The Rearranged Life

by Annika Sharma

  “We’re done.” I place my pencil down after he finishes his last explanation.

  “Let’s take a break.” He closes his book, too.

  “Sure, do you want something to drink?” I offer as I go to the fridge.

  “Gatorade is fine,” James says, knowing I always have a few in stock.

  I grab him a bottle and get myself some water, tossing him his drink as I come back into the living room and settle in the recliner. It’s just one more sign that we’re miles apart: the loveseat is our usual spot. He plays on his phone, leaning back against the cushions. I wait for a few minutes, but he is too preoccupied to look up. Pangs of impatience eat at my insides. I gaze at him and try to will him into looking at me, but it doesn’t work. Finally, I bite the bullet.

  “Have you thought about our conversation before break?” I ask, and he shrugs.

  His reaction makes my blood boil. Suddenly, I feel stupid. I’ve worried about him every time I’ve had a spare moment–whether he’s okay, whether he’s hurt, whether he’s mad. Whether he’s thought about me too. I’ve pushed away Nishanth. To have him shrug and act like none of it matters hurts me more than I’ll admit.

  “What’re you even doing here, then?” I snap, slamming my water cup on the table.

  He glares at me. “So now you decide to tell me what to do?” he retorts. “You can stay quiet about something like an arranged marriage for two months, but I have one week to come around?”

  “What don’t you understand? I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but it was never the right time. What did you want me to do, interrupt while we were making out and go ‘oh, by the way, James, did I tell you I’m supposed to marry an Indian?’”

  “That would have been something. You didn’t do anything.”

  “So is that how it’s going to be? You’re going to hold this over my head forever?” I ask, incredulous. “How are we going to move forward if you keep looking back?”

  “How are we going to move forward knowing you might belong to someone else?”

  “You know what, James, I don’t know. I guess we won’t go anywhere if we keep doing this same old song and dance. It’s up to you.”

  “But it’s not up to me, is it? You have to make a choice. Not me. I like you. I want to be with you. I’ve made that clear. But you’re the one who has to decide. You’re the one following these antiquated rules.”

  “Antiquated rules?”

  “This concept that you have to marry someone similar to you. That love doesn’t matter, and that practicality does. It’s the twenty-first century. No one can tell you what to do. It’s kind of ridiculous.”

  “Why are you being so condescending? It’s not ridiculous. It’s where I come from.”

  “You’re right, I’m sorry, I just don’t get it. I don’t understand how you can’t just do what makes you happy.”

  “You don’t have to understand.” I surprise myself by defending the culture I felt weighted with just a short month ago, but it’s an inherent part of who I am, and I’ll be damned if someone else dumps on it. “It’s different than yours. That doesn’t make it worse.”

  Nishanth’s words come to mind. Once we really became a part of each other’s lives, everything became different, different, different. After awhile, I began wishing she was Indian just so we’d have more of the same.

  “Okay. Okay.” James puts his hands up in surrender.

  “You understood how much my family meant to me. It’s not fair that you get to call them ridiculous because they get in the way of what you want.” Now I’m riled up.

  “You’re right. But I also think you need to do what makes you happy. I think they’ll come around.”

  “Did you hear my mom on Skype last week? She made her position pretty clear.”

  We have done a complete one-eighty. Last week, I told him the future wasn’t set in stone. Now, I’m the one convincing him my parents won’t budge. All the arguments spin and swirl in my head. He calls me out on it immediately.

  “Last week, you told me you weren’t sure if you wanted to follow the rules. Now you do, all of a sudden. What the hell? Did they get into your head?”

  “They are my parents, and for the record, no, they didn’t. Jesus Christ, James, this is new to me too!”

  It’s a game of Ping-Pong. I counter with a point, he scores back. I give up, and he fights on. He forfeits, and I challenge.

  “Nithya, what do you want? It’s not me who needs to make a choice. It’s you. I cannot and will not tell you what to do. This is you needing to tell me if you’re all in.”

  The frustration actually makes me tremble.

  “I don’t know,” I finally say.

  “Fine. Let’s take some more time. You can decide.”

  He picks up his books and shoves them in his backpack. He leaves without saying another word.

  The rest of December goes by, and we don’t talk about it again. Time flows, a silent witness to everything all six billion earthlings go through. The only guarantee through trials and tribulations is that the seconds still tick, the hands on the clock moving forward even when you try to convince them not to. Before long, Christmas is almost upon us, and finals week draws to an end. James and I go on pretending nothing is amiss as we discuss school, sit next to each other, and joke about classes. We don’t talk about us… but then again, we don’t talk about anything of substance. We’re distant, yet the attraction is as strong as before. Our only options are extremes. If we lose each other, our hearts would break. If we dive in, our hands are tied together in the face of the adversity that is inevitably coming our way. So, we do nothing.

  he Christmas lights twinkle along the gutters of our house as we pull into the driveway for winter break. Like in the years past, the garlands were hung on the frames of the house around Diwali in early November. Diwali, the Festival of Light, is celebrated in India with strings of lights, fireworks, diyas or homemade bowls of butter with a wick, and glowing colors anywhere they can fit. Every inch of India sparkles in the night. Since we’re in the United States and Christmas is full of light, the Diwali spirit usually continues for a month or so afterward. It’s my favorite time of the year.

