by Varsha Bajaj
“I love the waves. It’s why I bought this house.” Dad steps out of his room down the hall and joins me.
“I would rather hear the waves than the hum of my air-conditioning unit,” I say.
“In November, that may be true. I turned the unit on in your room so it felt more like your home.” He turns from the window to look at me. “My team is waiting for me. They come over quite often, especially when I am reading scripts or doing interviews or photo shoots. I want you to meet them.”
We walk down a spiral staircase with a polished wood banister that opens onto the impeccably decorated first floor. A group of people waits in the living room.
“This is Abby,” Dad says. “Her mom, Meredith, was my best friend when I studied in America. This is her first time in India.”
Smooth introduction, Dad. Back then Mom was your best friend? I guess you could say that! I feel a little twinge of annoyance but brush it away. I wonder who knows I’m Naveen Kumar’s daughter and who doesn’t. Obviously, not everyone does. I want my parents to hurry up already and tell the world, but the saner part of me knows it’s easier for me to not be the focus of media attention as I get to know Dad and Mumbai.
Remembering last night, I join my hands and say namaste. They all say hi.
Jeez, I’m going to get this right before I leave!
But Dad beams at my namaste. “Abby, you know Thomas,” he says, indicating his publicist.
I nod.
“And this is the rest of my team—Shankar, my hair and makeup whiz, Asin, my manager, and Salima, my gatekeeper.” I remember Salima. She is a worthy buffer—it took Mom weeks and multiple calls to get through her. Even the way
she drapes her long scarf around her middle says efficient.
I’m meeting my father’s peeps. I’m familiar with a few Indian names thanks to Priya; otherwise, I’d be totally lost. I still struggle to remember all the introductions.
Dad turns and talks to the gang. He switches from Hindi to English and back to Hindi. Now I get it, now I don’t, now I get it, now I’m lost!
It’s like Hinglish, a curious combination of Hindi and English like Spanglish is a combination of Spanish and English.
“Hanji,” I hear them say a lot between head nods. “Hanji.” They continue to do whatever they were doing before Dad and I arrived, and Dad takes me into the family room
through a corridor lined with pictures of his career. “What does hanji mean?” I asked him.
“Oh! They mean yes, sir. Ji is a respectful suffix.” “They said that a lot.”
“Did they? Sometimes I feel like all I hear is no or nahi!” Grandma Tara sits in a rocker next to a couch and a love seat, watching TV. Across the seating arrangement are
windows that look onto the backyard. Shiva sits with her. They both turn toward me with huge smiles.
“I go to see you room,” Shiva says slowly and then turns toward Dad and speaks fast in Hindi. The way Shiva says my name it sounds like he’s saying A-B. I’m probably saying some of their names all funny too.
Dad laughs. “Shiva says your grandmother sent him to your room a dozen times to check on you to see if you were awake. He also apologizes for his English.”
“Oh, I’m sorry for sleeping forever! Please tell Shiva that his English is miles better than my Hindi so he doesn’t need to apologize.”
“Abby, we’ll eat in an hour. I’m listening to a pitch for a new movie script today in my home office. I’ll leave you with Grandma Tara and Shiva. They’ve been waiting to take care of you. While you’re here, you can teach Shiva English, and he’ll teach you Hindi.” He reminds me to call my mom before it’s too late at night in Houston. Then he’s gone.
Mom answers on the first ring. “Abby, how are you? Did you sleep in? How was your flight? How is Naveen? How is his mother? Oh, Abby, it’s so good to hear your voice.”
“I’m fine, Mom, really I am. It’s so new and different though,” I whisper.
Mom’s questions soon become less frantic. Before we
hang up, we decide that she’ll call again in a couple days. She seems so far away. I miss her already.
“You hungry?” Shiva asks when I re-enter the living room. Grandma Tara worries that I haven’t eaten in too long.
“Airplane food!” she says with disdain. “It’s not fresh.” Shiva and Grandma confer.
Shiva is a small man, maybe an inch shorter than my five-foot-four. His wizened face has pockmarks I hadn’t noticed last night, and his white hair is thinning. He reminds me of a taller, thinner Yoda.
