pardoned him from the cringe-worthy discomfort many Indian kids experienced whenever a teacher called roll.

  “Neil Desai, Neil Desai,” Simran repeats. “New York Times Neil Desai? Ring a bell?”

  “No.” Vishal almost chokes. “It can’t be.”

  But of course it is.

  The Neil freaking Desai!

  Neil Desai is a contributing writer for the Opinion section of the New York Times, which has also been part of her breakfast for the past two years. He generally writes satirical pieces about economics and politics, until last year, when he compiled his pieces into a bestselling book. Neil rarely interviews and prefers to keep a low profile, even refusing to have a public Facebook page.

  Simran’s learned everything about him through her mastery of Google: he graduated from Princeton summa cum laude, almost followed the Indian path of becoming a doctor but decided to pursue journalism, is happily single, has two siblings, and is a die-hard fan of Duke basketball. Every time she acquired a new fact about him, she shared it with Kunal, who would roll his eyes, as though she was divulging trashy celebrity gossip from Star magazine. The truth is, she does swoon over accomplished writers the way other people gawk over movie stars or musicians (and Kunal couldn’t care less about either).

  “Shut up,” she whispers in awe, digging her nails into Vishal’s arm. “No way. There. Is. No. Way.”

  “I guess there is a way,” Vishal says.

  “What the heck is he doing here?!”

  “He must have been invited through someone. It was an open Facebook event, and your parents told everyone to bring their friends.”

  “Wow, he doesn’t look how I thought he would,” Simran says, before realizing that judging someone by their writing is probably just as unreliable as judging them by their voice on the phone.

  “Very different from his picture,” she adds, referring to the faded headshot that was on his first Google hit, which eventually became his website. “I mean, that looked like some awkward yearbook picture.”

  Not that she has any right to talk; every yearbook picture of hers is unflattering, off-center, or both.

  But before they can continue to dissect Neil’s appearance, he approaches the table, gripping a copy of her thin collection of essays. She becomes giddy, embarrassingly giddy, the way she was when she was five years old and met Cinderella at Disney World and thought she was actually the cartoon from the screen.

  “Am I too late for an autograph?” he asks, skipping an introduction and flashing her a flawless smile. Her mother says she always studies teeth because she’s so conscious about her own, but she thinks anyone would notice his.

  She puts down her champagne glass on the table. “Only if I can get yours.”

  He raises his eyebrows, sincerely surprised that she knows who he is. She takes the book from him and tries to keep her hands steady enough to turn to the title page.

  “You know, I wouldn’t have thought you were the type of guy who read essay collections about being an Indian adolescent girl. I should have known that whole economics thing was a facade,” she blurts, surprised at how naturally the remark flows out of her, as though she’s teasing a friend, not a writer she’s admired for years.

  “Okay, well, I haven’t read your work,” he admits. “Or heard of you before tonight. But I’m supposed to keep up with new Indian writers since I joined the South Asian Writers Association as a mentor. They told me about your event.”

  “Of course,” Simran says. How could she assume someone like him would seek out anything of hers?

  “But if it counts for anything, my niece did read your essays.”

  “She did?”

  He nods. “She did. And she loved it. Said I had to bring her a signed copy.”

  “That’s so nice to hear,” she says.

  “I’ll attempt to read it and decide for myself. No promises, of course.” He gives her a quick wink.

  Her heart rate palpably increases as she imagines him in his frameless glasses, sitting in front of his silver laptop (he strikes her as an Apple user), scrolling through her words.

  “Thanks, I appreciate that,” she mumbles. “I’m, uh, a huge fan of your work. I actually just read your piece on the US healthcare system this morning.”

  “Oh yeah?” He laughs, a dimple chiseling his right cheek. “Well, it’s nice that somebody actually reads my stuff. Even my parents get bored of it.”

  “Oh, I know what you mean by that!” she exclaims. “Definitely know what you mean,” she repeats in a softer voice. “My parents don’t really read my stuff, either.”

  He nods. “I’m glad I’m not the only one. How’d you get into this project, anyway?”

  She refrains from giving him her rehearsed speech. “To go all the way from the beginning, in high school, I thought about pursuing journalism because I liked the idea of educating others about what was going on in the world. Then, I double majored in psychology and journalism at NYU. I was working on an article about Indians raised in America for one of my journalism classes. And I realized that there were so many issues that affected Indian girls during adolescence and nobody had depicted those. So then I thought maybe I could be the one who educated others on what that experience was like. I started writing down my friends’ stories and kept finding all these common themes, and then this data to back that up, which resulted in this essay collection. Of course, then I went all the way with my psychology major, and the journalism part sort of faded away. . . .”

  “And why Indian girls and why adolescence?” Neil asks.

  Nobody at the party has asked that (or anything else about the book) yet.

