The committee stood before me, dressed in suits and ties, holding pink slips and grade reports, and asked me to explain my work. I began haltingly, trying to articulate unconscious thoughts and subliminal reasons into coherent, perfectly formed sentences. I faltered halfway through. When they questioned me as to why I had put wheelchairs in my work, I didn’t have an answer. When they asked why I had chosen circles as my mode of expression, I gesticulated expressively, said something that didn’t make much sense even to myself. I failed miserably in the Q&A.
My professors conferred amongst themselves and came back with a proposal. They were going to let me pass my exam if I rearranged my installation according to their interpretation of it. Since I couldn’t explain what it was, they had no choice but to infer, they said, and change my piece to suit their inference.
I was in shock. What my professors were suggesting seemed like sacrilege, especially after DeLonga’s emphasis on the sanctity of each person’s art. It was like erasing someone’s painting and drawing something else in its place.
How could they do this? I thought. All right, I said.
Greely and I changed the circular arrangement into a linear one. He removed some pieces and put them in storage. He tried to be considerate and included me in his decision making. “I think we should take out this piece, don’t you?” he said, as he removed a structure that didn’t seem to fit his new installation.
Two hours later all six professors signed the pink slip and “approved” my thesis. They sent it to the dean of the school so that it could be translated into a master of fine arts degree. I was now a bona fide MFA graduate.
I couldn’t sleep that night. I kept telling myself that it was no big deal, but it was. I had visions of going into the museum with spray paint and spraying graffiti all over the walls.
The next morning I got up early and went to the museum. I was like an automaton, propelled by an instinct that I hadn’t consciously articulated, even to myself. There were a couple of administrators who had just come in to work. I asked one of them for keys to the storage room, and he handed them to me without demurring. I brought out all my pieces and began arranging the whole installation exactly the way I had originally done it. I didn’t know if I was being courageous or foolhardy. I was sure that there would be repercussions, but I also knew that I couldn’t live with myself if I left it just the way it was. After I reinstalled my piece I went home.
I heard from the school right away. Later that day I went to the sculpture studio. Someone—I’m not sure who—told me that the university had revoked my degree, since I had changed the installation. I was not surprised and yet I was: I had expected them to react but not this harshly.
“You should protest,” said my dad, the college professor. “A college cannot pass a student and then fail her. Once they sign the paper and approve your candidacy, it means that you’ve satisfied all their requirements. They cannot change their minds after that.”
“They just did,” I replied.
“You should fight,” my dad said.
Other friends said the opposite. Why don’t you just go and say you’re sorry, get your degree, and go out into the world? Why lose the degree you’ve worked so hard for to prove a point? And what are you trying to prove?
I had no answer. I knew that I was in the midst of something that would determine how I felt about myself ten years later. Was it impractical and childish to throw away a master’s degree through my own actions, or was it principled and idealistic to stand up for what I believed in? A decade later would I be proud of my actions or regret them? Deep in my heart, I already knew the answer. By changing the exhibit and eschewing a degree, I was saying that my art was more important than a degree, and I knew that wouldn’t change after ten years or a lifetime.
I didn’t call DeLonga. I knew that what he said would influence me unduly, and this was my battle, my test. I wanted the decision to be fully mine, even though the whole world seemed to disagree with me. Sometimes it was terrifying. I sat in my dark bedroom one evening, looking at the official piece of paper brusquely informing me that my degree had been revoked. All that money down the drain, all my work had come to nothing. What was I doing?
I had no answer. My brain had shut down. I cooked like a maniac. When the school informed me that I had to clear my things from the art studio, I bought bags of potatoes, mashed them, coated them in butter, and licked them up, comforted by their gooey warmth. When the campus bulletin carried a photograph of the Graduate Art Exhibit, listing every student’s name except mine, I furiously chopped cloves of garlic and dunked them into a spicy rasam. I drank hot milk spiked with saffron and cardamom. I craved my mother’s idlis. And I called a friend who worked at the local newspaper.
I didn’t want my degree, I said, not after they had altered my piece beyond recognition, but I wanted to create a stink about it. Was there anything I could do?
The next day, the Commercial Appeal ran a front-page story titled, “Student’s Degree Revoked in MSU Art Debate.”
FRIENDS CAME to commiserate and check whether I was okay. I received them like a Southern belle at a ball. I wiped my tears, put cool cucumber over my puffy, red-rimmed eyes, and gaily opened the door. I fried samosas and bajjis, made amazingly soft dhoklas from chickpea flour, and stirred cream of coconut into a curried tomato soup. I tossed enough salad to feed everyone in Graceland. The low point was when I ate a gargantuan pot of plain white rice and ghee at midnight. The high point was when Pankaj from Delhi came to visit and I served a tropical fruit chaat, dusted with black salt, cumin, and pepper in crystal bowls that I inherited from a previous roommate.
THE NEXT DAY I locked myself in my bedroom and contemplated my future. After five years in America, four as an art student, I had no degree to speak of. Was it important to have a degree? Or didn’t it matter? What would DeLonga have done? What would Jennifer have done? I hadn’t called any of my friends; I had been caught up in just getting from day to day, hour to hour. That, and cooking.
