Well-Behaved Indian Women

by Saumya Dave

  She nods. Her parents have only ever taken one vacation alone. A trip around northern India, years ago. She’s never even seen them kiss.

  “So would I. And I know you’ve mentioned that I want someone like my mom—traditional, tolerant—but that’s just not true.”

  “It is true,” she says. “You think that’s the way women are supposed to be.”

  Kunal shakes his head. “No. I’m glad you aren’t like her. You’re vivacious and fun. You always make me relax and have a good time. Relationships—marriages—work because people decide they’ll work. It’s a matter of perspective and what you’re willing to put in.”

  Maybe he has a point. Maybe some things haven’t really changed since their parents’ generation, and building a life with someone is a practical decision, a function of attitude, and not some fleeting rush of oxytocin.

  Kunal lowers his shoulders and exhales. “You know what I realized the other day? You’re the only person in my life who really understands me.”

  “What about your family? And med school friends?”

  He scrunches his face, considering this. “They know me well enough, sure. But you’re the only one I can be myself around. With everyone else, there’s some distance, in one way or another. But you take me the way I am. You make things fun, for God’s sake. Sometimes I get scared of my own issues and then I get pissed and don’t know what to do. And everything with Neil freaked me out because I thought, What if this guy is better than me? Better for you and better in general?”

  “We should talk about some things.” Simran moves to another cabinet to avoid looking at him.

  Kunal leans against the cabinets as if he’s here all the time, when really, it’s Simran who always goes over to his family’s house.

  “No,” he says, walking over to her. “I don’t care about all of the crap that’s happened so far. Neil, our fighting, whatever. You know that seven-year-itch theory? It says that when relationships reach seven years, they’ll hit this breaking point, where two people will realize they’re better off going their own separate ways, or they’ll stay together. If they stay, they can reach this new place that’s even better than what they had before.”

  A wave of fondness passes over her as she processes Kunal’s words. He’s always believed in them in a manner that’s logical but still infused with hope. He may be an adult in so many ways—being the man of the house when his father works long hours, tutoring his classmates—but there’s a part of him that stays vulnerable with her.

  They hold each other, anchored to her parents’ kitchen floor.

  When she doesn’t say anything, Kunal whispers, “I love you.”

  “I love you, too.” Simran pulls away from him, her heart rate quickening. “But there’s a lot I need to tell you about.”

  He clutches both of her hands. “Like what?”

  “Well, after we got into that fight at Wicked Willy’s, I we—”

  “Simran, where are those snacks?” Mom walks into the kitchen. Kunal jumps away from Simran as though he was electrocuted.

  Simran points to the bags. “I’ll bring them out now. Sorry, we were just talking.”

  “It’s fine. I’ll take care of it.” Mom darts from one corner of the kitchen to another. Simran helps her stack plates onto a tray. Mom’s breathing is heavier than before.

  “Mom, are you okay?”

  She nods. “Let’s get this food to everyone.”

  Kunal smiles at her. “How’s work going?”

  Poor Kunal. He’s just trying to make conversation and has no idea that speaking to Mom when she’s in this mode will only made her more frantic.

  “Work is fine,” she says. “But I might leave for India after things for your wedding are wrapped up.”

  Simran picks up the tray. “Why?”

  “I want to check on Mami. Something is going on, but I need to see her myself to make sure everything’s okay. And we have so many SkyMiles. I should use them. I don’t know how I’ll get off work since I’m already taking so much time off for the wedding, but I’ll figure it out.

  “If Mami would stop being so stubborn for five minutes, life would be easier for everyone. She knows it looks bad that she isn’t staying with family and is just living alone. In India, people stay with their families. That’s why nursing homes are such a foreign concept and are only now starting to be used. She would never agree to stay in one, but at least it would give her company. . . .”

  Mom continues to ramble to herself. Simran watches her scanning the kitchen, making sure she didn’t forget anything.

  “I’ll go,” Simran blurts.