  “Adolescence is hard enough, but when you’re Indian, you deal with different hurdles, like your mom not letting you shave your legs or your parents saying you can’t like boys because you have to do well in school.”

  “I see,” he says. “That’s very insightful of you.”

  Simran shrugs.

  “It is,” he says. “To make something that educates a lot of people and then gives solace to those who went through it.”

  “I’ve never thought of it that way before,” she says, mentally repeating his words. Her family and fiancé never thought of the project as a source of solace.

  “It’s true,” he says.

  Her phone buzzes with a group text from Sheila and Vishal.

  Vishal: You’re still talking to him?!

  Next to his question, there’s an emoji of a face with hearts for eyes. She turns her phone around.

  It doesn’t take long for Neil to pull up a chair to continue their conversation. They sit in the same positions long after the cupcakes are eaten and the champagne is drained. She asks him about Princeton, how he felt about letting go of a career as a physician, and tells him about her master’s in psychology. Somewhere between her latest research study and his
refusal to take the MCAT, she realizes that she’s no longer missing Kunal or even worried about the guests glancing at them, whispering to one another.

  When Neil scoots his chair closer to hers, she reaches under the table and slips off her engagement ring. There is a split second when she asks herself what the heck she’s doing, but she decides to ignore that voice. Sometimes it’s nice to leap out of character. Not discuss wedding planning for once.

  Thirty minutes later, her mom comes to their table.

  “Simran,” Nandini says in her ear. “It doesn’t look good to ignore everyone and just sit with one person, one boy, in the middle of your book party.”

  “Oh, so now it’s my book party?”

  Nandini places a firm hand on Simran’s shoulder. No daughter of hers will behave inappropriately. “Remember what I told you before. People are leaving and expect you to say bye to them.”

  Simran stands at the door to hug people goodbye but keeps glancing around the room to make eye contact with Neil. After her parents are gone and only her friends are left, she motions for Neil to join her at the table again. They discuss the trials that accompany being a writer: crappy first drafts, tedious revisions, countless rejection letters, self-doubt, and the tortured-artist complex that they both don’t have.

  If someone were to gaze through the glass double doors, they would see a pair of what seemed like long-lost friends, chatting effortlessly and cheerily, catching up on the years they’ve missed. The last people clear out, and the only sound is the clunk of cabs speeding over potholes.

  It already occurred to her that Neil talks to all sorts of people at all sorts of times, is probably just being nice, and will more than likely forget about her. But for the rest of the night, she will not think of her life. Not when she and Neil are confined in the walls of her party, not when he places his hand on the small of her back as they cross Fifth Avenue to her favorite twenty-four-hour diner, and not on her cab ride home, when the streets are cluttered with cheap pizza and discarded beer bottles.

  Nandini

  “She just doesn’t understand. She doesn’t even think. If she just took one second to reflect on why I say the things I do, then she’d realize that I’m right,” Nandini says.

  “WHAT? I CAN’T HEAR YOU!” Mami yells into the phone.

  “Mami, you don’t need to yell the way you had to when I used to call India. You’re not holding the phone up properly.”

  Nandini hears her mother mutter something in Gujarati, followed by the sounds of her adjusting her sari.

  “Okay, I can hear you,” Mami says, as if they don’t go through this during every phone call.

  Nandini repeats her earlier statement.

  “You’re doing what you’re supposed to do,” Mami says. “It’s your job to set boundaries and show her right from wrong.”

  “Yes, but she just doesn’t get it,” Nandini says. “We don’t . . . understand each other.”

  “Well, are you proud of her?”

  “What?” Nandini asks, as though she didn’t hear the question, when in fact her mother’s words were clear.

  “Are you proud of Simran? For her writing? For who she is in general?”

  “What kind of a question is that? Of course I’m proud!”

  “Of what? You have to say it.” Mami commands her like an elementary school teacher telling someone to recite the alphabet.

  Nandini clears her throat. “I think it’s impressive that she put together an essay collection. A book! It doesn’t even sound real when I say the words out loud. My daughter wrote a book. I know that couldn’t have been easy. And the way she depicted what girls go through during their teenage years. . . . It was thoughtful . . . and empathetic.”

  “It was,” Mami agrees. “And what about her? Are you proud of her?”

  “I am. . . .” Nandini’s voice trails off.

  “But what?”

  “But nothing,” Nandini says, and then adds, “I think there’s a lot that Simran still needs to realize, to learn. She’s getting married soon. And you and I both know that’s an entirely different game. To be spending time with another person—a boy—just sets her off on the wrong foot.”

  “I know what you’re saying, but that’s not what I asked you about,” Mami says. “Simran has said you never tell her you’re proud of her. That you just point out what she’s not doing right.”

  “That’s not true!” Nandini says. “I try to tell her, but she doesn’t hear it. When I say something—anything—she’s already waiting to take it the wrong way.”

