Well-Behaved Indian Women

by Saumya Dave

  In India, after a woman gave birth, she usually had a tribe of women in her family waiting to help her. In America, everything had to be managed alone. When Nandini told her family in India about her crying spells, fleeting thoughts of jumping off a balcony, and the weight on her chest, they told her to “stay quiet and get over it because it’s all in your head.” Mami was the only one who covertly offered to give her money for a therapist.

  But omitting that part of her life from her daughter was nothing compared to what Mami was referring to. How could her mother possibly think Simran could handle that?

  “Okay,” Mami says now, her voice still gentle. “Forget I said anything.”

  “It’s my job to protect Simran,” Nandini says. “And make sure she doesn’t make mistakes that cost her everything.”

  There’s silence on the other end, but she knows what Mami’s thinking. Make sure she doesn’t make mistakes like you did.

  “Maybe this is what I should have expected from settling in America. This culture promotes kids to think for themselves, act on emotion. I just . . . don’t want her to get hurt.”

  As she keeps talking, she hears her biggest fear crystallize. She came to America to escape what had happened in India, but what if, despite everything she’s done, she somehow screws things up for her daughter?

  “She won’t get hurt,” Mami says. “She’ll be fine.”

  “Okay . . . she won’t.” Nandini repeats her mother’s words again and again, hoping that with enough time, she’ll believe them.

  Two

  Simran

  It only takes five days for Simran to see Neil again. Five. Days. He ended his nice-to-meet-you e-mail with an invitation to his favorite dessert place. She still can’t understand how this is actually happening to her, how in a matter of one week, her world is larger.

  She pictures her mother’s face during the party, insisting that she think of the guests. That’s what she’s done her entire life: think of the guests. Even after she left for college, if there was a family party, she always took the PATH train home to help. Evenings before a family party were spent frying pooris, a crispy fried Indian bread, and taking out the folding chairs from the basement. Evenings of a family party were spent making sure the men were dining while the women prepared gulab jamun, sweet donuts, for dessert.

  Today, the East Village is bursting with its usual characters: post-college guys in colorful socks and even more colorful glasses, girls with pink hair and multiple piercings, women gripping a bottle of water in one hand and a tightly wound yoga mat in another.

  As Simran makes her way downtown, Beyoncé’s voice blasts through her headphones and encourages her to be a powerful woman. New York is settling into spring, with its pungent cherry blossoms and Lululemon-clad joggers. Food trucks spread the whiff of fried treats. A group of break dancers collects tips in a giant white bucket. Next to them, a homeless man naps on a frayed slab of cardboard. He has a sign propped up behind him: VETERAN WHO SERVED HIS COUNTRY AND HAS NO FOOD OR MONEY.

  After months of winter, the warm weather seems to infuse new life into the city. Everyone’s in a good mood. Even the homeless man has woken up and started bobbing to the break dancers’ music. He somehow still manages to flick off random pedestrians for not dropping money into his box.

  She passes Fourteenth Street and Second Avenue, where she once saw John Krasinski, her celebrity crush, and Emily Blunt walking their dog. They all locked eyes as she was in the middle of biting a massive cinnamon roll. She likes to tell herself that under different circumstances, they surely would have become instant friends.

  Her heart starts pounding when she’s two blocks away from Neil. In a matter of moments, Milk Bar isn’t just going to be a place where she, Sheila, and Vishal ate cake pops to avoid studying for finals. Now, it’s about to be a place where she’ll see a role model. A fleeting opportunity to be around someone doing grand things.

  She runs her fingers through her hair. If only she had a mirror. She shifts her lackadaisical walk into a strut, because that’s what Beyoncé would do.

  Neil is already standing outside the restaurant. He’s reading something on his phone and grinning, the dimple marking his cheek like a tiny crescent moon.

  Her eyes take time to adjust to him, the way they take time to adjust to darkness when the lights are suddenly switched off. He’s GQ casual in a fitted, white crewneck shirt and slim-fit jeans. She envisions this to be the type of outfit he wore while he sauntered through Princeton’s plush campus, contemplating his next writing topic.

  “Hey, you!” Neil says when he sees her crossing the sidewalk. “It’s good to see you again.”

  He puts down his camel messenger bag and reaches forward for a full hug at the same second that she stretches for a handshake. She somehow ends up giving him a ginger pat on his back. Very smooth, Simran. Very smooth.

  “Good to see you, too,” Simran says, her breath slowing down but her fingers still tingling.

  “You look . . . elegant,” he says.

  “Thanks.” A rush of warmth spreads from her cheeks to her neck. She’s wearing a white dress and pink pumps from Zara. An outfit that’s flattering and understated, she hopes. Nani always tells her that her eyes are her strongest feature, so she spent extra time making sure her eyeliner was even. One day, she’ll be effortlessly chic, like those women who always have fresh manicures and blowouts. One day.

  “Shall we?” Neil asks, motioning to the restaurant.