  “You’ll what?” she asks.

  “I’ll go see Nani. I can leave after the engagement party. You stay. You’ll have to keep some guests here and wrap everything up. I can go.”

  And with those words, she feels a stirring, a pull she can’t ignore. She has to get away from here for a little bit. Get some space to breathe. Escape.

  “What?” Kunal asks at the same time Mom says, “What about school?”

  Kunal looks at Simran with raised eyebrows, as if to repeat her question.

  “I have some time off,” Simran says. “And I’m, um, just finishing up a project that can be done from anywhere. This won’t interfere with anything. I want to see Nani, too.”

  “You would go to India?” Kunal asks. “Just like that?”

  “Yeah. I would,” she says.

  India, where nobody knows her except Nani. She pictures herself on a plane, flying away from all of this.

  “How long would you stay there for?”

  “I’m not really sure. I can use the trip to get some of my wedding shopping done,” she says, throwing in a final bargaining chip.

  “Well, okay,” Mom says. “We should be planning your shopping soon anyway. If you’re sure it’s manageable with school and everything, we’ll book a ticket for you this weekend. Now come on, let’s go back and sit together.”

  Mom walks ahead of them. Kunal and Simran sneak in a quick kiss, the type that somehow still makes her feel distant from him. She lets out a sigh of relief she didn’t realize she was holding. She’s getting away soon.

  As Kunal weaves his fingers through hers, she realizes they didn’t discuss anything that was on her mind. They walk out of the kitchen, and she wonders why it was so much easier to be open with Neil than the man she’s going to marry.

  Nandini

  “Have you thought about what you’re doing to do?” Greg asks.

  “I’ve been thinking about it nonstop.” Nandini keeps her voice soft and closes her office door. There are already five patients waiting to see her at the clinic. She takes deep, steady breaths. There’s no need to get overwhelmed.

  “And . . .” Greg trails off for her to fill in.

  “It’s a lot to take on.”

  On his end, Nandini hears the beep, beep, beep of heart rate monitors and a series of overhead pages. She pictures Greg wandering through the gray hospital halls with purpose, the same halls where he taught her the things she needed to know about patient care, about herself.

  “I’ve been worried. I am worried,” she says.

  Greg sighs. “It’s never going to be easy or simple. But you just have to do it. Decide. Commit.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you?”

  “Of course,” she lies.

  How could he understand the self-doubt that hums in her mind? Therapy taught her how to turn down its volume, but it’s still there every day, waiting to invade her thoughts.

  “You know, I’ve constantly been doing things for other people,” Nandini says. “And when you’ve been that way for so long, you forget how to even decide what the right thing is. You question yourself.”

  “I hear you,” he says. “But if you stay there, you’ll keep living for other
people. You know that.”

  There’s a knock at her door from Suzanne, her nurse. “Dr. Mehta, your ten-o’clock patient wants you to write her a letter that says she has to bring her golden retriever on flights for emotional support.”

  Nandini presses the mute button on her phone. “Can you tell her I won’t be able to write that? Those letters take time and require a lot of information.”

  “Got it,” Suzanne says.

  Nandini hears the squeak of Suzanne’s sneakers as she saunters toward the waiting room.

  “Sorry about that. I should get going.”

  Before she can hang up, she’s interrupted by another knock from Suzanne. “Sorry, Dr. Mehta. The patient is insisting that you write the letter and she isn’t leaving until you do.”

  Nandini tells Greg she’ll call him back.

  “I’m sorry,” Suzanne says after Nandini has stepped out of her office. “I tried to explain everything to her.”

  “It’s okay. Just another day. Let me go talk to her now.” Nandini keeps a smile on her face, but inside, she can feel the frustration churning and building.

  The patient, a girl with freckles and curly hair, is already standing near the reception desk instead of sitting in one of the chairs and reading a magazine. It’s as if she knew Nandini would be looking for her.

