Missed Translations

by Sopan Deb

  There was a loud “Moooooo!!!” as the hindquarters of a cow smashed into our front bumper and up toward the hood of the car. Why did the cow cross the road? Well, he didn’t really, because it was too late for our driver to stop. We crashed into the sacred animal at full speed, knocking it straight down.

  The car stopped.

  Thankfully, no one was hurt. Well, the car was hurt. The bumper was dislodged and the windshield cracked.

  But a sense of panic quickly set in. Forget the bumper! Check the cow!

  We had seen stray cows milling about, which didn’t surprise us, since cows are sacred in India. I mean, you know that. Everyone knows that. Surrounding pedestrians don’t really pay them any mind, especially because the vast majority of the population of India, roughly 80 percent, is Hindu. And since Narendra Modi became prime minister in 2014, cow lynchings, meaning the murder of human cow ranchers by vigilantes, have been on the rise. The majority of the states in India have laws that prohibit the killing of cows. That morning, just by chance, I happened to have read several articles about the subject. It had become a heated political issue in the country, an indication of rising sectarian tensions between Muslims and Hindus.

  I was genuinely worried for our lives: Rajasthan, the state Jaipur is in, is one of those states which has a cow protection law.

  People started emerging from the shops on the side of the highway to see what the fuss was about. I started breathing hard, mostly because, in the Indian criminal justice system, cows are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: gods and other gods. My father, meanwhile, didn’t seem the least bit concerned. Mostly, he seemed annoyed that he had been awoken from his nap by this cow who had the misfortune of jaywalking at the wrong time. I was this close to saying we should make a run for it, but I knew I would make a terrible fugitive. I used to pretend I was a lampshade when I played hide-and-seek, even if we were outdoors.

  Miraculously, the cow got up on its own and ran away, seemingly unaffected. And we—after a couple of minutes of staring imminent death in the face—started driving again, although with a dislodged bumper and cracked windshield. Newton was right: Every action does have an equal and opposite reaction. My heart was beating too fast. I tried to get myself together in the car by taking deep breaths.

  As Shyamal prepared to take another nap, he pointed his finger to the left side of the road: “Oh, look at this store selling marble sculptures over there.”

  He then nodded off to sleep again. I threw my hands up in bewilderment. Was I the only one who realized the danger we had just escaped?

  We made it to Jaipur without further incident, but our excitement for this leg of the trip was dampened knowing that it would be the last. There was no way around the fact that our stay in Jaipur was deeply sad. It had a different air than our other locations, even though, once again, we were touring palaces and forts.

  I had been heartened in Kolkata to see my father so unexpectedly healthy and vibrant. I enjoyed pretending to play tennis with him and seeing his energy as a tourist, not to mention the sense of enlightenment I felt getting to know who he was as a person. But in the last couple of days before leaving for the United States, I was entirely filled with remorse.

  Shyamal was a fussy traveler who didn’t like deviating from well-laid itineraries. It occurred to me that this was probably because he rarely had other people with whom to travel, so he liked to retain as much control as possible. Siddhartha, his youngest brother, told me that the two of them don’t tour together because they’re too different. It sounded like something I’d say about my father.

  By Shyamal’s own admission, he had no friends in India. And it’s not like he had lost many. In almost eight decades, he never made them. Once a day in Jaipur, Shyamal would say, “This has been a dream for you to come here.” Or he’d be geeked about explaining the significance of a sight and say to Wesley, “I hope I’m not boring you.”

  Sometimes the conversations exposed my father’s deep loneliness. While he was never looking for sympathy, Shyamal would matter-of-factly make throwaway statements alluding to his lack of companionship that would prompt Wesley and me to exchange glances.

  The most striking example was during lunch on the complex of another fort—this one called Nahargarh, one of our first stops in the city. It was a bit more difficult to get to, since it required driving on winding roads through the Aravalli mountains. But once we arrived, there was an extraordinary, sweeping view of the entirety of Jaipur.