  Milk Bar doesn’t have any chairs but instead has one C-shaped wooden table where people are standing and sharing desserts. The piping is exposed, and silver lamps are spaced across the ceiling in an “industrial chic” look.

  Once they’re inside, Neil asks her if she’s thought of writing another essay or article.

  “I’m not sure,” she says. Nobody else has asked this. But Neil’s sincere curiosity makes her want to have creative ideas and not dismiss that part of herself.

  “There are so many topics I’d like to learn more about so I can spread that information to others. But therapy is more about focusing on the individual patient and working with them over a period of time. So even though I’ve had some ideas, it’s been hard to focus on them with school.”

  “What are some of your ideas?”

  She glances at his even, clean fingernails. “I thought of doing a piece about how in our culture, boys are treated differently from girls, whether that’s in Indian villages or even here. Then I considered researching how a girl’s ambition changes from elementary school to adulthood based on messages she’s received from people around her.”

  “Those sound like great topics,” Neil says. “And ones you could do a lot with.”

  “And I really think that people need to know about them. Think about them. Discuss them,” she says. “There’s some data that was recently published about rates of depression in Asian American girls, so if I touched on that, I could combine my journalism and psychology background. You know, I thought journalism and psychology were so similar. And they are, to an extent, but there are certain differences that I haven’t appreciated until I started school.”

  “Such as?”

  “It’s funny, I’ve been thinking about this for a while but haven’t been able to talk about it with anyone,” she says, hoping Neil can understand how much this means to her. “Well, I knew therapy was obviously about working with people and their issues privately, but there’s something to be said about being able to pass that information along to others. Make sense of it on a bigger scale, you know? I didn’t think of that in college, or really, until my master’s program.”

  “Yes, I can see what you’re saying,” he says with the same patience and understanding she imagines he has with people he interviews for his own articles.

  “It’s so nice to be able to actually talk about this with you.” She holds herself back fr
om saying that he’s made her feel more encouraged in a few minutes than everyone else has in a few months.

  “Always important to find your people.” Neil gives another Crest-commercial-worthy grin. “Have you by any chance heard of Laura Martinez?”

  “I only have several of her articles printed and taped to my wall!” Simran says. “And I might have preordered her next book the first second possible.”

  Laura Martinez writes monthly psychology articles for The New Yorker. She has a book about sociopaths coming out in two months.

  Neil laughs. “She’s a friend.”

  “Really? A friend?” Simran asks. She shouldn’t be surprised.

  “Really. She’s probably going to have an event for her next book at the Strand.”

  “Ah, the Strand.” Simran pictures the tall rows of books and book-related accessories. “Easily my favorite place in the city.”

  “Not surprised to hear that. I think you could do something similar to her, if you wanted, considering your background, as you said.”

  “I don’t know. I mean, the psychology coursework is taking over my life right now, and there’s still a lot I want to learn about before I even consider writing anything.”

  “So learn,” he says, as if she just told him she wants an iced coffee. “Ask people questions. Research. And maybe your work doesn’t have to be in the form of a book. Have you considered submitting articles to different publications? That might be more feasible for you right now, to do shorter pieces that are more spread out instead of something more time-consuming.”

  “I did write some rough drafts of articles during college,” she tells him. “Maybe I could go back through those.”

  Neil nods. “Sounds good.”

  “Not that any of that matters right now,” she says. “Nobody took my book seriously.”

  “Hey, my niece did! And I’m halfway through it myself . . .”

  Her legs start to shake. “You are?”

  “I am. And I think it’s wonderful, to say the least.”

  Wonderful?! Neil Desai called something she did wonderful?

  Before she can respond, Neil asks, “What about your family? I’m sure they think the world of your work.”

  “I’m not sure. I know my parents threw a party, but really, they’ve always considered it an innocuous side thing. A safe hobby. I worked on the essays throughout college and then submitted the collection to a bunch of small presses that didn’t require an agent. An editor accepted it, and within a year, I had a book. Even though I saw it as a onetime project, it was exciting for me, but to my family—to everyone—if something isn’t financially stable or in some scientific field, it isn’t worth any time. Nobody gets the point.

  “Except my grandmother, my mom’s mom,” she adds. “I grew up with her telling me stories about the Indian goddesses, and she always encouraged me to write about them. But she’s in India and doesn’t like coming here, losing her independence. So, that’s that. . . .”

  She trails off, unsure of why she divulges all these details so willingly.

  “You know, everyone thinks it’s so fun and easy to write articles. People still ask me when I’m going to get a real job,” Neil says.

  “I know, right? Nobody thinks you’re actually working when you’re writing.”

  Neil thoughtfully stares at the blackboard menu and asks the girl behind the cash register how she’s doing. She grins, a soft blush forming on her cheeks. He and Simran decide to share three cookies, a bottle of cereal milk—the kind that has the sweet, post-cereal taste to it—and a few truffles, which Neil insists she take home. He pays before she even has the chance to offer her wallet.

  “So, you sure know the menu well,” she says.

