by Pia Padukone
Gita told Karom about a ritual she loved as a child, first arriving at Ammama’s flat in the summers, tearing open her wardrobe door, running her hands across the yards and yards of silk, brocade and crepe-de-Chine saris, burying her head into the fabric to breathe in that familiar smell of India and begging Ammama to take out “this one. This one is my favorite.” Gita’s allegiances changed each time she visited, her tastes maturing and then reverting as trends came and went. In her tomboy years, she chose only the blues and reds, and when she finally embraced her girlhood, she lovingly pulled out more pinks and purples. Upon arriving at the flat a few days ago, Gita had flung open the wardrobe door and cried out softly as she sank back onto Ammama’s bed.
“They’re gone,” Gita said. “What happened?”
“I’m too old. I can’t wear those bright-bright things now,” Ammama replied. “And the zari work was too fine—I couldn’t iron them constantly. So I gave the whole lot to the girls upstairs. They needed some color in their lives.” Gita twisted her mouth, saddened by the gaping holes between the lonely, dismal saris that remained. But you need some color in your life, she thought.
Ammama’s apartment building is set back in the compound, and the motorized auto-rickshaws buzz about like flies only in the main road. Karom goes to fetch one while Ammama walks carefully behind, holding her cane in one hand and Gita’s forearm in the other. Gita can see Karom in the distance with his arm up in the road as the little black rickshaws scurry past him.
“I like him, Gita. I really like him.” Gita holds Ammama’s hand as they take dainty steps together. “Do you think you’ll marry?”
“I hope so, Ammama,” Gita says, looking down into Ammama’s eyes. “I really hope he gets things together. I really hope he can move beyond his past. Because I love him, I really do. And I think we could be happy together.”
“Give it time, child,” Ammama says. “Not everything happens overnight.”
“It’s been years, though,” Gita sighs. “And he’s taking such baby steps that I worry he’ll never—” She stops and looks up toward him. He is standing too far into the road, extending his arm out as if he were hailing a cab on Broadway. He is getting impatient, pushing the hair out of his eyes and wiping his brow on his shoulder. He takes one more step into the road as an angry rickshaw driver shouts at him, gesticulating wildly. Panic rises and jets out of Gita’s nostrils.
“Ammama, wait here.” Gita props Ammama against a low-lying parapet. Gita takes off at a gallop. It seems so filmic, her hair bouncing and her shawl flying behind her, as if she is running in slow motion to catch up to the man she loves. But as she approaches him, she catches hold of his wrist and swings him back into the ditch that follows the sidewalk along Ammama’s lane. Angry shouts erupt around them, rickshaws nestling close together like black beetles attacking a crumb to allow them through.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Gita asks, panting.
“Getting a rickshaw. What does it look like? Gita, let go. That hurts.”
“You’re standing in the middle of the road and you know it. This isn’t Manhattan, where the cabs will actually stop. This is Delhi, Karom. People die.”
“Stop being so melodramatic, Gita. No one’s filming right now.”
“No, you stop it, Karom.” Tears prick the edges of Gita’s eyes as their voices rise to be heard with the thrumming and honking of the vehicles that speed by. “This is neither the time nor the place. Please don’t do this. Not now.” A honking interrupts them. Ammama pokes her head out of a rickshaw that pulls up alongside them.
“Found one,” Ammama says. “Come on, get in.” Gita climbs up on the other side of her grandmother and Karom piles in the opening closest to him, his long, spidery legs nestling against the back of the driver’s seat. As the rickshaw speeds by on the newly paved highway, though they are landlocked and miles from the ocean, somehow the air fills their nostrils with the tangy, briny scent of the sea.
* * *
In December 2004 his family had gathered on Poompuhar Beach: a reunion. Karom had final exams in Boston and his parents were adamant that he see the semester through. His friends had all finished their finals and started packing up for Christmas break, but Karom was enrolled in a few master’s classes that ended later than the undergraduate program.
