Bodies in Motion

by Mary Anne Mohanraj

  I protested. I explained that I couldn’t speak Tamil or Sinhalese. I wanted to say I was an American.

  She just insisted: You’ll be fine; you can pass. Just keep your mouth shut and smile.

  Author Recipe

  Sri Lankan Curry Powder

  1 cup coriander seeds

  ½ cup cumin seeds

  1 tablespoon fennel seeds

  1 rounded teaspoon fenugreek (methi) seeds

  1 cinnamon stick, about

  2 inches long

  1 rounded teaspoon whole cloves

  1 rounded teaspoon cardamom seeds

  2 tablespoons dried curry leaves

  2 rounded teaspoons red chili powder

  In a dry pan over medium heat, separately roast the coriander, cumin, fennel, and fenugreek, stirring constantly until each becomes a fairly dark brown. Do not attempt to save time by roasting them together—they each have different cooking times and you will only end up half-cooking some and burning others.

  Put the roasted herbs into a blender container (I use a coffee grinder that is dedicated solely to spice grinding) together with the cinnamon stick broken in pieces, the cloves, cardamom, and curry leaves.

  Blend the mixture at high speed until finely powdered. Sieve into a bowl, discarding any large pieces, and combine with the chili powder. Stir well. Store in an airtight jar.

  An Excerpt from Mary Anne Mohanraj’s Forthcoming Novel, The Arrangement

  EVERY NIGHT when she was a little girl, Shefali’s father would tell her a story before bed. He was an English professor, so he knew the best stories. She curled up in her bed, beneath the deep blue comforter her mother had embroidered with silver moons and stars, and her father told her adventure stories: Robinson Crusoe, Peter Pan, Tarzan. He told her mysteries starring the brilliant Sherlock Holmes. He told her fairy tales and folktales, small household stories and legends of epic wars. The Iliad took him most of the winter when Shefali was eight, and the Mahabharata ate up the autumn of her ninth year. But his favorites were the love stories, and Shefali’s father told them again and again.

  Prince Rama and Princess Sita; Tristan and Isolde; King Shahryar and Scheherezade; Romeo and Juliet; Arthur and Guinevere; Clever princesses and kindly princes; black-hearted rivals and foolish fathers. Her father said that sometimes the lovers would be parted for many years, but eventually, if they were pure-hearted, strong, and loyal, they would be reunited, for nothing could stand in the way of true love. And though Shefali fought to keep her eyes open so he would keep telling her stories forever, her heavy lids would inevitably slide shut. The last thing she would see before sleep was her mother leaning in the doorway, listening. The last thing she would hear was her father saying, “But no man has ever loved any woman as much as I love your mother.” The last thing she felt was the soft brush of his lips, and then hers, across her forehead as she tumbled into sleep and dreams.

  When she was thirteen, Shefali’s father stopped reading her stories. It was a few more years before she read those stories for herself and discovered that her father had changed the endings; years before Shefali realized that most love stories had beautiful beginnings but tragic conclusions. Even in the stories, a pure heart, strength, and loyalty were not enough to save you.

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  PRAISE FOR

  Bodies in Motion

  “Bodies in Motion is a graceful, nimble book. With great care and affection, Mohanraj finds both beauty and lamentations in the disquieting, but revelatory, clash between custom and assimilation, between everything that came before and all that lies ahead.”

  —Boston Globe

  “Bodies in Motion, Mary Anne Mohanraj’s debut book, is less a collection of stories than a series of snapshots, a highly colored album of two SriLankan families in America. Taken together, glossing and expanding on each other, they create a vivid portrait of families in flux, wandering back and forth over borders both geographic and cultural.”

  —Los Angeles Times

  “Beautifully written…. As sensuously fulfilling as the romantic escapades and rich curries in which Mohanraj’s characters indulge.”

  —Orlando Sentinel

  “Mohanraj’s writing style is spare and piercing, and she exercises a sophisticated economy of language. Indeed, words left unspoken are not only a technique of Mohanraj’s but a defining characteristic of the lives of her characters as well…. “Tightness in the Chest (Vermont, 1986)” provides excellent illustrations of Mohanraj’s own terseness intertwining with that of a character.”

  -San Francisco Chronicle Book Review

  “From the start, Mohanraj moves deftly between third and first person, male and female voices, and time periods…. These stories transcend time and space.”

  —Time Out (New York)

  “Mohanraj evokes a moving portrait of families searching for love and a place to call home.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “The interrelated but stand-alone stories cover two generations of two families in motion on different levels and with different agendas.”

  —Knoxville News-Sentinel

  “Intricately interwoven stories featuring sensual language and surprising sexual twists.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Mohanraj offers readers great insights into her characters and has plenty of material to be mined in future works. Recommended.”

  —Library Journal

  “A deftly intricate weaving of voices and generations. These stories are gorgeous, sexy, and, above all, stories of survival. A writer to watch!”

  —Karen Joy Fowler, author of The Jane Austen Book Club

  “On a rare occasion, a collection of stories comes along that breaks rules, tears down barriers and is a joy to read. Bodies in Motion by Mary Anne Mohanraj is such a collection…. Some stories are vibrant and full of heat, others cool and contained…. A seductive, inviting work built primarily upon strong women.”

  —India Currents

  “Mohanraj’s skill in expressing her characters’ struggles is significant and apparent in their diverse reactions. Not only does she offer the images of young women caught between the security of the well-defined tradition of arranged marriage and the sometimes-frightening freedom of personal choice, she also presents the dilemma faced by the fathers of these women.”

  —ThisWeek (Central Ohio)

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  BODIES IN MOTION. Copyright © 2005 by Mary Anne Mohanraj. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  ePub edition May 2007 ISBN 9780061739514

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