  She sticks two straws in the bottle and then removes hers. It makes it look like two high school kids sharing a milk shake. She wrings her hands together, not knowing what else to do with them.

  “I know. I know.” Neil chuckles and splits a compost cookie into two uneven sections and hands Simran the larger piece. “I’ve been here way too many times. It’s ridiculous how much money I spend on food. And by ridiculous, I mean terrible.”

  She smiles and looks down. Neil Desai is the type of guy to grab dessert on a whim. He’s probably the type to do many things on a whim—make out in an alleyway, splurge on a wallet, book a vacation. Kunal has everything planned days, sometimes years, in advance.

  Neil sighs and pats his flat stomach. “I’m such a glutton. Or, I’m so gluttonous. Which do you prefer?”

  Simran strokes her chin and pretends to contemplate an answer. “Gluttonous. I always prefer a nice adjective over a noun.”

  “Same here.” Neil breaks out into a large grin.

  “You know,” he says, “I don’t think I ever actually finished a book in high school. Like those required readings. Never did them.”

  “What?” she asks, half suspicious, half surprised. “Yeah right. Mr. Princeton couldn’t get through Catcher in the Rye?”

  “Maybe I read that one.” Neil smirks, as though he’s actually a high school dropout. “But seriously, I was kind of a slacker when it came to school. I applied to Princeton early decision and turned in the application on the deadline day. You know how Indian parents compete with their kids’ academic achievements? Well, my dad tried to teach me that ‘B stands for bad’ in middle school after some auntie told him her son was going to take college math—or something ridiculous like that—because everything else was too easy for him.”

  “There’s nothing more annoying than an Indian auntie who won’t stop bragging about her kids.” She straightens her posture and raises one eyebrow at him. “Are you one of those smart people who acts like he doesn’t do anything, when he secretly studies for ten hours a day? I can’t stand those.”

  “No, no,” Neil says, his smile becoming wider. “That’s honestly why I knew I couldn’t go to med school. I could never handle all that studying.”

  She pictures the way Kunal looks in the library, wearing a sweat shirt and jeans, curled over his books with a thermos of green tea as his only company. She heard that medical school serves as a type of academic shock for people because after years of being at the top of their class in college, they join an entire group of students who were also overachievers and suddenly feel average. That never happened with Kunal. He’s the king of the type A workaholics. He’s the one who everyone follows around the anatomy lab before the practical. He’s the one who doesn’t need to abuse Adderall, like so many of his classmates, because of his sheer discipline.

  “Yeah, I don’t know how they do it,” she agrees. “My fiancé’s actually finishing his first year . . . at NYU Med.”

  At the word “fiancé,” Neil’s eyes dart to her now-adorned ring finger, and he almost seems to lose composure for a swift second before getting it back.

  She moves her left hand to her lap. “Yeah, I really don’t know how he does it. He’s the most hardworking person I know.”

  “I bet.” Neil whistles, running his fingers through his slightly parted hair. With the ends slightly curled out to the sides, it moves too much for him to use a lot of product. “So, tell me more. How long have you guys been together? How did he propose?”

  She takes a deep breath, and her sentences emerge in nonsensical fragments. “It happened a few months ago. He hid the ring in my high school locker and told me there was a surprise in there when we went back for our five-year reunion. . . . We’ve been together since high school . . . for seven years.”

  Neil’s eyes widen behind his glasses. “Seven years?! Holy shit. So when’s the wedding?”

  She laughs at this standard reaction to her relationship length. “Next summer, so we have over a year to plan. Honestly, neither of us is really in a rush since we’ve both got a long way to go with our educations. But planning just started, so that means everyone is
getting involved.”

  She still doesn’t understand why she omitted that tiny detail about being engaged until now.

  Neil laughs. “And the floodgates of expectations and demands have just opened.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Well, I guess if you two have been together that long,” Neil says, “you’re pretty much married.”

  Simran shrugs and nods, thinking that their union does often feel as though it contains the reliable comfort of a marriage. Or at least what she thinks a marriage would have, since she can’t use their parents’ arranged marriages as a measuring stick. She and Kunal often joke that their relationship is like an “arranged dating” situation: both of them embraced the commitment from their parents’ arranged marriages and applied it to their own.

  “Are you in a relationship?” she asks, regretting the words as soon as they leave her mouth.

  Neil shifts in his chair. “Not really.”

  “Not really?”

  “It’s, uh, complicated. Long story.”

  “Sure, I get it,” she says.

  She doesn’t get it at all.

  While Simran and Neil eat, they learn that both of them come from doctor parents, have older brothers (Neil also has a younger sister), and love watching the Food Network. They also learn that they both had slob roommates during the first two years of college. The entire conversation passes quickly, and although Simran can’t remember if she’s ever had this much fun with someone she barely knows, she imagines that Neil has this type of effortless, lighthearted time with many people.

  She glances out the window and notices an Indian woman walking with her son across the street. She’s wearing a blue, cotton salwar kameez, the type of outfit that Simran’s mom only wears when she visits India.