The Mango Season

by Amulya Malladi

  “What?” Lata asked, her hand covered with mango pappu lying listlessly on her plate.

  Anand was silent for a minute. I could see his Adam’s apple bob in and out—his nervousness had tentacles that reached out to everyone in the room.

  “Anand, we don’t need a fuss now. Lata didn’t say anything,” Ammamma warned, not wanting to witness a fight.

  “There is no fuss,” Anand said and stood up as if towering over everyone at the table would make it easier for him.

  Nanna, who was sitting next to me, lifted his eyebrows in query. I shook my head. I knew what Anand was about to say, though I wondered if he had the courage to go through with it.

  “Ever since Neelima and I got married, you all have been treating her really badly,” he began.

  “Badly?” Thatha demanded, his voice thunderous. “What nonsense! You are imagining things.”

  “Not nonsense, Nanna,” Anand said, his voice for once confident as it measured up against his indomitable father. “Neelima is my wife, she deserves respect. If as a family you all have decided to ill-treat her—”

  “No one is ill-treating her, Anand,” Lata interrupted him. “I was simply telling her to be careful. The first trimester is always a delicate one. I don’t know why she misunderstood what I was saying.”

  Neelima started crying softly. It was partly the tension in the room and partly because her hormones were raging. “I am sorry,” she whispered.

  “No, I am sorry,” Anand said, sitting down to hold her hand. Such display of emotion between couples was not commonplace in our family and again I felt envy raise its head inside me. They loved each other, they were married, they were going to have a child; I was in love with a man who had the wrong skin color and nationality, I was living in sin with him and I had just lied to him.

  “I keep sending her here”—Anand looked at Thatha when he spoke—“so that you will accept her. You will get to know her, see what a wonderful person she is and love her, treat her like a member of the family. But . . . if you don’t want to do that, she won’t come here. . . . I won’t come here . . . and neither will our child.”

  The line had been drawn. Anand had just crossed over and become a man. I couldn’t have been prouder.

  Ammamma was about to say something but stopped when Thatha raised his hand.

  “I agree, she is a daughter-in-law of this house and as such she deserves respect,” Thatha said somberly. “But it will take time before we love her. She will never be our choice for your wife, Anand. What is done is done; I can’t change the past or our past behavior. But from now on we will treat her like a member of the family.”

  Ammamma looked away and Lata made a small clicking sound. My mother pursed her lips and then shrugged.

  “Are we clear?” Thatha repeated, looking at the women of his house.

  “Yes,” Ammamma finally said, speaking for everyone.

  “Good,” Thatha said, and nodded toward Neelima. “Congratulations on the baby. We can’t wait to hold another grandchild in our arms.”

  By now Neelima’s tears were racing down her face with the speed of a heavy waterfall. Anand looked at me and mouthed “Thank you.” I nodded, feeling like a total fraud.

  TO: PRIYA RAO

  FROM: NICHOLAS COLLINS

  SUBJECT: PHONE CALL!

  IT WAS WONDERFUL TALKING TO YOU.

  I KNOW YOU ARE UNDER A LOT OF PRESSURE AND I WISH I COULD FIND A WAY TO EASE IT. I DON’T UNDERSTAND THE INTRICACIES OF YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR FAMILY AND SOMETIMES THAT MAKES IT HARD FOR ME TO UNDERSTAND WHY YOU DO THE THINGS YOU DO.

  BUT I DO UNDERSTAND THAT YOU HAVE TO FOLLOW YOUR INTUITION AND YOUR HEART TO KEEP YOUR FAMILY HAPPY BECAUSE THAT’S HOW YOU CAN BE HAPPY. I REALIZE NOW THAT MAYBE THE DETACHMENT YOU FELT FOR THEM WHEN YOU WERE HERE ISN’T EASY TO FEEL WHEN THEY’RE NEXT TO YOU. HERE YOU COULD SEE YOURSELF TELLING THEM ABOUT ME EASILY BECAUSE I WAS WITH YOU, NOW YOU’RE WITH THEM AND YOU FIND THAT IT’S NOT EASY.