“I can take makeup exams,” he’d complained. “Besides, I’m graduating next semester. All the important stuff is over. This is the first time I am going to see all my cousins together. And Naani and Nana and Ajja and Ajji will be so upset I can’t come.”
“They’ll be upset that you are shirking your studies,” his father had said. “You can join us after the exams are over.”
There were games, snacks, many opportunities to get to know one another over the course of two days. Some members of the family were traveling thousands of miles to meet one another, some for the first time, some after a long time. Karom imagined them as he sat with his head against the frozen window, snow melting softly in the courtyard of the library. Now they were probably having strong hot South Indian coffee. Now they were probably telling stories of his parents as youngsters, of their sweet but short courtship when he had wooed and won her. Now they were probably singing folk songs that would only—could only—be passed down by his generation, and if he wasn’t there to learn them, who would bring them to America? Now they were probably sitting on the beach, under colorful tents they’d have rented to stave off the relentless sun. Karom followed them in his mind, fabricating their activities, picturing their smiles. When he packed up his laptop case and closed the door to his dorm room, ready to jump into the cab that would take him to Logan Airport, he thought his heart might burst.
Unlike most of his friends, who would joke about the tribulations of forced holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas, Karom enjoyed spending time with his family. This included his wise father, who had been the director on a television commercial starring his ageless, timeless, classically beautiful mother. And of course his mother, who doled out advice the way other mothers pass out homemade cookies. His cousins, whom he’d met piecemeal over the years, and their parents—his aunts and uncles whose stories his own parents had regaled him with for years and years and whose reputations spread far and wide from silly to sober—equally amused him. Both sets of grandparents, whom he saw dutifully every two years, servants his parents had grown up with, vendors who knew more about him than he would ever know about them. All of these people made up a life that was separate from the snowy, blanketed college he was leaving now, forlorn and empty, devoid of true familial love even when the campus was full.
The cabdriver was talkative, which surprised Karom. He thought he’d have to combat surliness and tip heavily for a fare on Christmas Day.
“Where you headed? Your family doesn’t mind you’re missing Christmas?”
“India. We’re not Christian,” Karom said, hugging his backpack to his chest.
“India? Is that safe? You hear about that storm?”
“You must mean the monsoons. They happen in the summer all the time. They’re used to them over there.”
“No, not a storm,” the cabdriver said, shaking his head. He leaned over and turned on the radio. “It’s this freak wave. It’s biblical.”
During the ride to Logan, the cab was filled with snatches of dialogue, screaming, shouting, sobbing, as various news reports filled in the current events of a rogue wave that had been triggered by underwater earthquakes, badly affecting parts of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and India.
“That’s enough,” Karom said at the sight of the exit ramp to the airport. “Please turn it off.” He paid the driver and stood on the sidewalk as trolleys and rolling suitcases maneuvered around him, punching buttons on his cell phone and hearing the Tamil operator prattle back hopelessly to him. There was nothing to do but stick to the plan to fly to Kanyakumar
i, where he would meet his parents and grandparents to witness one of the most breathtaking sunrises in the world at the very tip of the country, where the Indian Ocean met the Gulf of Mannar and the Arabian Sea. Except that all flights to India were stalled without further information of conditions there. The coastal states were in emergency: no one was going in and it was unclear who was still alive. Karom spent Christmas Day shuttling from the internet café in the airport to the gummy carpeted floor of Gate 17, where he sat slumped, tapping away at his cell phone.
Hours later he peeled himself up and took a bus and then the T and then walked the seven long blocks back to his dorm. The brittle leaves that still hung on the trees chattered together in a ghostly whisper as the wind swept through them. There was something beautiful about the snow that had settled there in his absence. It glistened cleanly, the crystals twinkling in the crisp morning. Karom felt bad making a path to his doorway, where he let himself into his room and opened the blinds where the sun glanced off the snow mounds, blinding him momentarily. His dorm-room phone blinked red with anticipation and he dropped his bundles, even his precious laptop, in a heap on the floor and jabbed the button. A muffled, weary voice filled the room.