  For the first five years of my life, I thought the reason Santa Claus never stopped by our house was because we lived in apartments without chimneys. I figured he had no way of getting into the house via the traditional route. The jig was up when I asked my parents if we could have a chimney built so Santa could come. My dad asked who Santa was, prompting the realization that the fat man had to be a figment of imagination, or Nanna, the smartest man in the world, would know who he was.

  By the time Anisha arrived, my parents decided to play along. We were more financially stable at this point and had moved to Philadelphia. We invested in a tree, albeit a fake one, with prickly needles and plastic-smelling branches that we dutifully installed in the living room every year as if to show the world we too had some Christmas spirit despite our non-western roots. The weekend before Christmas, it became a Kolluri tradition to hang up the mismatching ornaments together… our very own take on the holiday.

  “Akka, your first grade ornament is way better than mine,” Anisha observes, holding up two Popsicle stick creations with school pictures in the middle. Anisha’s haphazard gluing of confetti, glitter, and pompoms is the antithesis to my carefully drawn glitter lines. I can even remember biting my lip in concentration as I dripped rows of glue down on each wooden stick.

  “You two had different artistic styles,” Nanna says diplomatically. “No one would compare a Monet and a Picasso.”

  “I don’t think either of those stick frames come close to either of those greats.” I hang a photo of my grandparents on the branch above my head.

  “Oh, Nithya! You were so cute as a baby.” Amma holds up a picture-laden ‘Baby’s First Christmas’ ornament, which she found at a discount sale at Macy’s. When I was seven.

  “She’s still cute,” our dad says.

  “She w
as so serious,” Amma comments, looking at the picture again.

  “Some things don’t change,” Anisha remarks.

  “Hey! I’m right here!”

  “You both were so different,” Amma continues, nostalgically taking decorations out of the box. “With Nithya, if I said to go to sleep, she would instantly go to sleep. With Anisha, we had to fight a war to get her to do anything. Nithya was a serious baby… very picky. Anisha, you were so carefree and happy, always so loud.”

  “Anisha is right. Some things don’t change,” our dad says, with a mischievous smirk.

  Anisha sticks out her tongue, and he blows her a kiss.

  At the end of the night, the glimmering lights wrap around mismatched ornaments. Disneyworld keepsakes from our first trip, when I was eight and Anisha was three, dangle from the branches. I had insisted on the Belle piece because the movie had just come out two years earlier and it was my favorite, a fact that hasn’t changed now. A Penn State one hangs, with a picture of Sophia and me at our new apartment tucked into its ceramic frame, a gift from the Bellamy family. A five-inch novelty doll dressed in rural Indian village clothing, a makeshift decoration for the tree my mom picked up in India and tied a string to, swings near the top. I always admired the model trees in stores when I was younger that matched in color schemes and themes, but our tree with its blur of colors and occasions make it so unique, I couldn’t imagine anything else in our house.

  “What’s on your mind?” My dad’s voice sounds out in our sunroom, the place he knows he’ll always find me curled up with a book or staring out at the weeping willows in the backyard. Nithya’s thinking spot, he calls it.

  “Just about those interviews.” I make room on the sofa and pass him some of the blanket covering my legs.

  I’d received e-mails about scheduling interviews at Baylor, Columbia, and Emory. In early January, I would fly out for them. The joy had cast some light into the dreary space I’d been studying in for final exams. One dream of mine finally has a chance of coming true. I’d already had interviews in November for some of the schools I wasn’t sure I wanted to go to but applied for anyway.

  “Safety schools are necessary.” Mrs. Gladdis used to remind us in high school. I guess medical school is no different.

  “Are you nervous?” It is usually the worst question to ask someone who is freaking out, but coming from him, it’s simply an invitation to talk.

  “No… Yes. I want to do my best,” I answer in Telugu, switching back to our routine of English outside the home, Telugu inside.

  My parents taught us Telugu, the language of Andhra Pradesh (our state) as our first language. Their logic was that we would learn English and American culture in school anyway, so at home, we were encouraged to speak Telugu and practice Indian traditions. I used to be able to write Telugu as well, but I am out of practice now. It takes me roughly three minutes to read every word. Though they hope I will take the time to learn again, I have a feeling reading and writing Telugu will be a lost art after this generation.

  “You always have put a lot of pressure on yourself. Remind yourself why you wanted to go to medical school in the first place. Your hard work will show everything else.” He says this with so much faith in me that I believe him. I tell him thanks, that I’m glad I have him in my life.

  “I’m glad you’re home! This place always feels more full when you are around.” Nanna pats my head affectionately.

  “I’m glad to be back. I’ve missed home.” It’s the truth. The smell of cardamom, cloves, and cumin warm me inside. The familiarity, like entering a safe bubble, washes over me like a wave every time I set foot into this house.

