Purple Lotus

by Veena Rao

  She spent three hours of her weekday mornings at the institute, where she and the three other Indian girls in class ended up forming a clique. Shyamala was a housewife who was anxious to start a career in QA. Her two kids were in middle school and no longer needed her all the time. Anita had given up her job as a teacher’s assistant at the county school system to get into the better paying IT world. Yasmin had been a doctor in India, who didn’t want to go through the three-year residency program and the strict US medical license requirements, after she married and moved to Atlanta. Sometimes, the all-girl clique went to the nearby Indian mall for lunch after classes, where they gossiped, poked fun at the way Samuel held his chalk up like a school teacher and started almost every sentence with a singsong “see,” and sighed at the assignments they had to work on every night. They were a motley crew, richly different from one another. Shyamala was traditional and took pride in her home, kids, and kitchen. Anita was outgoing, fun-loving, and talkative. Yasmin was graceful, health conscious, and spent a considerable amount of time every day on yoga and exercise. But their differences didn’t matter as they bonded over QA and dosas, tests and kababs, virtual bugs and Chinese Indian lo mein at the food court.

  Some days, after lunch, the girls walked the mall at a leisurely pace, stopping at the display windows at the stores. They oohed and aahed at the colorful, embellished salwar suits, saris, and jewelry that beckoned, and raised their eyebrows in exaggerated horror at the price tags. “Better to get from India,” they said. Still, they walked in and looked around for good deals. Tara never bought anything and seldom contributed to the excitement of the window shoppers, but it felt good to just hang out with her new friends. Once, on a whim, her three friends draped a rose pink, crystal-encrusted, chiffon sari around her pink blouse and jean-clad self. She giggled as they marveled at her tall, slender figure, and went a little red when they wondered aloud if she had been a sultry model back in India.

  To her family, she was too tall, too thin, and her complexion was two shades darker than Amma’s. It amused her to think that her friends were marveling at these very flaws in her appearance.

  Chapter 14

  It was a regular weekday when, after a particularly boring class, Anita had a deep craving for chaat. The rest of the group agreed that tangy chaat was exactly what they needed to spice up their day. They trooped to the chaat corner at the Indian mall, chitchatting, waiting for their orders to be called out.

  As was usual with Shyamala, the topic veered around to her difficult mother-in-law who was visiting from Hyderabad. Anita had pitched in with relish, about how conservative her in-laws were. Yasmin said little, but laughed at the girls’ stories with delight. She had never known her in-laws; they had passed long before she married. Tara didn’t know her in-laws much, having spent less than a week with them. In the earlier days, when Sanjay called them once or twice a month, she spoke to them briefly, only exchanging pleasantries. Sanjay was rather brusque, cutting them off midway through their reports on family matters, offering them no glimpses of life in America. Tara felt sorry for her in-laws and wished Sanjay would show some love toward them. Now, she did not participate in the in-law bashing; she only raised her eyebrows and shook her head at appropriate junctures.

  At first, when the lean, bearded guy with the thick, black-framed glasses approached their table and said, “Hello, miss,” she didn’t even realize he was talking to her. She pushed a whole pani puri into her mouth. It took a nudge from Yasmin for her to notice that the man had extended a hand in her direction. She shook it, mildly confused, her mouth full.

  “Hi, I’m Abhi. I have a photo studio at the mall, Picture Me Photography. You may have seen it, it’s in the left wing.” Tara blinked and chewed surreptitiously, covering her mouth with her hand.

  “Miss,” he said, undeterred by her lack of response, “one of our clients, Raj Jewelers, the largest Indian jewelry store in the Southeast, is planning an advertising campaign in the local media. I am in charge of the photography for their creative. I’ve seen you a few times at the mall, and I think you have the perfect face for the kind of look I have in mind.”

  He stressed perfect, using his long lean hands, turning them ninety degrees at his wrist in her direction.

  Tara was stunned, tongue-tied, and her mouth was still pretty full. What was the guy even trying to tell her? Was he kidding? Was he a weirdo? He did look a bit like one, with his unkempt, salt-and-pepper beard and wild hair. She swallowed her pani puri, almost gagging on the sharp juices.

