Still, Ashok keeps his writer’s journal. He remembers the Marathi saying about marriage, that “at first it’s painful pleasure, but after the poison seeps in, it’s only pain.” He thinks that this maxim isn’t true once you learn that you are having a baby.
Parvati makes jokes now that do not have an edge to them, and Ashok joins in. They joke that there are one billion people in India and that they should get in trouble for adding one more. There are actually 1.3 billion now. On days the baby doesn’t flutter kick, Parvati jokes that she is upset she can’t feel him—so upset that she might cry. But she does not have crying jags anymore, and they both know that she is better. She does not keep a journal for dark or wild thoughts, and she does not talk of her “past.” Instead, they talk of how their baby will almost certainly be a boy.
Ashok’s belief in a boy is based on gut feeling. Parvati’s is based on the fact that boys are less work than girls, and—because Ashok came into her life, and Ashok turned out to be a husband who does not require work—then that means her baby won’t either. There is also the fact that both sets of parents consulted their astrologers, and both astrologers said it would be a boy. Still, they have names for both. After the birth, Parvati plans to get the baby’s horoscope written for his or her marriage one day.
Parvati does not cry anymore, but sometimes her past comes back to her. It comes and goes like she remembers the waves do on Chennai’s beaches: drifting in and out again, a steady tide. But with the odd monsoon this year, the waves in the Bay of Bengal broke unusually high against the city. Chennai faced heavy floods, and many of the IIT Chennai students left school. Eventually, the floods receded. Parvati does not allow herself to think of the past for long. She does not often think of Joseph. She doesn’t speak to him much either. They are both busy with their lives.
But one day, Joseph calls Parvati to tell her that his wife is also pregnant. It turns out that both women are due in mid-August. Parvati hopes, a little sheepishly, that she is the one to give birth first. Joseph tells her that his baby is a boy, which he knows with certainty because in Germany it is not illegal to learn the gender of the baby.
“If you have a girl,” he jokes over the phone, “probably we can finally get together this way.”
“No,” says Parvati. “I’m not going to let my girl marry a Christian boy.”
Joseph laughs, because he assumes that Parvati is joking. But she is serious. She is surprised at how much she has become like her father.
At night, before she goes to sleep, Parvati sings her baby a lullaby. Her belly has already become so big. She sings “Omanathinkal Kidavo,” a Malayalam lullaby she learned in Trivandrum as a child, which was composed by a nineteenth-century queen to put the baby king to sleep. There had been great pressure on the queen to produce a boy, because a colonialist policy meant the birth of a girl could lead to annexation of the royal land by Britain. Fortunately, as the royal family hoped and prayed for, a baby boy was born. The lullaby is a song of relief.
“Is this sweet babe,” Parvati sings in Malayalam, lying on her back in bed, her hand on her belly, “the tender leaf of the kalpa tree, or the fruit of my tree of fortune?” The kalpa tree, the wish-fulfilling tree, which once granted the goddess Parvati a child, relieving the loneliness she’d once felt. “Or a golden casket to enclose the jewel of my love?”
Parvati finishes the lullaby slowly, watching the ceiling fan spin around and around. Inside her bedroom, it is dark and cool. Outside, over the city’s many millions, it is a starless night.
References
There were many books that informed me on the making of this one, but those that were particularly helpful include:
Bringing Up Children in Islam, Maulana Habiibullaah Mukhtaar
The End of Karma: Hope and Fury Among India’s Young, Somini Sengupta
The Essential Rumi, Jalal al-Din Rumi
Etiquettes of Life in Islam, Muḥammad Yusuf Iṣlahi
The Hindus: An Alternative History, Wendy Doniger
The Idea of India, Sunil Khilnani
Images of Asia: American Views of China and India, Harold Isaacs
India After Gandhi: The History of the World’s Largest Democracy, Ramachandra Guha
India: A History, John Keay
India Calling: An Intimate Portrait of a Nation’s Remaking, Anand Giridharadas
India in Love: Marriage and Sexuality in the 21st Century, Ira Trivedi
Indian Love Poems, Meena Alexander
Love Will Follow: Why the Indian Marriage Is Burning, Shaifali Sandhya
Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found, Suketu Mehta
May You Be the Mother of a Hundred Sons: A Journey Among the Women of India, Elisabeth Bumiller
Mughal-e-Azam: An Epic of Eternal Love, Shakil Warsi
The Origin of Bombay, Jose Gerson Da Cunha
Tamil Brahmans: The Making of a Middle-Class Caste, C. J. Fuller and Haripriya Narasimhan
I also relied on archival material from many local outlets, including the Times of India, the Indian Express, Tehelka, Caravan, the Hindu, Outlook, and FirstPost.