“Karom, I’ve been trying your mobile, but it doesn’t seem to be connecting. This is Kishan Ramchand, your naana and naani’s neighbor in Cubbon Park. We live upstairs? I think you were meant to land just now, but I’m hoping to catch you. Karom, there was this huge wave yesterday that pretty much obliterated most of the southern and western coasts of India, particularly Tamil Nadu. Obviously, you know that’s where the festivities were being held, and nobody’s been able to get ahold of anyone from the party. We’re trying desperately, but as you can imagine, a lot of phone lines are down and it’s been impossible to connect with the hotel or anyone’s mobiles. Auntie and I are praying really hard here at home, but we’re not sure what’s happening. If by some miracle, you haven’t left already, please stay put. It’s a rather dangerous situation right now. Take my number and call.”
His entire family. All together. On one beach.
Karom listened to the message once again before he wrote the number down shakily. Then he opened the covers on his tightly made bed and got in. It was three days before he got out again. On the third day, he reached for his cell phone and dialed Kishan’s number.
“Uncle? It’s Karom.”
“Thank God, child. You’re okay. Where have you been?”
“College. My flight was canceled. Any news?”
“It’s not looking good. They’re reporting that phone and power lines have been restored at this point, as well as cell networks. If we—if we haven’t heard from them by now...”
“Look, you never know. What can I do? Should I come?”
“There’s nothing anyone can do at this point.” Karom heard Kishan slowly breaking down. A tear traveled down the bridge of Karom’s nose and plopped onto the worn wooden floorboard. The room was freezing—the heat had been turned off for the break, though Karom didn’t notice it at all. “And your parents were there,” Kishan wailed.
“They are there,” Karom said, wiping his face on the back of his hand. “Listen, I’ve got to go. Call me if you hear anything. On my cell. My mobile.”
Karom sat up in bed, staring at the wall as if in a trance. Suddenly, he broke off and opened his roommate’s closet. In here Lloyd kept a small pantry alongside his perfectly pressed cardigans and corduroy jackets. Karom wasn’t sure why Lloyd hid the snacks, as Karom had never deigned to take anything of Lloyd’s without asking—until now. There were saltines, granola bars, a large package of chocolate-covered mints and a fresh jar of peanut butter. Karom twisted the top off the peanut butter and pulled a gob of it onto his finger. He closed his lips over it, the sweetness making his mouth water and jerking tears to his eyes. He blinked the tears back and stuck his finger in again and again. His mouth was sticky and he ran his tongue over his teeth. What was that word? The word that when he heard it pulled gently on his stomach, in his throat, at the tips of his fingernails, making him think that it would never be him. It couldn’t be him.
It would be six hours before Karom logged on to his computer, searching for answers, looking up death tolls on the Indian Red Cross website, manning live streams for four different news sites at once, cross-referencing emails and then seeing his parents’ names in ghostly letters upon a list of those found fatally wounded or dead. And then his grandparents. All four of them. And then a whole column, a page of his surname over and over:
Rana Seth.
Mohan Seth.
Akansha Seth.
Preeti Seth.
Madhu Seth.
Shankar Seth.
Seth.
Seth.
Seth.
Seth.
It was another two hours before he remembered the word: orphan. Thereafter, until Lloyd and the other students returned to campus, everything was broken up into increments of time: sixteen hours before Kishan called to confirm that everyone at the reunion was reported officially missing. Dead. Twenty-two hours before Karom dry-heaved repeatedly from hunger. Thirty-six hours before his contact lenses automatically peeled themselves away from his pupils—raw from the dry, airless room—and curled up on the desk where he sat staring at his laptop, his only beacon and companion, which rang in the New Year in front of him. Ninety-six hours before he methodically and carefully deleted all the emails from friends inquiring if his family was okay and saying that they were praying for them and was there anything anyone could do and please don’t hesitate to ask. Three months before a courier rapped on his door with a delivery from Kishan wrapped in brown paper and padded with cotton wads.