  He spent the meal quizzing Wesley on her career, joking that the key to life is avoiding tigers and lawyers. Wesley had dated me long enough to master the polite laugh.

  “If you get time, come here during the winter and stay here for one night. It is a heavenly pleasure,” Shyamal said, as we sipped beers.

  “You didn’t eat at this restaurant, did you?” I said, asking about his previous trips.

  “This is the place!” he exclaimed.

  Shyamal told us when he had been to this exact restaurant before: on New Year’s Eve five years prior. He had come with a tour group. Me? I was surrounded by friends at a party at the same time. He also mentioned offhand that this trip to Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur was one of the only times in his life that he had traveled with someone who wasn’t a stranger. He looked out the window as he said it. There was no fluctuation in his tone. He wasn’t fishing for my comfort. This was his life. It was what he was used to.

  “Believe me or not, I never expected in this short period of time to become so family. Both of you are my best friends,” Shyamal said, and we clinked our beer glasses together. He said he was proud of me and that he was having the print of my front-page piece in the Times framed.

  On our last day in Jaipur, we went to another shop, which sold everything from pashminas, rugs, and saris, to marble and wood carvings. We asked my father if we could buy him something for his kindness.

  “You’ve brought me everything,” he responded.

  “What?” I said, confused.

  “Everything I’ve lost in the last eleven years, you’ve brought me back in ten days,” Shyamal said.

  I said nothing, not knowing what I could add. I briefly thought about hugging him but decided against it. Instead, I helped Shyamal learn how to use his smartphone correctly. This way, the next time he was on a trip by himself, he could take photos with his phone rather than sprinting back and forth like Usain Bolt to get the perfect crop. My entire life, I had blamed Shyamal for not being able to properly communicate with me. This time, I was the one unable to communicate how much solace I found in getting to know him on this trip.

  At the hotel the night before, Wesley had made an observation that I kept thinking about now, sitting across from my father: “He wants to know you but he doesn’t know how to know another person,” she had said. Maybe the opposite had been true as well. Maybe it was me who had not learned how to know him. That’s not to assign blame. It may have just been that our respective places in the universe had been incompatible, and there is nothing we could have done about it until now. This particular intersection of time and place, both of us in a new stage of our lives, may have been the cipher we needed to find each other.

  At the shop, we paid for our souvenirs, including a pashmina and some figurines to bring back for Bishakha, and then we got in the car for the drive back to Delhi. Shyamal was going to fly back to Kolkata the next day, Wesley and I to the United States.

  The ride was quiet, except for one time when we pulled over. We didn’t seriously injure a cow this time; it was just to have lunch.

  “This time it’ll be harder to say goodbye. Parting will be difficult,” Shyamal said, as we munched on dosas in a crowded cafeteria.

  After a couple of seconds of silence, Wesley offered, “It’ll be weird to go home.”

  “At least you have each other. I go back to being alone,” Shyamal said.

  He paused and gazed off into the distance.

  “It is hard to live alone,�
� he said.

  I’ll never forget the unsentimental way he said this, his pure and unbridled resignation to a solitary life. He said it out loud, but really, it was to nobody in particular. The last couple of weeks were a break for Shyamal from his regular life, one that he’d treasure. His life would be lonely now. It would be here, it would be localized, and yet it would be so far away.

  The next day, on the ride to the airport, Shyamal had on his white baseball cap, the same one he wore when we played tennis. He had a box in his lap, a painting from Jaipur he’d bought at a discount. We pulled up to a terminal, and I heard a deep sigh from Shyamal.

  “Is this you, Dad?” I said.

  “Yes,” Shyamal said.

  The driver found a parking spot on the sidewalk to unload my father’s bags. There were honks and whistles surrounding us, just as there were in Kolkata when we had landed weeks earlier.

  When he was all set, I turned to him and said, “Okay, Dad.”

  “Young man,” Shyamal said, as we both went in for a hug. It was our first full embrace since I was in college. When we’d landed in India, he offered an awkward side hug and a tap on the head. But now he patted me on the back three times and kissed me on the cheek. Then he slapped me twice more for good measure.