Over the next week my future, or lack thereof, became final. The list of graduates didn’t have my name on it. At that point I simply collapsed. I didn’t leave my apartment for days. A painter friend agreed to keep my car while I figured out what to do. Steven, a potter, said he would store all my sculptures in his gigantic garage. My Indian friends rallied around, clucking like hens. They pressed me to move forward, apply for jobs, transfer to a different school, sue the university. Do something, they said—anything.
I booked a ticket to India. I wanted to go home.
FRUIT CHAAT
I am at a nightclub in Boston, a fanciful place owned by two Russian sisters of uncertain descent, renowned for drenching its patrons with vodka at the stroke of midnight. My friends and I come here after a long day at the studio—to smoke, dance, drink, and eat skewered, grilled fruit served on long trays. The menu has a Russian word for them. I simply dust the fruit with the chaat masala I carry with me and call it fruit chaat. Charred to perfection, it tastes great with vodka.
Juice of 2 lemons
Juice of 2 oranges
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons chaat masala (available in Indian grocery stores)
1 red Delicious apple, peeled and cut into 1/2- inch cubes
1 Anjou or Bartlett pear, peeled and cut into 1/2- inch cubes
2 oranges, peeled, halved, and cut into 1/2- inch slices
3/4 cup fresh pomegranate seeds
1 cup green seedless grapes
1 cup red seedless grapes
1 ripe mango, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
Mint leaves
Mix the two juices, salt, sugar, and chaat masala well in a large serving bowl. Add the fruits one by one. Mix well. Garnish with mint leaves and chill well before serving.
FIFTEEN
Arranged Marriage
WE SAT AROUND the dining table, my family and I, replete from yet another home-cooked South Indian dinne
r. It was my brother who asked the question.
“Shoba, instead of returning to the States right away, why don’t you stay back here for a few months so we can try to get your marriage fixed? I mean, you’ve seen how it is. You in the States, us here . . . it isn’t working out.”
Three pairs of eyes stared at me from across the dining table. I could feel my shoulder blades tightening. My car was still in Memphis, my sculptures with Steven. I had applied to the Vermont Studio Center, an artists’ colony in Johnson, Vermont, and had been accepted. I wanted to hurry back to the States, make more art, put my experience in Memphis to rest, catch up with friends. My life was over there. And Shyam was asking me to stay. I should have expected this. From the moment I had arrived in Madras a month ago, my family had been preoccupied with arranging my marriage. My horoscope had been matched with those of eligible bachelors, my parents had met other parents, I had even met one candidate—an engineer from Oklahoma—but we didn’t like each other.
But staying back just to get married?
If my parents had asked the question, I could have immediately dismissed it as old-fashioned and preposterous. But Shyam was my peer, my brother, and my ally. I couldn’t dismiss his opinions. As a merchant-marine sailor, he was as much a renegade as I was, eschewing a traditional engineering or medical degree to command ships on high seas. He had seen more of the world than I had. It wasn’t as if he was a traditionalist wearing conservative blinders.
“It’s not that simple,” I began. “What about my car in Memphis, my job in Vermont?”
“We could find you someone in America,” my dad replied. “You could go back to the States.”
They had thought it all out. This was a plot. I glared at my parents.
Yet a part of me rationalized the whole thing. It wasn’t as if I had a lot to go back to in the States. I was still traumatized by the whole experience in Memphis. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do once my summer job in Vermont was over. Why not give this arranged-marriage thing a shot? If all else failed, I could refuse to get married at the last minute.
Arranged marriages used to be very common in India, although they are becoming less so in urban areas. When I was growing up, everyone I knew had an arranged marriage, so it seemed entirely natural that I would have one too. Nowadays, young people in most cities date, fall in love, and get married, although arranged marriages—like many of India’s traditions—persist too.
Once I agreed to postpone my departure, my family went into overdrive. My mother called her large circle of friends for names of bachelors, Shyam postponed his own departure to assist in the process, and my father reopened his “horoscope file.”
My father had taken to studying astrology while arranging my marriage. As horoscopes of various men began trickling into the house, Dad abandoned English literature for astrological charts. He looked for two things in a match: balance and cyclicality, so that my strengths would balance the man’s weaknesses and vice versa. In my horoscope, the planet Venus, responsible for artistic abilities, wields a strong influence. So for balance my father sought out men’s horoscopes in which Mercury—responsible for business acumen—was in a good position.
The other aspect was cyclicality—the crests and troughs of a person’s life. Well-matched horoscopes are those in which one partner’s fortunes can balance the other’s misfortunes—that is, when the husband is undergoing a low period, the wife—ideally—should be riding a high.
Not all Indian families believe in horoscopes. I once asked my dad why he does. It was a warm April evening, almost a month after our conversation around the dining table, and my father, Shyam, and I were sitting out in the garden. Teddy was sniffing the jasmine bushes, the crickets were just beginning to chirp, and my mom was standing by the gate, gossiping with a neighbor.