  I WON’T LIKE IT BUT I’LL UNDERSTAND IF YOU FIND THAT AT THE END OF THE DAY, YOU CAN’T TELL THEM ABOUT ME. I WON’T LIKE IT AT ALL BECAUSE I WANT YOU WHOLE, NOT DIVIDED AS THE DAUGHTER OR GRANDDAUGHTER AND WIFE AND LOVER.

  BUT ULTIMATELY, I’LL TAKE YOU ANY WAY I CAN GET YOU.

  TAKE CARE.

  NICK

  I couldn’t sleep.

  Sowmya, Anand, Neelima, and I were spread out on the terrace on straw mats, chappas. I lay my head on a flat cotton pillow and looked up at the stars. For the past half an hour since Sowmya had fallen asleep, I had been staring at Saptarishi and, just my luck, I couldn’t see Arundhati.

  Instead, the vultures were circling.

  The last time I had slept on this terrace, I had been twenty years old, ready to face the world with the strength of the innocent. I was gearing up to go the United States; I had gotten my F-1 student visa and my bags were packed. I was spending a last weekend at Ammamma’s house before heading over across seven seas to the land of opportunities. I had been so eager to leave, so excited that I had never thought that when I came back everything would be different to me and for me. I had never thought about how it would never be the same again, about how the cliché “you can never really go back home” would stand true.

  This was not home anymore. Home was in San Francisco with Nick. Home was Whole Foods grocery store and fast food at KFC. Home was Pier 1 and Wal-Mart. Home was 7-Eleven and Star-bucks. Home was familiar, Hyderabad was a stranger; India was as alien, exasperating, and sometimes exotic to me as it would be to a foreigner.

  I heard the gate opening and got up to see who it was. A lanky figure with a backpack stepped into the yard and then under the small yellow light that glowed with a flicker under the carport. He looked up and waved. I had never been happier to see Nate.

  “I’m starving,” he said, as soon as I came down. “You guys sleeping upstairs?”

  “Yes, and there’s plenty of food in the kitchen,” I said. “Let’s go in from the back door.”

  “Good idea, last thing I need is Ma waking up and going, ‘oh my son is home,’ ” he said with a grin.

  I hugged him tightly then. He was taller than me now, I realized as he stroked my hair.

  “Hey,” he said, and pushed me away after a moment, “I’m a man, this hugging thing is for sissies.”

  “Ah,” I said and tweaked his nose with my fingers.

  Nate left his sneakers outside the back door before coming inside the house. We turned the light on in the kitchen and Nate flopped down onto the floor.

  “What’re you doing back?” I asked, as I picked out a plate from the cabinet for him.

  “Got bored,” he said, and then shrugged. “I wanted to be here for the bloodshed. Or has the fat lady already sung?”

  “What fat lady?” I demanded, and filled a glass with water from the earthen pot next to the stove. “ Pappu with rice work for you?”

  “What kind of pappu?”

  “Mango?”

  “Sure. Sowmya makes this spinach pappu that’s painful to swallow,” Nate said. “You think you can heat the rice a little? Fridge-cold rice makes my hair in all the strange places stand up.”

  I pulled out some rice and pappu for Nate from the fridge. I mixed them both with my fingers and put the mixture in a frying pan to heat.

  “This house so needs a microwave,” I said.

  “The American-returned daughter brings in some fancy ideas,” Nate said with affected mockery. “So . . . when’re you going to tell them?”

  “I’m not,” I said, not looking at him. “They set up a pelli-chupulu for me.”

  “Rice Sarma’s Venkatesh type.”

  “You know?”

  “Not really. It isn’t like Ma discloses all to me. But in all fairness, the boy—ah, man—is very handsome, has a good, stable job. Don’t know about the smoking and drinking part, though his mother claims he is a gudu-baye,” Nate said.

  “A good boy, my ass,” I
muttered. “Remember the gudu boy from Chicago?”

  “Oh, the Cheee-cah-go baye, you mean?” Nate imitated Ma. “He was a prize, Priya.”

  “He was also screwing another woman.”

  “Details, details.”

  I put the now warmed rice and pappu on a plate and placed it in front of Nate along with a glass of water. I sat in front of him on the floor and drank some water from his glass.

  “There is also some HAPPINESS in the fridge,” I told him. “I asked Sowmya to save it from the mango she cut for dinner.”

  “And you don’t want to fight over it?” Nate asked suspiciously.

