I am less surprised that you didn’t say anything. I’ve always thought it must be hard to be popular. I stay clear of such things. Keep your head down and focus on the work, my dad had told me once when I was nine years old and hadn’t been invited to a birthday party.
I have some good news. Some really good news. I’m actually very excited but I don’t want to come across as insensitive but really, it is very good news.
First, I got Head Girl. I mean it was a foregone conclusion for the most part. I have been told I’m going to get Head Girl ever since Class Five. The only thing missing from my portfolio in Middle School had been sports and I’ve cultivated that in Senior School. No one is surprised. But it feels great. Perhaps my father will want to take us all out to dinner?
The other really good news is that Chhoti Bibi has agreed to take a correspondence course with an NGO that provides remedial support to students to get their school leaving certificate. Although her English is still terribly weak, I have some hopes for the other subjects. She’s allowed to fail one you know.
My friends are happy for me about making Head Girl. Perhaps if they had been surprised, there would have a party or a dinner or something. But everyone expected it. No one throws parties when you are expected to get it.
My pre-applications are all here and so are Ali’s. I sent for his because he would have never remembered them on his own. The Harvard brochure is breathtakingly beautiful.
Are you going to throw a tantrum if I ask you if you have received your pre-applications?
Love,
Tanya
April 1, 1992
Bombay
Dear Tanya,
You get mad at your family for not talking about stuff but it’s not like you’re different. Every time I send you a letter that has hard stuff in it, you ignore it.
Things are still pretty bad for Samara, thanks for asking. But at least I talk to her. None of the other girls talk to her. And there are only twelve of us in the Commerce section, the rest are all boys. And before you ask, no I did not want to study Commerce, my mom made me. It was either Commerce or Science and I didn’t have the grades for Science.
So far I haven’t lost popularity because I talk to Samara. I try to keep it random you know. Like some days I’ll be totally pally with her and other days I ignore her. It’s better to make people wonder what you think of them rather than wonder what they think of you.
I’m worried about Arjun. He’s been really moody and sad lately. I guess I may as well tell you he was suspended again and this time for two weeks. This is a super big deal because he is going to miss the monthly exam which will totally screw up his grades. I mean I don’t care because we have decided we’re not going abroad to college but his dad gets really mad and then he hits him with a belt. And when his dad gets mad Arjun goes batshit crazy. That’s when he gets mean with me. It’s his dad’s fault really, not Arjun’s.
I talked to Nusrat about it but I don’t know, ever since the Samara thing she’s been really touchy with me. She told me to not talk with Arjun anymore and like I called him the next day and she got so mad. She actually threw down the saucepan she was cleaning when I told her. I was kind of pissed off. I mean she’s being paid to wash it not break it. I didn’t say anything but I don’t think it was cool.
What’s the big deal? Why is she so mad? This has happened a gazillion times.
With all of this stuff going on, I totally ignored the stupid packages from American colleges that my mom had sent for. There’s a whole pile in the corner of my room that she dumps a new one on every day. I swear there are fifty applications there.
So today she flipped her lid because I spilled coffee and some of it got on the application for Smith which is her second choice. What’s the big deal, we can send for another one and anyway I’m not going. I just have to tell her that.
So basically everyone is mad at me and I’m working super hard at school and am really tired so please write back something normal without going on and on about college. Tell me about your brother. You like never talk about him.
Love,
T
April 10, 1992
Karachi
Dear Tania,
How can we be the same age and have such different problems? Your boyfriend got suspended, my boyfriend may get kidnapped. You are worried about some stupid fight at school and how that’s going to decrease your social cache, I’m worried about whether either of my parents remembered to pay our school fees. You’re angry with your mother for caring so much about where you go to college and my mother is barely aware that I’m alive. Is she even alive?
She has gone back to her room, Tania. I don’t know what happened. Everything was going so well. For a whole week. She was getting up in the morning and coming out of her room to say bye to us before school. I dropped all my extra classes to come straight home from school and every time I entered the house, I’d be terrified that she’d be back in her room but no, every day, this last week, she was sitting downstairs in the living room, reading or taking a nap or once, mending the hem of my school uniform. I thought things were getting better.
Stop asking me about my brother because I know almost nothing about him. It’s like he isn’t there. He and my father float in a pool of nothingness in perfect harmony. I don’t know what he does, I don’t know what he’s like, he’s secretive and strange and the only time I know he’s in the house is when he’s locked up in the bathroom using up all the hot water. I used to wish we went to the same school but now I’m glad we don’t because I can’t tell what would be worse—to see him laugh and talk with other people or to see him not. I don’t know my brother so stop asking.
But everything was getting better. My mother had come out of her room and now she has gone back in. I went and knocked on her door but it was locked and she didn’t open it. I don’t know what she is doing in there. I am scared that she is not doing anything in there.