  “Are you Dr. Mehta?” The girl adjusts her Rutgers University sweatshirt. She must be around Simran’s age, maybe a couple of years younger.

  “Yes, nice to meet you.”

  When the girl doesn’t say her name, Nandini says, “Now, let’s go back into one of the rooms and ta—”

  “I need a support letter for my dog.”

  Nandini points toward the exam rooms. “I think it’s better if we discuss this privately instead of in the waiting area.”

  “I need the letter, like, now,” she says.

  “It’s really better if we go to t—”

  “Why? Can you even speak English? I need a letter so my dog can get on the flight.”

  Years ago, Nandini would have held on to these words and replayed them over and over on the car ride home. Now, she feels a mixture of sadness and helplessness and anger. The girl is scared and lashing out at her. It isn’t personal. She can see things like that now, things that would have bothered her before.

  “I understand you’re frustrated, but I think we should talk in another place,” she says.

  “Dr. Mehta, are you really going to see her before me? It’s already time for my appointment.”

  Nandini turns to face Kevin, one of her geriatric patients. “I’ll be with you soon, I promise.”

  She can’t tell Kevin that the clinic double booked her throughout the day so she can see more patients. Keep the visits short and focused, the director told her. There’s no need to get into long conversations with your patients. They have to be in and out.

  Maria, a fifty-year-old woman Nandini has been seeing for ten years, stands up. “I need to see you soon, too, Dr. Mehta, but if you want me to come back tomorrow, that’s fine.”

  Nandini scans the rest of the waiting area. Their family friend Arun is waiting with his mother, who is visiting from Canada.

  Every day, she thinks. Every day there’s someone from my personal life who shows up without an appointment and expects me to drop everything to see them.

  “I’ll meet with everyone as soon as I can. I promise,” she says, loud enough for the entire waiting room to hear.

  The girl who needs the support letter storms out of the clinic, muttering things under her breath.

  Nandini starts seeing her patients in fifteen-minute blocks. A blur of images come to her mind throughout the day. Nandini, serving tea to her future in-laws while Mami nodded with approval. Nandini, chopping ginger and garlic in the dark morning hours before she went to the clinic, so that Ranjit’s family would have a fresh Indian breakfast. Nandini, going to parent-teacher conferences alone, because it was expected for her to leave her job for the children and not for her husband. Nandini, wiping and crying and soothing and serving.

  Nine hours later, she shuffles back toward her office and calls Greg.

  “I’m done with it,” she says. “All of it.”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “This place isn’t working for me. It never did. Every day, I wake up with this dread in the pit of my stomach. And then I get here and I’m just going through the motions, trying to make it to the end. I’ve lost touch with why I even became a doctor. I can’t do this anymore.”

  Her voice starts to break. She can’t cry. She’s given too much of herself, of her emotions, her hope, her potential, to this place.

  “I’ll take the job,” she says. The words hang heavy around her.

  “You’re serious.” Greg says the words as more of a statement than anything else, almost as if to confirm Nandini realizes what she’s saying.

  “I’m serious. Enough is enough. I need to do what I’ve always wanted to do. Be the type of doctor I thought I was working to be in residency, before I lost myself to . . . life.”

  They talk for a few more minutes, and when she hangs up the phone, she feels a sense of relief for the first time in years.

  Eight

  Simran

  The engagement puja is a blur. Kunal and Simran sit side by side in front of a mahajara priest, who chants Sanskrit hymns and gives them instructions for the rituals, steps to ensure a healthy marriage, which they conduct in fixed, robotic movements. Their parents and siblings sit behind them. Everyone else is arranged around the room, their legs folded and palms clasped together.

  Simran feels like an outsider, suspended above the room, watching herself audition for the role of a good Indian wife. Polite smile. Shaking legs that are concealed under an eggplant-colored sari. Being an Indian bride is a careful game of addition and subtraction.

  Add: eyelash extensions, fake smile, layers of makeup, and clothes that weigh as much as an eight-year-old child.