“I like paneer,” I say when he asks whether I’ve eaten Indian food.
Shiva almost dances with joy. “You know paneer? Shiva makes best paneer for Abby.” He skips back to the kitchen. I can make Shiva happy by asking him to cook for me? That’s easy!
I sit with Grandma Tara. She strokes my hand as she watches her Hindi soap opera. I have no clue what the actors are saying. But the soap operas have the same melodramatic sound track in India as back home. How many violinists do they employ?
Seeing Grandma Tara’s wrinkled hand with its thin skin holding mine, I realize that now I have two grandmothers. She looks so frail. I’m glad I’m meeting her.
I look around at the room, which is so different from
the living room in my house. Speckled tile covers the floor. The decorator didn’t make this room a showcase like the living room. It feels homier. The sofas are squarer and not as padded or as big as the ones at home. There’s a dresser against the far wall covered with a crocheted runner. A set of little elephants stands on it. A garlanded picture of an older man, the same man from the picture in my room, hangs on the wall. Is he Dad’s father and my grandfather? Did he hide the letter Mom wrote to Dad?
When I tell Grandma Tara that Mom and I made an album for her and Dad, she wants to see it immediately. She summons Shiva. He in turn calls two giggling women, Mina and Bina. More help? Priya’s mother explained that middle class families in India have help and it provides employment. Mina and Bina are Shiva’s sous chefs and general go-to girls. They appear to be twins. Priya and I dressed as Thing One and Thing Two from The Cat in the Hat one Halloween years ago. Mina and Bina with their rhyming names and shy
smiles remind me of Priya and me.
I have quite the audience. Grandma Tara and I sit on the couch and Mina, Bina, and Shiva stand behind us.
“Mina and Bina think you’re very pretty,” Grandma Tara says, searching for the right words and gesturing at me. They ooh and aah over my baby pictures and I blush.
At lunch, the house feels like a party. Dad and his
team emerge from his office and join us. Between Dad’s people, Grandma Tara, Shiva, and the two women, we are a lot of people. I look around the table and beam. I realize I don’t have to wonder about my dad and his life anymore. Here it is, sitting around the table in his swank dining room.
I’m an American with my accent. In a room full of people who speak Hinglish, I feel like an outsider, even though I know half of me is Indian.
Mom would say, give yourself time to adjust to your new reality, Abby.
I run to my room to get my camera. I ask Dad to take a picture of me with Shiva, who stands ramrod straight and is totally embarrassed. I post the picture of me flanked by Mina and Bina in their saris. Then I post another close up of their earlobes. They wear little earrings all the way up the cartilage.
Shiva insists that he take the group picture of me with Dad, Grandma, and all Dad’s peeps.
I take pictures of everything, even the matar paneer.
I post the photo and add a caption: The best in the world.
It melts in your mouth.
I’m having a ball and accidentally say Dad when I’m talking to him. Dad catches it and gives me a look, reminding me that my parents still have to figure out how to break this
news. I shake off stressful images of my very private mom’s world being invaded.
After lunch, Dad takes me for
a drive. It’s the first time I’m stepping out in broad daylight in India. Again, the crowd is outside the walls.
“Naveen Kumar,” they shout as we drive out. Dad stops and signs a few autographs.
The ocean waves seem calmer in the afternoon. People were walking along the seawall, some in traditional clothes, others in running shorts.
We leave the sea and drive along a winding uphill road to what appears to be a market area. Vendors sell fruits and vegetables along the streets. Part of the street is blocked for construction. An array of shops sits alongside one another. A doctor’s office is next to a shop selling snacks. Next door is a shop with a man frying something in a huge wok. My senses take over. I’ve never seen so many people within inches of cars and rickshaws. I’m terrified that Dad will hit human, animal, or thing.
I see children with bare feet and tattered clothes playing tag by makeshift homes. They approach our car at the stoplight, begging for money. I’ve seen the occasional adult ask for money at home, but I’ve never seen children who seem to have so little. Dad can see I’m upset. He rolls down the window to awed shrieks of “Naveen Kumar!” and hands
out little bags of biscuits. “Your grandma makes these and always has them in the car.” The expression on his face says he wishes he could do more.