Things are also really bad outside. I don’t understand this country. We had to leave school early three times this week because of riots and yet, there is no report of that on the news. Things happen, we all leave the school in panic, and then there’s no report of anything which leaves you wondering if you had imagined all of it. Had we imagined the kidnapping threats, the boys missing from school, the boys being sent away to boarding schools in America and England and Australia? Are we imagining the news of dead men turning up in ditches without eyes and fingers and noses? Are we imagining the strikes that send us scurrying home in the middle of a history test (that I would have topped if only we could have completed it)?
Am I imagining that my mother ever came out?
Nothing makes sense anymore. There’s a line in a poem by William Butler Yeats that I learned by heart over the weekend and it keeps going round and round in my head—the centre cannot hold. The centre cannot hold, the centre cannot hold.
I just need it to hold until I go to Harvard. One more year.
Love,
Tanya
6
April 19, 1996
New York, NY
Dear Tania,
You had asked me about my brother and I never told you anything about him. This is my brother.
He got into Cal Tech the day I didn’t get into Harvard. Had I ever mentioned that my brother is smarter than I am? The reason he didn’t go to my school is that he got a scholarship for the American School. We had both applied for it when we were ten years old. He got it.
My brother chose not to go to Cal Tech. I don’t know how it came to be that we chose sides with my parents. But it was always there from as long as I can remember. Navi somehow understood my father and my father somehow tolerated Navi. Much better than he tolerated me. Maybe it’s because Navi wanted to be a doctor from when he was six years old. Or maybe Navi wanted to be a doctor because of my father. It’s entangled.
When things broke, my brother and I cleaved the way we had grown up. My mother and I came to America and Navi sta
yed with my father in Pakistan. He is at Agha Khan studying medicine. I’ve always wanted to ask him why he applied to Cal Tech at all. He came to visit over the summer and he spent a couple of weeks with me here at Columbia. I was working as a research assistant to a celebrity Law professor, Austin Weatherford. He’s a terrible person but it will look really good on my CV.
Navi has grown up to be quite good looking. I remember you always used to think he was good looking. I had been quite nervous about his visit. Actually I had a panic attack about it and had to get on anti-anxiety medication. But it ended up being quite alright. I felt terribly awkward in the beginning but he seemed genuinely happy to see me. He really liked the campus and came with two tennis rackets. We used to play tennis together when we were children. Actually we played all the way until the summer before the year I broke my leg. It’s the one thing we kept from our twin childhood in America. He was very impressed with the facilities at Columbia and amazed that we have so many tennis courts. He said there are no tennis courts at his college. I thought he was angry but then I saw that he had a big, satisfied smile on his face. He said, to no one in particular, ‘My sister goes here for free.’
We didn’t talk that much. We mostly played tennis and walked around the city. I had made plans to take him to all the museums and parks but he seemed uncomfortable and bored. So finally, we just walked around the city together all day, stopping for hot dogs and kebabs and slices of pizza.
He seems happy. He likes the work and wants to become an orthopedic surgeon. I didn’t ask him why he doesn’t want to become a neurosurgeon. I didn’t ask him what our father thought about it. I didn’t ask about my father.
When Navi was leaving, he gave me a hug and asked me to call home once in a while. I couldn’t tell whether he meant call him or call my father. I haven’t but Navi and I write emails to each other sometimes. His are short and mostly filled with descriptions of surgeries he has watched and trips he wants to take. I take hours to make mine the right length. First I write out everything I want, including the crazy stuff and the angry stuff and then I count the number of words in his email and pare mine down to within 15% of his. It’s always 15% more.
For a long time, I was angry with Navi for never asking me what happened. Chhoti Bibi told me he stayed with me the whole time I was at the hospital for mad people. Slept on a bed he insisted they put in my room. I have no memory of this.
But how can a scientist have so little curiosity? He has never brought it up with me afterwards. He never asked my mother why she left either. Never asked her when she was coming back. Never asked her to stay. It used to drive me mad.
But I don’t mind it now. It’s kind of nice actually. Navi eschews complexity but that also means he is never exhausting.
I haven’t had a bad dream in nine days. This is the first time since it happened that I’ve gone a whole week without waking up in the middle of the night. I am almost scared that it has happened. My therapist told me it would, I have been hoping and praying that it would. I started writing you these letters in the hope that it would. But now that it has happened I’m scared. I don’t want to forget. I don’t want to stop writing to you. I don’t want to stop apologizing. I never want to stop feeling sorry, I never want to stop feeling sad because I don’t know how to live without it anymore.
I will not stop writing to you Tania. I will never stop writing to you.
Love,
Tanya
April 20, 1992
Bombay
Dear Tanya,
Today I won five prizes in school including Esprit de Corps which sounds like a perfume but means that I have team spirit. No one else got five prizes among the girls. Shondip got seven prizes but there are many more prizes for boys than for girls.
My mom didn’t come to the ceremony because she is in Bangalore for a work meeting. My dad is angry about it. He says he is angry that she is not there for me but I think he just feels insecure because he never gets to travel for work. My mom travels business class and has an office car and driver.