  Subtract: hair anywhere except from the head and a minimum of five pounds. Every time she says a prayer, she feels a mixture of gratitude, relief, and confusion. This is what her life was always supposed to look like. Things are finally working out. She didn’t screw everything up. There’s no time to focus on why it doesn’t feel the way she thought it would.

  After the puja, Kunal and Simran bow down to all their elders and ask for their blessings. Some give them cash folded in tattered envelopes. Large plates of panda and ghor papdi sweets are passed around the room. The extinguished incense spreads the smell of jasmine through the house. Songs from nineties Bollywood movies blast through the speakers, each one its own pocket of time travel. They pose for professional photographs with their families.

  At one point, Kunal squeezes her hand and whispers, “We made it.”

  “We really did. All the way from the lacrosse field to here,” Simran says as she tries to refrain from kissing him and getting cursed by all the uncles and aunties who think only married people should have physical contact.

  Many of the aunties stop her to offer their precious wisdom.

  Do not get Samiya as your wedding decorator. She is our friend, but she is a beetch. Your entire reception will look like peacocks exploded all over it. Blue! Green! Blue! Green!

  Please make sure the venue has good Wi-Fi. I need to tag my Facebook photos ASAP!

  My aunt’s sister’s friend’s son wants to come to the wedding. That’s okay, right? Nobody should feel left out.

  Kejal Auntie, one of Simran’s favorite family friends, puts both of her arms around her. “Simi, beta, you’re going to have a royal wedding!”

  “I’m not sure about that, but thank you,” she says.

  “No, it’ll be better than any of the royal weddings, I know it. Those brides have nothing on you!”

  “Well, I love them an
d think they’ve all got a lot on me, which is great.” Simran knows all too well that Kejal Auntie and so many of their other friends obsessed over every detail of every royal wedding. They still watch parts from Diana’s, Kate’s, and Meghan’s ceremonies.

  “Hm, well, are you going to do one of those crazy wedding diets?”

  “I don’t know. Probably not,” she says.

  “Really? You’re not?” Kejal Auntie asks.

  Marital status and weight are two of the most popular topics among Indian aunties. Simran thinks Kejal Auntie can’t even help herself.

  “It’s not in my plans right now,” Simran says as she recalls some of the miserable and unhealthy practices her married friends endured, from 1,100-calorie days to Atkins diets to creating Pinterest boards just for “thin-spiration.”

  “Good for you, beta. No need to make yourself miserable during a time of your life that’s supposed to be happy. And speaking of, I also wanted to talk to you about some other things. . . .”

  “Such as?” Simran asks, not sure if she wants to know.

  “You know, marriage tips. Things to keep in mind in the bedroom.”

  “Wow, that’s so . . . um, nice,” she says. “Maybe another time.”

  “Ah, I see. You already know about all that, don’t you? No tips needed for you!”

  A warmth spreads to Simran’s face. This can’t be real.

  Kejal Auntie leans closer and lowers her voice. “Good for you, beta. Do you know how much all of us had to suffer with these men who had no idea what they were doing? It’s always better to test a man out before sealing the deal.”

  She winks and adjusts her sky blue sari, which makes her look like an Indian version of the chubby, grumpy fairy from Sleeping Beauty.

  The Indian Sleeping Beauty fairy with sex tips.

  Simran wipes a bead of sweat off her stomach. “Thank you, auntie. That sounds really um, exciting. I should go change out of this sari.”

  Time passes in a blur of sensory overload. Grilled onions, cumin, and chili powder permeate the room. Some uncles and aunties stop her to take a selfie. Others form clusters around the table of dosas and uttapam. Glasses of red wine sparkle like rubies. Adults split pistachio-filled Indian sweets and sing along to the Bollywood songs. Everyone is intoxicated—no, overdosed—on wedding fever. There’s nothing like a big group of overbearing Indians to remind you that shit is real.