I don’t know how to react and the stoplight turns green.
The stray, mangy dogs rummaging through garbage is a sight that would be seared in my memory.
Across the street, a tall apartment complex gleams, polished and new.
“Abby, Mumbai’s contrasts, the poverty and the wealth, can be difficult. You have probably never seen hardship like this at home. Do you want to talk about it?”
“Dad, I don’t know where to start. The kids…” I say and stop. I can’t find the words. Dad understands. “Know that you can come to me.”
My eyes pop at the next intersection when I see a cow coolly sitting and swishing her tail in the middle of the chaotic street.
She’s slimmer than any cow I’ve seen at home, but there she sits in the middle of the road, the undisputed queen of her kingdom. Traffic weaves around her. Google already told me cows are sacred in India.
“Welcome to India,” Dad says.
In that instant I open the window, throw my fears out, and click a picture.
We drive past an open-air bazaar. Fresh vegetables and fruit are piled on handcarts. The greens, reds, and yellows
of the saris flapping in the wind are irresistible. “Dad,” I yell, “slow down, I need to take another picture.”
I realize that Dad’s house and style of living is not typical of the rest of India. It’s as if I’m living in the Trump Tower in New York. I haven’t seen this kind of poverty and neither have I experienced the wealth of my dad’s lifestyle.
Chapter 13
Friends old and new
The next morning, rested and energized, I go downstairs to a quiet house. Dad is away, shooting a new film, and his entourage is with him. I thought we were supposed to spend time together. I’ve waited thirteen years and traveled halfway across the world—8,000 miles in a yucky airplane—to Mumbai, and he can’t take some time off to spend time with his only daughter?
Grandma Tara rests. She’s tired after yesterday’s excitement. I can hear Shiva, Bina, and Mina’s voices from the kitchen and go looking for them.
“Namaste,” I say as I walk in.
Mina looks at Bina for approval then says, “Good morning,” in her accented English. Then she bursts into giggles of embarrassment.
I giggle back, partly embarrassed by the way they all jump to attention whenever I walk into a room.
The bougainvillea vine outside the kitchen window is a riot of pink. The roar of ocean waves and the sound of occasional car horns waft through the open window. People here, I realized yesterday, honk whenever they want with little guilt. The open windows also bring in the humidity. The temperature is in the low eighties. While this street is not as busy as the market we drove through yesterday, it’s way busier than the streets I’m used to in my neighborhood. The kitchen counter has almost fifty gleaming stainless steel cups arranged on trays. The morning sun glints off the
cups, almost blinding us.
“What are these for?” I ask, pointing to the cups.
Mina and Bina giggle again. Shiva gives them “the look.” It’s funny how “the look” is the same across cultures! My mom has given me that same look many times.
“I tell after breakfast,” Shiva says.
“Indian breakfast?” I ask, my stomach growling.
I realize that Shiva has as much difficulty with my accent as I have with his, and we communicate best when I keep my sentences short and speak slower.
Serving me elaborate meals makes Shiva feel like he’s doing a great job. Who am I to rob him of the satisfaction? Shiva, Mina, and Bina wait on me like I’m in a full-service restaurant.
“Upma for A-bby,” says Shiva, setting a plate before me. “U-p-ma?” I repeat. I take a small bite.
Hmm. I take another bite. It reminds me of a cross between grits and polenta but with an Indian flavor. It has peas, onions, and cashews in it. I’m an adventurous eater so I dig in.
“So what’s with the cups?” I ask again, pointing.
Shiva says the fans stand outside the gates of Dad’s house 24/7 for a glimpse of him regardless of the weather. Most days Dad steps out, signs autograph books, and obliges fan requests for pictures. Shiva tells me many are tourists; some are people from India’s rural areas. In their eyes, Naveen Kumar is God.
I like the way Shiva talks about Dad’s status better than the way Thomas tells it. Somehow, it doesn’t sound all braggy.
“Fans like guests. Sometimes, God comes knocking at your door like a guest,” says Shiva.