  “Miss, would you model for Raj Jewelers? It is a just a day’s job, and you will be compensated well. This is a prestigious campaign. Say yes, miss.”

  Tara shook her head, bewildered, wondering how to get out of the situation. “I’m not into jewelry,” she said.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “What would it involve?” asked Anita. Abhi pulled over a chair, sat down, and made himself at home with the girls, propping his elbows on the table.

  “Just a series of still photos in beautiful clothes and expensive real jewelry. That’s all. You girls can keep her company if you wish. My wife will be there too.”

  “Do you own Picture Me Photography?” Shyamala didn’t seem certain.

  “Yes, madam.” Abhi dug into his pocket and fished out a few business cards, glossy ones with a glamorous Indian bride on the front. He distributed them among the girls, like he was dealing cards.

  “Picture Me Photography,” it said. “Glamour photos, portraits, weddings, events.”

  Below was the salt-and-pepper guy’s name, Abhilash Sorte, and his contact details. Shyamala studied the card and raised an eyebrow at Tara, whose blank eyes gave no answers.

  “Give us some time. She will get back to you tomorrow,” Shyamala said, taking charge.

  “Sure. Take your time. But please, miss, say yes. You have a perfectly divine face. I picked you out from a mile away.”

  Tara looked at the photographer. Her eyes flickered as a memory came rushing back. Divine face. Someone else had once said that to her. That voice rang in her ears again, after all these years. Her mind raced back to the summer of 1982, placed her atop Morgan Hill, then led her down the road that led to Saldanha Villa where her childhood isolation had ended, just as she stepped into her teens.

  School was out. After lunch every day, when her grandparents rested, Tara slipped out and ran up the hill to her new friend Annette Saldanha’s house. She always remembered to carry a couple of books with her; it gave her an excuse for her absence—she was at the library to exchange books. Of course, this meant that she never had time to actually go to the library, but it didn’t matter. Daddy’s bookshelf had enough English, Russian, and American classics to last her a few more years. Besides, she didn’t read much that summer because she had become a hoarder of words. When she was in her room, she read stacks of Reader’s Digest that Daddy had subscribed for her, focusing on the section, “It Pays to Increase Your Word Power,” learning the definitions of new words such as egregious and malign and anachronistic, and storing them all in her brain. Then, each afternoon, she took her stock of words with her to Saldanha Villa.

  Annette was tall, with a silky bob cut that framed her rather square but attractive face. She was Tara’s senior at school, but they had become friends after Annette had offered Tara a ride to school from the bus stop in her chauffeured foreign car. The car rides had quickly become a regular affair. Annette talked nineteen-to-the-dozen all the way to the school gates, and called Tara a sweet angel for being an attentive listener.

  Tara’s new friend lived in a sprawling, traditional Mangalorean villa near Second Bridge. The villa had a warm ochre frontage and was enclosed in a high, white-painted compound wall that shielded it from outside pedestrian view. The front yard was large, and the red brick driveway that led up to the house cut through manicured lawns lined with pretty rose bushes.

  The Saldanhas were Catholic. Annette’s father, Roy, owned vast coffee plantations
in Coorg. Her mother, Mariette, stayed back in Mangalore and helped manage their two luxury hotels. She was on the board of an education trust and a children’s orphanage, and was a regular presence in the local newspapers for her philanthropy. Big brother James was broad shouldered, and had the square Saldanha jawline. But it was his friend Cyrus, who lived next door to the Saldanhas, who threw Tara into a tizzy these days. She lived in a constant, conflicted state of self-consciousness and abandonment.

  Cyrus was tall, rakish, and all of sixteen. Tara had learned from Annette that Cyrus’s father was Catholic, his mother a Parsi. Cyrus hadn’t seen his mother since he was a baby because she had run away with a Punjabi businessman and was not heard of again.