A gold Rolex with a black alligator band sat nestled within the padding. The face was weathered and scratched just to the right of the crown and there were a few bits of sand wedged between the glass face and the golden hinges. A small note accompanied it.
Karom—
This was among the belongings in the safe in Naana and Naani’s room. There wasn’t much else—their passports and some bundles of rupees. Your parents’ room held their passports and some money, as well. The passports and money are being held for administrative and tracking purposes. I’ll make sure to have them sent to you as soon as possible. I wanted you to have something of meaning, and as you know, this was the watch that your naani gave your naana on their wedding night. I hope it serves as something—a memory, a wish, a light.
All my best,
Kishan Uncle
Together we learn there’s nothing like time. Karom was sure that it was the first of Naani’s many gestures to her new husband that everything would be okay, that even if nothing made sense in their early days as strangers to one another, the years would prove themselves stronger than unfamiliarity, that they would take this journey together, learning about one another and stumbling and catching one another and learning every step of the way. Naani was always the reassuring one; her husband would flurry about worrying if the plane would lose their luggage, or whether they would run out of vegetarian meals, or if they hadn’t packed enough warm clothing for the beach.
Karom had put the watch on immediately, and unless he was bathing or sleeping or going through the security line at the airport, he never took it off. He would wear it as a constant reminder of all that he had lost, his whole family all at once, wham bam, in an instant, like the second hand that ticked on his wrist.
* * *
On the morning of their departure from Delhi, Ammama tiptoes into the sitting room, where Karom is holding his watch between his fingers, studying its slightly scarred face. Ammama stops and smiles shyly, looking down at the tray as if to show Karom what she has brought him. He motions to her to sit down next to him.
“Come,” he whispers. She sits awkwardly on the bed next to him, pulling her tiny feet underneath her
and adjusting her sari. The tray of bananas and cold coffee sits between them, but on this morning, there is also a thick book. Karom peels a banana and hands it to her. She shakes her head shyly. Karom urges, “Please.” She nibbles at the tiny fruit and Karom peels another for himself. So much sweeter than the huge bland ones we get back home, Karom thinks.
“What do you say to me?” he asks. “Are you praying?” Ammama colors and looks down at the floor.
“I thought you were asleep,” she says.
“I’m an early riser,” Karom says. “Please tell me.”
“It’s nothing, really. Just an old lady’s superstitions.”
“Please.” He takes her banana peel and places it with his alongside the book on the tray. He turns to face her. Ammama looks at him and purses her mouth.
“You mustn’t be cross with Gita for telling me. She tells me that you like to tempt fate. That you call it your game. Is that right?” Karom looks down, embarrassed. “Fate isn’t an easy thing to play with. Once it decides to shift in one direction, the gusts keep on blowing, and it’s out of your hands. You have to take care of one another, don’t you?” He nods. “But I know there is something over you. An omen.”
“An omen?”
Ammama nods solemnly.
“What kind of omen? Because I’ve been pretty lucky.” He tells her about Acadia and the tidal wave that he and Gita narrowly missed. He tells her about 9/11, how he’d feigned illness on the morning that his class was to visit a news studio in Tower 1 because he hadn’t finished a paper on Howards End, how instead he’d stayed home watching the news, stricken, while the first tower came crumbling down like a stale cracker.
“Do you think so? Then what is this game nonsense?”
It’s Karom’s turn to color. “It’s just my way of feeling alive. I can’t— I don’t have an explanation. It’s how I’ve conditioned myself, I suppose. To understand why I’m still...why I don’t...why I can’t...what’s keeping me from...” He trails off and looks down at his hands sitting uselessly in his lap. “But what do you see? How can you tell?”