“I take them water at noon,” he says.
I’m intrigued by Shiva’s status in the house. I figured out that he’s the driver, head chef, and general housekeeper. He didn’t drive Dad to the studio today because he stayed home to take care of Grandma Tara and me. Dad is obviously okay with giving him that responsibility.
“I remember my days,” Shiva mumbles to himself.
“What days?” I ask Shiva, curious.
“Nah!” he says. Not one to sit idle, Shiva picks up a basket of snow peas and sits down on the stoop outside the kitchen door. It opens onto the lushly landscaped backyard. Tall coconut trees, blooming rosebushes, and potted plants surround an impeccably manicured lawn. A covered swing seat sits on the slate patio. It all looks like it belongs in a magazine spread. I can imagine Shiva serving Dad and Grandma Tara tea out there.
Shiva scoots to make room as I sit by him. One by one, he squeezes and pops the shells and pulls the peas out. I shell too. Peas for me have always come in a bag from the freezer. After much coaxing and insistence (Please! Please! Please!), Shiva reluctantly tells me that almost forty-five years ago he came to Mumbai from his village in northern India as a teenage runaway.
“Shiva, you were about my age,” I say. I can’t imagine being alone in a gigantic city like Mumbai.
Somehow, in spite of our language barriers, Shiva and I communicate. He tells me how he escaped drought and poverty in his village. When he came to the city, he eked out a living as a shoeshine boy. Shiva has a faraway and pained look in his eyes as he talks.
Then he waves away his memories and smiles at me. “No sad talk,” he says.
I want to know more. “How did you meet my grandparents?” I ask. “That’s not sad, is it?”
The word grandparents feels new when I use it to refer to my father’s family. Grandparents have always been Grandpa and Grandma Spencer.
Grandma Tara’s husband, my grandfather, used to come to him for shoeshines and took a liking to him. “What do you want to do?” he asked the young Shiva.
“Abby, my dream to drive car,” Shiva says.
My middle-class grandparents paid for Shiva’s driving school and then gave him a job
. He’s been with them ever since. He’s like family.
I squeeze his hand. I want Mom, Grandma, and Grandpa to meet my new friend. “Will you come to America, Shiva?” I ask him.
He laughs. “No, no! I no English!”
Even Mina and Bina, who hover in the kitchen, eavesdropping, understand. They tease Shiva in Hindi. I understand the word America, even though they pronounce it Ahm-ri-ka, with an emphasis on the Ahm.
“You come to give water?” he asks me. “I’d love to.” I grin.
I lifted one of the trays and follow Shiva. The wiry security guard at the gate grins and asks Shiva in Hinglish if I’m his assistant.
“Hanji! ” I reply before Shiva gets a chance.
They all smile at my effort to speak and understand Hindi. I love the way they root for me.
There are around thirty people from different walks of society gathered outside. They are united by their fandom. I’m offering water to a fan, admiring a canvas portrait of Dad that she painted, when I spot a seriously legit cute boy.
Darn. I’m wearing a sloppy ponytail—not my best look. And I wish I’d worn something cuter. I’d thrown on some baggy Bermuda shorts and a T-shirt. My forehead shines from the humidity.
“Mom, how long have you known Naveen Kumar?” I hear him ask his kurta-and-jeans-clad mother in a totally American accent. I stare.
“Before he was Naveen,” she laughs. “So from the dinosaur days?” he jokes.
I think the boy is around my age. He wears shorts and a T-shirt with the words I breathe cricket. Even cuter at second look.
His hair flops on his forehead, almost covering his huge brown eyes. Eyes that crinkle with wicked laughter. His smile is an eleven on a scale of ten. He’s gangly tall, like he’d grown last night.
I smooth my T-shirt. As if that would transform it.
This could be an Abby-meets-cute-boy moment. My string
quartet plays a hyper jig. But I can’t meet a cute boy wearing a scrunchie. I pull it out and fan my hair. I have standards.
Shiva greets Cute Boy’s mom and they chatter in Hindi. From the way he greets her, she’s obviously an expected guest. I bet they’re saying, “Sorry, I’m late. The traffic was a mess.”