  I shook my head. I didn’t even want to fight over HAPPINESS. This was an all-time low.

  “What, not feeling well?” Nate put a hand against my forehead as if checking my temperature.

  “I lied to Nick,” I confessed. “I told Nick that I wasn’t going to go through with the chupulu and that I was going to tell everyone about him.”

  “Nick is the man’s name. Do we have a photo?”

  “Photo? I have bigger problems, Nate.”

  “So tell him the truth and don’t go through the chupulu ,” Nate said as he chewed on his food. “Then tell them all about Nick. And I’d still like to see my future brother-in-law, if not in the flesh, at least in Kodak color.”

  “I’ll send you a picture later.” I said. “And what does it matter how he looks? Lord, Nate, this stress is going to give me a coronary.”

  “You’re not going to have a—”

  “Nate?” Nanna’s voice filtered into the kitchen.

  “Hey, Nanna,” Nate called out and winked at me. “At least she didn’t wake up,” he added on a whisper.

  “Nate is here?” Ma’s voice chimed in on cue.

  “Well . . . can’t have it all, can we?” Nate sighed as my mother’s shrill voice came in through the hall, she was saying, just as Nate had predicted, “Oh, my son is home.”

  Part Four

  Old Pickle, New Pickle

  Rava Ladoo

  1 cup semolina (rava/sooji)

  1 cup sugar

  3 tablespoons ghee

  1 cup milk

  1 tablespoon cashew nuts

  1 tablespoon raisins

  Fry the semolina in a saucepan on low heat till it turns slightly brown in color. Then add sugar, ghee, milk, and fry till the mixture becomes sticky. Chop the nuts and add them, along with the raisins, to the mixture. Remove the pan from the heat and form the dough into small balls. Serve when dry.

  Aloo Bajji

  1 cup chickpea flour (besan)

  water

  salt to taste

  1 teaspoon chili powder

  1 cup peanut oil

  4-5 large potatoes, sliced

  Mix the besan, water, salt, and chili powder until the consistency is runny. Heat the oil in a deep frying pan. Dip thinly sliced potatoes in the chickpea flour mixture and fry in peanut oil until golden brown.

  The Similarity Between Cattle and Women

  Sowmya added the rava for the ladoos to the hot frying pan in which the ghee was sizzling. She used a steel spatula to coat the semolina with the ghee and lowered the flame on the stove.

  “I can’t believe Anand said that to Nanna,” she said. The family was still buzzing with the way Anand had stood up for Neelima and how Thatha had accepted Neelima as his daughter-in-law, finally.

  I was standing by the sink peeling potatoes to make potato bajji, dazed that I was allowing this atrocity of bride-seeing ceremonies to not only be perpetrated, but to be perpetrated upon me.

  “I can’t believe I’m getting snacks ready for that stupid chupulu,” I said angrily, ripping away some skin from the potato.

  “Maybe you should forget about this American and marry this nice boy—” Sowmya started to suggest.

  “What do you mean ‘forget’, Sowmya? I’m in a relationship, not some dream I can wake up from,” I said in exasperation. “I live with Nick. I share a home, a bed, a life with him. What am I supposed to do, just walk away?”

  Sowmya’s lips shaped into a pout and she sighed before slowly adding milk into the fried rava from a steel tumbler.

  “And I love him,” I said softly. “I love him very much.”

  Sowmya shrugged and put the tumbler down on the counter with a sharp sound.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I demanded.

  “Nothing, Priya,” Sowmya said, and then sighed again.

  “Why don’t you just say what you have to say and stop with the shrugging and sighing?”

  Sowmya measured sugar with her fingers and dropped a few handfuls into the frying pan. She rubbed her hand against her sari to shrug off the remaining particles of sugar and picked up a spatula.

  “I don’t know how you can love an American. I mean . . . what do you two even talk about?” she asked as she slowly stirred the rava and sugar in the pan.

  “What do you mean, talk about? We talk like everyone talks,” I said, as I bit back the few topics that had collected on my tongue as an automatic response to her question.

  “But . . . he is not even Indian,” Sowmya said, as if that explained it all.

  I dropped the potato I was peeling and put my hands on my face. If Sowmya, who was more my generation, had trouble comprehending my relationship with Nick, I could only imagine how the others would react.