“How accurate is this horoscope-matching process?” I asked. “You don’t actually believe in it, do you?”
Dad thought for a minute. “Why don’t you think of it as a way of narrowing the universe?” he offered. “As a tool, a word from God if you will.”
“But what about love?” I asked. What about chemistry? I thought.
“You’ve had your chance,” Shyam said. “You had five years alone in a foreign country to fall in love. You goofed. As usual.”
I glared at him. “Yeah, yeah. Let’s see how you do. Let’s see who you marry.”
“I know who I’ll marry,” Shyam replied. “I’ll marry a beautiful Iyer girl who can cook well, and who’ll be at least four years younger than me.”
“Why four years?” my dad asked curiously.
“So I can boss her around and not have to put up with all this feminist stuff that Shoba comes up with,” my brother replied smirking.
“What?” I was outraged. “I can’t believe you said that.” My brother’s views shocked me, especially since I thought I had trained him to be an emancipated male. “Haven’t you thought about falling in love?” I asked Shyam.
“And then what?” he replied. “Sail off into the sunset? I don’t have all these fantasies like you do. Think about it, Shoba. How do you think Mom and Dad will feel if I married an American? Never mind that they won’t be able to show their face around here . . .”
I glanced at my dad, who smiled tolerantly but said nothing. “You’re exaggerating,” I said.
“Yes, but not by much,” Shyam replied. “And what about small pleasures like laughing over Sardarji jokes or singing old Hindi songs? If I married a foreigner, she wouldn’t understand them, let alone enjoy them.”
“She could learn,” I said. “And you could learn to enjoy other things.”
“Maybe, but she would always be an outsider in our family gatherings. She wouldn’t understand our rituals, Nalla-ma wouldn’t be able to talk to her, and I would have to keep explaining everything.”
I shook my head, exasperated. “You are presenting all the classic arguments for being conservative,” I said.
“Wise, my dear sister,” Shyam replied. “Not conservative. And someday you’ll thank me for it. Like I said, you had your chance. It’s not as if Mom and Dad forced you to marry the first guy they picked.”
WE FIRST HEARD about Ram from my dad’s second cousin, Ambi, who knew both families. We had heard of Ram’s parents before but didn’t know that they had a son of marriageable age. Ram’s mother had been hailed as the first woman to be appointed chief secretary of Kerala State. His father had held several top positions in the government and had worked in the prime minister’s office when Indira Gandhi was in power. Together they had been written about in several newspapers. One magazine, India Today, even called them “the most powerful couple in India.”
My parents were doubtful about whether such a couple would ally themselves with an average, middle-class family, but they sent my horoscope anyway. Within a few days we received a reply from Ram’s father stating that our horoscopes matched and inviting my parents for a visit.
When my parents visited Ram’s parents, they were looking for clues to see if I would fit into their family. My mother insists that “you can tell a lot about the family just from the way they serve coffee.”
Ram’s mother, having worked in the United Nations on women’s rights issues and having held high positions in the Indian government, would understand my liberal feminism. She also wrote humorous columns for Indian magazines, so she would be supportive of my writing. Yet she served strong South Indian coffee in the traditional stainless steel tumblers instead of china—she would be a balancing influence on my youthful radical nature. My parents liked the fact that she held on to Indian traditions in spite of being a world traveler.
Ram’s father had supported his wife’s career even though he belonged to a generation in which most Indian men expected their wives to stay at home. Ram had a good role model.
Ram’s sister was a pediatrician in Fort Myers, Florida, which meant he was used to strong, achieving women. Hopefully, he would encourage his wife to be the same.
But they didn’t seem to have any pets. Hmmm . . .
I WAS PREPARED to dislike Ram even though I hadn’t met him. He had a job. Worse, he had a steady job, unlike all my artist friends. He seemed to be of the establishment, something that I wasn’t, or at least liked to imagine I wasn’t. If I had to have an arranged marriage, couldn’t the candidate at least be an environmental engineer or work for a nonprofit? Ram worked in finance.
I had other issues as well. I couldn’t help thinking that I was wasting my life. While my friends in America were making art, falling in love, and getting on with their lives, here I was, waiting to get married. And I couldn’t seem to get myself out of the situation.
I was stuck, trapped in affection, smothered by love. As Shyam said, I was leading the life of “your average, nice Indian girl.” I didn’t want to be nice. I wanted to shake the world. At times I wished I hadn’t stepped on American soil. All my Indian girlfriends from high school and WCC were awaiting marriage as I was. But they didn’t feel tortured and conflicted like I did, they didn’t forever compare India with America and find both countries lacking in some way. I felt alternately furious and melancholy.
I missed Shyam. He had postponed his contract as long as he could and then finally joined his ship after six months. Right after he left, this alliance came up. Now I missed his brutal candor, his teasing taunts that made light of everything I took extremely seriously. He had a way of defusing tension in the household by laughing at everything from my father’s professorial idealism to my political correctness to my mother’s enthusiasms. But he was on his ship, and hard to reach.
Monsoon Diary Page 17