  “That’s not true,” Mami says.

  “It is true. She never really hears what I’m trying to tell her.”

  “She’s coming from a different place than you. What do you expect?”

  Nandini bites her bottom lip. What does she expect? “I don’t know. I guess I hoped she and I could talk the way you and her talk.”

  “Our relationship is different.”

  “Yes, I know,” Nandini says, not bothering to mask the irritation in her voice.

  “Is it possible that maybe you, you know . . .” Mami’s voice trails off.

  “What? Is what possible? Just say it.”

  Mami scoffs. “Is it possible that you’re being a little harsh with her?”

  Of course her mother would go there. It doesn’t matter that Nandini has built a life in America, become a physician, and raised a family. Mami could always find a way to ask a question that poked a hole through all the self-confidence she spent years building.

  “Me? Harsh with her? And this is coming from you?”

  “I’m only ask—”

  “You took pride in being harsh with me when I was younger! You said that kids in my generation were too sensitive. And now, you get to be all soft with your granddaughter? How convenient! How things change! No wonder Simran talks to you more than she talks to me. You are completely different with her than you ever were with me.”

  Nandini sits in the recliner. She takes deep, heavy breaths. There was no point in going through this with her mother. It wouldn’t get them anywhere. It never did. She would never admit (not out loud, at least) that a part of her takes pride in Mami’s tenderness with Simran and Ronak. It was as if a new part of her came to life when she became a grandmother.

  “Never mind all of this,” Nandini says with a sigh. “How is the pipe repair?”

  “It’s fine. Just fine.”

  “At least something’s fine.” Nandini forces herself to get out of the recliner. She’s so tired that if she lets herself sit for too long, she’ll fall asleep. She walks toward the foyer. There’s an antique silver mirror by the front door, a gift from Ranjit’s sister, Charu. Nandini studies her reflection. Mami’s stubborn, strong DNA ensured that both Nandini and Simran inherited her slim, straight nose; her large, almond-shaped eyes; and her delicate chin. Nandini’s face is covered with products she only started using in America: Bobbi Brown blush and Elizabeth Arden lipstick. She still uses Pond’s talcum powder under her arms. It’s one of the few ways she’s managed to hold on to home. To Mami.

  “Everything is fine, Nandini,” Mami says in the same cheerful tone she uses with customer service representatives over the phone. Mami has that ability, to make people feel better just by talking to them and make them want to confide in her. Simran once overheard a Bloomingdale’s employee tell Mami about his wife’s affair and then offer her a free makeover.

  “Really? Fine? You can seriously say that?”

  To her surprise, Mami laughs. Laughs. As if Nandini is a little girl saying her first word.

  Something is going on with her mother. She’s been more detached lately. More relaxed. One year ago, her pipes bursting would have meant daily phone calls, maybe even a request for a visit to Baroda. But now, she doesn’t even seem to be rattled by the fact that the skeleton of her bungalow, th
e one Nandini grew up in, is slowly breaking.

  Should she be concerned about early dementia? Maybe she needs to get Mami’s thyroid checked. Nandini sees the changes that come with aging through her clinic patients every day. But it is entirely different when it is happening to Mami. She wonders if things would have been different if Papa was still alive.

  “Nandini, it’s going to be okay,” Mami says, her voice softening. “It always is. It was with you, right?”

  Nandini feels something inside of her crumple. “It was very not okay before it was.”

  “I know, beta.”

  Mami sighs, then clears her throat. “And speaking of . . . have you thought of telling Simran about . . .”

  “About what? That?”

  “Yes. That.” Again with the laugh.

  “What are you even saying? You think I should tell Simran about that? Now? Or ever?”

  “Maybe it would help. Dr. Phil had an entire episode on the importance of not keeping secrets.”

  “Well, if Dr. Phil says it, then it must be true.” Nandini covers her eyes and shakes her head. Why did she ever get her mother access to every television channel in the world?

  “I happen to agree with him,” Mami says with defiance, as if Nandini insulted a relative. “If you talk to Simran, she might understand you better.”

  “Understand me better? That would ruin her. Ruin everything! I can’t believe you would even think to bring that up as a possibility.”

  Nandini treated her past the way she treated the Atlantic Ocean. She visited often, even dipped her feet in at times, but always refused to be submerged.

  She couldn’t tell Simran about what happened all those years ago in India. Somehow, there are more things she’s kept from her daughter than she ever wanted. Simran doesn’t know about Nandini’s postpartum depression after Ronak’s birth. That entire time was a blur of fluids: Ronak’s urine, his tears, her tears. She remembers the endless mornings she spent carrying his stroller down the uneven brick steps and clutching him close to her. There were so many times she wondered if after everything she had been through and worked for, this was all it amounted to. Exhaustion, loneliness, and a gnawing sense of inadequacy.