I referenced a number of government and nongovernmental documents, including from the Indian Council of Social Science Research, the Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, the Indian Chamber of Commerce, the Mumbai Port Trust, and the All India Muslim Personal Law Board. I also relied on reports from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the US National Center for Biotechnology Information, and the US Department of State.
I am grateful to have been able to use the poetry of Kamala Das, with the permission of her book’s editor, Dr. Devinder Kohli, and Penguin Books India.
Acknowledgments
First and foremost, I am grateful to two extraordinary women: Suzanne Gluck, my agent at William Morris, who believed in this book and championed it, and Jennifer Barth at HarperCollins, who shepherded it through many drafts with a steady guiding hand. Her vision for what this book could be made it richer and better in countless ways. Thank you to everyone who touched this book at HarperCollins.
I also owe thanks to many talented people who suffered through interviews at different stages of my research, including: Anand Giridharadas, Aroon Tikekar, Mariam Dossal, Jim Masselos, Jerry Pinto, Sujata Patel, Paromita Vohra, Rhea Tembhekar, Vihang Vahia, Siddhartha Shah, Santosh Desai, Sidin Vadukut, Ramachandra Guha, Sudhir Kakar, and Wendy Doniger.
This book would not have been made without the encouragement and wisdom of my professors at New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, especially Robert Boynton, Brooke Kroeger, and Suketu Mehta, who understands Mumbai as no one else does. I am particularly indebted to Katie Roiphe for her mentorship, intelligence, and generosity.
I am also lucky to have had the workshops of fellow writers at NYU: Will Hunt, Laura Smith, Meryl Kremer, Alistair Mackay, Kate Newman, Colin Warren-Hicks, and Meghan White. I am fortunate to have had the guidance of Sidharth Bhatia and Peter Griffin, who are incomparable editors and dear friends.
Joel Gunter, Imran Mujawar, Manish Alimchandani, and Madeline Gressel read sections of this book and made it far better. Daniel Stone dragged me to the library and kept me sane. Emily Brush, Stevie Dunning, Bianca Elder, Reilly Nelson, and Ali Withers kept me going, along with my DC family Sam Sanders and Zora Neale, who are my happy place.
There are a couple places and people that became my refuge at the end, including the DC Writers Room and Alexandra Zapruder there, as well as the Northeast Regional Library, whose librarians are trusty and kind.
My family was a refuge throughout, especially Jeff Flock, who believes in me and truly made this book possible, Gretchen Rubin, who edited drafts in bed and on planes, Charles Rubin, who sent butterflies to Mumbai and taught me to “accomplish the mission,” Elizabeth Brack, whose words and notes sustain me, and Jane, Lucy, Claire, and Emily, who are my lifeblood.
There are
a few to whom I, and this book, owe a special debt: Nick Bernel, who stood beside me when it was difficult and taught me much about love. Lance Richardson, a brilliant and generous friend, and a north star. Abhishek Raghunath and Arathi Jayaram, who showed me India and taught me to love it. And Maya, Veer, Ashok, Parvati, Shahzad, and Sabeena, who made me want to stay.
About the Author
Elizabeth Flock is a reporter for PBS NewsHour. She began her career at Forbes India Magazine, where she spent two years as a features reporter in Mumbai, and has worked for U.S. News & World Report and the Washington Post. She has also written for major outlets, including the New York Times, the Atlantic, Al Jazeera, Hindustan Times, and the Hindu. She lives in Washington, DC. The Heart Is a Shifting Sea is her first book.
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Copyright
the heart is a shifting sea. Copyright © 2018 by Elizabeth Flock. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, 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 hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Excerpts from Kamala Das: Selected Poems published courtesy of Penguin Random House India and Dr. Devinder Kohli.
first edition
Maps by James Sinclair
Cover design by Joanne O’Neill
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
Digital Edition FEBRUARY 2018 ISBN: 978-0-06-245650-2
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-245648-9
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