  “Priya, they’ll be here in an hour,” Ma said, bursting into the kitchen. “Have you at least taken a bath?”

  “Yes,” I said. “First thing in the morning, Ma. After all that’s what a Gangiraddhi does, isn’t it?”

  Drawing an analogy between a “dressed-up” cow for a puja and me was probably not a wise thing to do, but I was prepped up for a fight like a homicidal bull being made to do something against its will.

  “A Gangiraddhi doesn’t have the choices you do,” Ma said angrily.

  “What’s the boy’s name, Akka?” Sowmya asked before I could tell Ma what she could do with what she thought were my choices.

  “Adarsh, a nice name. But probably not good enough for Priya maharani, our very own high-and-mighty queen,” Ma said sarcastically.

  “The name is fine,” I muttered.

  “I have put out some saris with blouses for you on Ammamma’s bed along with some jewelry; go and pick what you like. I don’t want to battle over this with you, Priya. . . . Just choose anything you want. I don’t want to interfere,” Ma said, picking up the potato I had let go.

  “I’m not going to wear any heavy jewelry,” I warned.

  “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” Ma snapped. “Don’t do us any favors. We find an excellent boy for you to see and . . .” She threw the potato in the sink and said, “I can’t deal with this anymore,” before she stormed out of the kitchen.

  Lata came into the kitchen in Ma’s wake and asked us what was going on. I followed my mother’s example and stormed out myself.

  When Nick first suggested we move in together, my answer had been an unequivocal “no.” Unmarried couples living together was exactly the kind of thing I had been raised not to do.

  “But you’re here all the time anyway,” Nick said about his apartment. “How would it matter if we were officially living together?”

  “It’d matter . . . to my family,” I’d told him honestly. A week later I agreed to move in with him because I realized that I had to stop worrying about what my family would think and start living my own life on my own terms. After that I had been determined not to let Ma or Nanna or Thatha decide my fate for me. But now when they were so close, the ties that bound me to them grew tighter, biting through my skin and conscience.

  The saris strewn on Ammamma’s white bedspread were so laden in embroidered gold that they made my eyelids heavy to just look at them.

  “The blue one,” Nate said, as he sauntered in, biting into a carrot. “And this,” he said, flicking his finger over a heavy sapphire necklace-and-earrings set.

  �
�I’ll look like someone’s grandmother,” I said.

  “So, big deal. Who are you trying to impress?” Nate asked with a smirk.

  “Stop being such a wiseass, will you,” I said, and smiled despite myself. Ah, vanity! Even though I didn’t care for Adarsh Sarma’s marriage proposal, I still wanted to look my best.

  “If you really want to look nice, I say the yellow one with the red border. Classic Telugu movie sari, with that ruby necklace,” Nate said. “My girlfriend looks great in the classic yellow and red sari.”

  I sat down on the bed and picked up the sari. “What’s your girlfriend’s name?”

  “Tara,” Nate said without hesitation. “She’s doing her degree at St. Frances in Begumpet. Her father is an ex-army officer. They live in Sainikpuri and yes, her parents have met me and think I am the next best thing since instant coffee.”

  I nodded. “Nanna was asking me about her.”

  “Nanna knows about her,” Nate grinned. “He saw me with her once. We were having lunch at Ten Downing Street and Nanna came in with a colleague. We both saw each other and pretended we didn’t. Never talked about it. I guess Nanna didn’t want me to ask him what he was doing in a pub and didn’t want to know what I was doing there. Don’t ask, don’t tell, a good philosophy.”

  “Does Ma know?”

  “If Ma knew everyone would know,” Nate sneered. “Tell Nick about this pelli-chupulu. If Tara went through one of these ridiculous ceremonies without even telling me about it, I’d be pissed as hell for a very long time.”

  When he left I sat amid the beautiful silk saris and contemplated my options. I had to go through with this afternoon. If I tried to back out now, it would reflect badly on my parents. And I had to tell Nick the truth. And I had to tell Ma, Nanna, and Thatha the truth.

  It was very simply really. I just had to tell everyone the truth and hope that they’d still love me.

  By the time the Sarmas were about to arrive, I was feeling like an object instead of a person. Ma had pulled and yanked and tucked and arranged for the nth time since I picked the blue-bordered sari to look like someone’s grandma.