I think my mother needs to watch it. She comes home from work really late and she looks tired and her sari is rumpled. My mother’s sari was never rumpled before she started work. I can’t remember the last time she cooked for us. These days it’s always the cook. I mean she cooks better than my mom so I don’t really mind but I know my dad does.
If I were my dad I would like totally have an affair. Arjun’s dad is having an affair and my dad is much, much better looking. Also my dad is nice.
I’m totally not going to be like my mom. I’m always going to look hot for Arjun. But I’m not going to wear saris when I grow up, did I tell you that? Arjun is so cute he’s like no T you gotta wear saris so I can think of your white, white stomach during my work meetings and get hard. I was like what do I think of during my work meetings and he’s like you’re not going to work.
He’s joking. Relax.
Nusrat was really happy about my prizes. I got three cups and two medals. She wanted to polish the cups but I told her there’s no point because I only get to keep it for a few days and then I have to give it back.
Nusrat doesn’t have any cups even though she comes first like every year except in Class 3 when she was sick. She’s still pretty upset about that. She brought all her certificates to show me and they’re like neatly wrapped in plastic in this old Amarsons bag and then wrapped in brown string. That brown string killed me. Where do you even buy brown string? I’m pretty sure they don’t have it at the shops I go to. But Nusrat has totally different stuff than I do. Her pens and pencils are different. Her underwear is different. She loves scotch tape, did I tell you that? She like goes CRAZY for scotch tape.
Anyway so I saw all her certificates. Nusrat Mohammedbhai first in Class 1, first in Class 2, first in Class 4, first in Class 5. Nusrat Mihammedbhai, first in English. First in everything. Then I saw a certificate that she had drawn up herself and coloured in with black felt pens to look like the other ones. It said Nusrat Mohammedbhai, first in Class 3. I acted like it was totally normal so I don’t think she realizes that it’s super weird.
I still haven’t told my mom that I don’t want to go to college in America. My dad knows. I mean I didn’t even have to tell him. But he says I have to tell my mom, he’s not going to tell her for me.
I wish he would but my dad is not brave and it’s probably not a good idea anyway. At least I win some of my fights with my mother, my dad doesn’t even really try. He always gives up halfway.
I can’t leave my life here, Tanya. Today I went to Xavier’s with a friend who goes there now. I really liked it. It’s beautiful and there are lots of good-looking kids there. I don’t want to leave Nusrat and my house and my room and go anywhere. I don’t understand why my mom wants me to go so badly. You’d think she’d want to save her money and have at least one kid at home right?
You think that she’s maybe thinking that once both Sammy and me are out of the house, she’s going to divorce my dad?
I need to tell her that I’m not going to go to college in America. Tell me how to tell her. Do you think your mother could talk to my mother?
Love,
T
April 28, 1992
Karachi
Dear Tania,
Remember how you told me that I ignore your hard letters? Well, I just wanted to say, in the spirit of being factual: you do too. You haven’t asked about my mother. You haven’t asked if there have been any more kidnapping threats. And you haven’t congratulated me about becoming Head Girl.
On that note, let me start by congratulating you on your prizes. Were all of them for sports? I don’t think Esprit de Corps sounds like a perfume. Perhaps you should consider taking up French.
I just don’t understand why you don’t want to go to college in America. Don’t you want a better life? And if that was a joke about my mother speaking to your mother, it wasn’t funny.
I am thinking through my summer plans. Remember my to-do lis
t from when my leg broke? I’ve completed most of the items on it except Chhoti Bibi. I had really hoped that she would be further along by now than she is.
I don’t know what to do with her. It’s not that she’s not clever, she is. She gets concepts quickly and I really think she will do well in Science. But I just can’t get her to do Math or to study the social sciences. And she is only allowed to fail one subject to pass the whole exam. I don’t understand why she won’t just sit down and learn History and Geography. It’s the easiest because it doesn’t require any thinking. How many centimetres of rain does it take for a successful cotton crop? 400cm. Which year was the first battle of Panipat? 1526. It’s all in the book. I don’t understand why she won’t do it.
She has become quite stubborn as well. Earlier all I had to do was ask her to learn a page by heart and she would do it then and there, sitting right in front of me. Now she argues with me about why she needs to know when Babar lost Samarkand and what does that have to do with Pakistan anyway. The other day she argued with me for a full hour until finally I had to bribe her with an episode of 90210—with the AC on—before she agreed to learn by heart the chapter on weather patterns in Punjab. And it’s the smallest chapter.
It can’t go on like this. I am losing all power and authority. I have to argue with her to spend time studying with me and bribe her to do her homework. The exam is only three months away and she is nowhere near prepared. And if she fails I can’t put it in my college applications.
And yet, it is not only that.
It is like she has become a different person. I guess she has become used to my golden hair and light eyes. I am no longer her fairy doll. She no longer wants to hear the story of how my parents met. Had I told you about the time I had asked her to write out a page of English grammar ten times and she wrote it out a hundred times? When I asked her why she did that she said she had wanted to make me happy.
Tanya Tania Page 8