  “Tell me what’s been going on at college. Do you have any interesting stories?” he asks, reminding me how many times he’s listened to my gossip just for the sake of listening instead of casting judgments, unlike most of the aunties and uncles we know.

  “The usual… a lot of studying, meetings, hanging out…” I want to say, Being with James, but am unable to.

  He asks me how everyone is handling their senior year, whether they are coping with the stress and having fun. My dad’s stories of the competitive nature of Indian schooling, the way his high school valedictorian had to come in with the measles to take finals because he would lose his top rank otherwise, contrast with Sophia’s proclamations that she is only following in the footsteps of our predecessors when she ditches class.

  “Sophia parties a little more than she used to. She met a guy so she’s always with him. She still goes to class, though… sometimes,” I add as an afterthought, and he chuckles, delighted with a different narrative of college than the one he is used to.

  He says we are young, and as long as we maintain a good balance, we should enjoy our lives. His dream of getting the best of both worlds is coming true now: while I stress about school, it will never become as central as it had to be for him, and he is relieved.

  “Is something on your mind?”

  “Amma said Karishma is getting married this summer.”

  “Yes, in May. Her parents sent us an invitation, and the engagement party is in a few weeks. The boy’s family has been very accommodating.”

  This is my in, my opportunity to find out how my parents would feel about James. I have to put this within a marriage context because I know my parents wouldn’t support me dating for its own sake. Seeing someone should be considered only if marriage is an outcome–that is non-negotiable. I can date James only if I see myself marrying him, otherwise all the struggles with my family will be for naught.

  “What would you do if I brought home an American boy?”

  “Do you have someone in mind?” Is that a knowing look I catch in his eyes?

  “I’m just curious. You said Karishma’s fiancé’s family has been accommodating. It seems like they all get on. I was just wondering what you’d do.” I shrug.

  He hmms, thinking, and I interrupt him before he gets a chance to say anything.

  “Would you hate me?”

  “Of course not, pumpkin. You’re my daughter. I’d never hate you. I think I would be disappointed that our culture might be lost. It’s so tough maintaining it as is. You have done a beautiful job so far. I don’t want you to lose all you’ve worked for.”

  “So then you’d be upset.”

  “I don’t know if upset is the right word. At some point, as a parent, you have to trust that your children will make the right decision for everyone. Whether that’s an American or an Indian, I hope you just consider everybody and make the decision best for everyone, whatever that may be.” A beacon of hope is on the horizon when he continues. “Just as it is your prerogative to choose, however, it’s mine to never feel completely at ease.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You saw how easy it was when Nishanth’s family was here. No translations, no lost jokes, no one feeling like an outsider to the conversation. That’s what marriage is, Nithya. You try to include everyone. You become a sister, a daughter-in-law, a sister-in-law, a niece, an aunt… You have many relationships to balance. When two families come together who are very different, that balance can be very complicated, and people can feel sad when they are left out of the magic. I don’t know if I would ever feel completely comfortable coming to your house if everything was completely changed from the way you were raised.”

  “So you want me to marry Nishanth,” I say, somewhat glumly.

  “I want you to marry someone who you fit with and who fits in with your family, too,” he corrects me with a kind smile. “It doesn’t have to be Nishanth. Just don’t tell your mom I said that.”

  I try to insert James into our family dynamic. The conversations usually run in Telugu, shouted jokes and laughter at comments that cannot be translated easily or as funnily in English. And vice-versa, things in American culture are untranslatable so the beauty of the expressions is lost. Spending family gatherings translating each joke or statement is a picture I’m not sure I’d like to see painted
. But in the end, how important are differences like these?

  “Don’t you think though, Nanna, these reasons are just conveniences? Language barriers, religion. I’m sure Karishma and her fiancé can manage them.”

  “Of course, those are conveniences. But those conveniences lead to bigger questions: how do you raise children? What do you do in a house where the wife cannot touch meat, but the husband likes to have it every day and their meals cannot be shared? What do you do on religious holidays? Do you attend ceremonies or functions you do not agree with? Those conveniences sound small, but they do take care of the bigger issues down the road, the ones that lead to big problems. I am not saying Karishma will get divorced. I am just saying why our system has worked so far.”

  “Who is getting divorced?” Amma walks in and catches the tail end of my father’s explanation.

  “No one. We were talking about what you guys would do if I told you I wanted to marry an American.” Sometimes, my naïveté astounds me. I automatically assume that because my father has been open to a discussion, my mother will be the same. No such luck.

  She switches from curious to terrified in a millisecond.

  “You want to marry an American? Who? Why?!”

  “No, Amma–”.

  “Is that what we sent you to school for? To date boys?”

  Once again, I am an idiot. I haven’t even confessed to dating James, but I am getting a preview of her reaction. It’s not encouraging.

  “Priya, this was a hypothetical conversation.”

  “Why are you asking?” My mom gives me a suspicious look. She has no idea how much I want to squirm under her X-ray gaze.