  Tara knew that the Parsis, who followed the Zoroastrian faith, had migrated to India from Persia several centuries earlier. The Parsi gene, perhaps, explained Cyrus’s fair skin, but his eyes remained unexplained. Often, Tara went home and mulled over a burning question of earth-shaking importance. What color were Cyrus’s eyes? Brown, hazel, green, gray? They could be any of these colors. Each time she stole a sidelong glance at him, they appeared a different tint. Someday, she would muster the courage to look at him eye-to-eye, and then she would know for sure.

  Cyrus was gregarious, and his voice had broken fully. When he laughed at his own ribald jokes, deep dents appeared on his cheeks and made Tara wonder how he could be so happy when his mother had abandoned him. He had a mop of straight hair that fell over his forehead and covered his right eye, which he tossed back nonchalantly every so often. A couple of times, Tara had felt his gaze on her, and she had wanted to disappear. But why on earth would he look at her? And why couldn’t she be more worthy of his exotic gaze? Why hadn’t she inherited Amma’s hair and light skin? Every afternoon, when she got to the villa, she stopped by the gate and tamed her hair with her fingers, pursing her lips hard to draw some color to them. Yet, in his presence, she couldn’t help but freeze like an ice maiden.

  During the holidays, two of Annette’s cousins came visiting from Goa. Angela, the older of the two, was in the ninthclass. She had big breasts and an eager face that lit up often. She laughed a lot, and even more loudly so at Cyrus’s jokes. Michele was thin and pretty, with a heart-shaped face and a pointed chin.

  Every afternoon, the Saldanha cousins hung out in the large verandah, sipping orange flavored Tang and polishing off Shrewsbury biscuits that the maid brought out. English songs played on low volume in the background. They argued over what record to play. James wanted to play Bob Marley songs. Annette liked the old Beatles hits. But Cyrus was a disco music aficionado, and his constant demand was for “Funkytown.” He was voted down more often than not, because “Funkytown” was too loud for the afternoon. It might wake her mother up from her siesta in the inner chambers of the villa, said Annette.

  They also played Ludo or carom. At other times they formed two teams of three each to play a word game. One team would pick out words from the Reader’s Digest feature, “It Pays to Increase Your Word Power,” and the other team would have to explain the meaning of the words. Then, the teams switched their Q & A roles. The team that got the most words out of ten correct won the game.

  Tara discovered she was good at the word game, better than everybody else. Her team always won, no matter how difficult or rare the word. Soon, they all wanted her on their team.

  “Tara, Tara!” Cyrus would chant loudly, making fist pumps and jumping up and down every time she charted their team to victory. “Tara and Cyrus make the best team.”

  The other girls giggled. Annette winked at Tara. Tara blushed and looked down at her hands, her heart always pounding inside her chest. Her reaction embarrassed her. She knew her face went red every time he cheered; she could almost feel the blotches emerge on her cheeks. Why couldn’t she be confident and nonchalant like the other girls?

  Once, he looked at her, and addressed her directly. “Tara means star, no?”

  She froze.

  He repeated his question. “Oy, Tara, Tara means star, right?”

  She nodded. “Also, the Buddhist goddess of compassion who emerged from a lotus,” she whispered. Her alarm grew when he dramatically threw his head back, closed his eyes and sang, his arms stretched like in prayer, swaying from side to side:

  “Star light, star bright,

  The first stargoddess I see tonight;

  I wish I may, I wish I might,

  Have the wish I wish tonight.”

  Stargoddess? She suspected Cyrus had made that word up. She released her breath when he finished and mustered a shy smile. The girls burst out laughing. Even James grinned from ear to ear. She wished her dumb heart would stop thudding like a drum; she was afraid he’d hear it beating.

  For many days after that, Tara could not get that scene out of her head. A rogue clad in light blue denim and black T-shirt, his eyes closed, singing and swaying cockily. He kept her sleepless for long hours, and when sleep came, he claimed her dreams.

  Was he teasing her? Should she be offended? Tara was in entirely new territory and had no clue how to respond. What if Amma knew? Tara had no doubt that Amma would forbid her from going to the Saldanha home again. She hoped Cyrus wouldn’t tease her again. But she hoped he would. Why was she so happy? So tormented?

  Amma, Daddy, and Vijay bid adieu to Dubai and came back to Mangalore for good in mid-April. She would have been happier if she hadn’t been consumed with thoughts of Cyrus. For a while, her wretched heart had even been disappointed at their arrival. What if she couldn’t slip out for her afternoon adventures? What was she going to tell Amma, who would see through the bogus “going to the library” story in no time? Tara stayed home for two days, worrying and fretting, and appeared so withdrawn that Amma wondered if Tara had a fever coming on. On the third day, she could stay away no longer. She decided it was wisest to tell Amma the truth.

  “Amma, I have a friend at Second Bridge. Her name is Annette Saldanha. We meet in the afternoons to play word games. It helps us improve our English,” she said.

  Amma arched her eyebrow. “A Saldanha? What does Annette’s daddy do?”

  “They have coffee plantations in Coorg. Annette’s mummy owns Villa Mahal and Gateway Hotels,” she said. “Her photo was in the paper last month,” she added for good measure.

  Annette’s family background seemed to please Amma.

  “Oh! My daughter has learned to make high society friends and all!” she teased.

  She gave Tara permission to carry on her visits, as long as the girls did something constructive and educational and did not go out on their own.

  “See if you can play games to improve your math skills,” she said. “And be back soon. Vijay gets bored all by himself.”

  Tara didn’t tell Amma this, but she didn’t care much about Vijay’s being bored. He was six now, the same age she had been when they had moved to Shanti Nilaya, and her life had started to fall apart. She spared no thought in his direction as she sped up the hill on lightning feet. She was late, so she burst into a sprint all the way to the front gate, the surge of wind in her hair. She could hear the Saldanhas erupt into cheers when they saw her open the gate, so she couldn’t stop to catch her breath, to tame her hair. They clapped as she walked the red brick path up to the house, breathing heavily through her mouth. She looked up at the group. She caught sight of Cyrus. Strangely, he just stood with his hands in his pockets. No cheering. No clapping. No comment said in jest. The dip in her spirit was automatic; she couldn’t help but be disappointed.

  “We wondered what had happened to our sweet angel,” said Annette. “Why didn’t you come the past two days?”

  “My parents came from Dubai,” she said softly, as if that were explanation in itself.

  “Oh! We got worried.”

  “We are glad you are back,” said Michele. “You have to help me win the word game today.”

  “No way! You were on Tara’s team last week,” Angela protested.

  Tara was pleased they h
ad missed her. Nobody had ever made her feel this wanted before, not even Amma. Yet, her heart sank. Cyrus had still said nothing.

  Annette noticed. “And what’s wrong with Cyrus today? Why so quiet, old chap?”

  Cyrus brushed his hair back with his fingers and flashed his dimples.

  “All is well now, isn’t it? Aren’t we going to get the game started?”

  Tara’s torment multiplied that evening; her questions occupied every nook of her brain. Why had Cyrus been so quiet? Why had he not insisted on being on her word power team? Why had he not teased her when she won the game?

  When she took Vijay up Morgan Hill for a stroll at Amma’s insistence, her answers to his incessant inquiries were absentminded, curt. She wished she could confide in somebody. But who? Annette was always with her cousins these days. That night, her diary entry read:

  O capricious heart,

  Will thou ever tame?

  O agony, bittersweet,

  What is thy name?

  Tara’s poetic frame of mind ended when Cyrus returned to his gregarious self, which was the very next day. Then she only had to worry about how she appeared to him, about the effects of his teasing on her cheeks. And it wasn’t only teasing. Sometimes, he tried to engage her in conversation.

  “Do you read Alistair MacLean?” he asked her one day, while the conversation was on books.

  Tara wasn’t sure the question was directed at her.

  “Star,” he repeated. “Do you read Alistair MacLean?”

  He had called her Star, the English translation of Tara. She shook her head, blushing a beetroot red.

  “I’ve read two. Guns of Navarone and Where Eagles Dare, both about World War Two. Great books,” he said.