  He turned to Wesley with an exaggerated, “And?”

  She came in for a hug of her own. “My sweetie,” Shyamal said, kissing Wesley on the head.

  We had the driver take a picture of the three of us. There was a part of me that hoped he would be a version of my dad and would take the picture like my iPhone was a point-and-shoot, so that the moment would last an hour instead of a second. Unfortunately, the driver knew how to operate a zoom lens.

  We had to go to our terminal. Shyamal, not one for deep emotions, forced a grin, but I could see he was trying to hide his sadness. I could see the longing etched in the wrinkles on his face. Me too, for that matter. It was back to real life for all of us.

  “Okay, Dad. We’ll talk to you when we land, okay? Safe flight,” I said, giving him one more hug and climbing back into the car. Right before Shyamal headed inside, he smiled and performed an uncoordinated shimmy with his body. I have no idea what he was trying to do, but I appreciated it nonetheless.

  “He can’t stop smiling. Look at him,” I muttered.

  As the car started moving, I stared out the window. Wesley was crying.

  “What a couple of weeks,” I said to her.

  “Are you okay?” she said.

  “Yeah,” I said. I took her hand and kissed it. “I have you with me.”

  Fourteen

  “For me, I didn’t have a choice.”

  Mom, why would you say something?” I asked Bishakha, dumbfounded, clutching the tiny box in my pocket.

  Wesley, my mother, and I were sitting in my mother’s bedroom in New Jersey several months after returning from India. Wesley and I were mostly recovered from our trip and had gotten back into our normal routine. In the weeks after we’d landed at Newark Airport, I faced questions about the trip from co-workers and friends, which I didn’t know how to answer. There was no way to succinctly do so. I just kept saying, “It was not a relaxing trip” and left it at that, which was probably for the best. When colleagues ask you a question about vacation, they don’t actually want to hear the details.

  Bishakha had just returned from India as well. She’d had to sell property belonging to her mother, who died when I was in college. My grandmother on my mother’s side was the only grandparent I had ever met, and it was when I was very young. I barely remember her.

  Before Bishakha left for her first trip to India in a decade, I had a request for her.

  Back when Wesley was picking out rubies and sapphires for her family in Delhi, she had said offhand to no one in particular, “These rubies would look good on a necklace. Or earrings. Or a ring.”

  I know nothing about jewelry. I never ever buy it. If I was to go buy earrings right now, it’s more likely I come back with pushpins and not know the difference. But when Wesley said that, my ears perked up and I made a mental note.

  Rubies. Ring. Got it.

  Wesley wasn’t subtly telling me to propose. She didn’t even remember the comment. At least, she said she didn’t remember. But I filed it away for proposal purposes. Anyone who was willing to run an emotional ultramarathon with me in the way Wesley did was a keeper.

  So when Bishakha informed me she was going to India, I told her if she happened to come across rubies that were comparatively cheap, I would appreciate her bringing them back so I could put them on an engagement ring of some sort. My mother was delighted. It meant a lot to her that I would consult with her about something like a proposal. It was a far cry from our awkward exchange about the girl who had a crush on me in sixth grade. Bishakha, in a solemn tone, said she would do her best.

  After she returned about three weeks later, Wesley and I drove down to see her. Within minutes of walking in her front door, Bishakha ushered us into her bedroom. She had an extra bounce in her step, even as her movements were hindered by the noticeable limp caused by years of standing on her feet as a retail worker. We could smell the curries that were cooking in the kitchen.

  We sat on her bed as she pulled out several bags from her closet and began to present gifts she had purchased. She handed Wesley a hot pink lehenga with gold embroidery and a handbag. She handed me a jar of pickles. No, really. Indian pickles are amazing condiments and not easy to buy in Manhattan, so this wasn’t as big a slight as you may think. As Wesley felt the cloth in her hand, I prepared to stroll back to the kitchen for lunch. Except my mother had one more gift.

  Bishakha, while beaming, tossed me a small, ring-sized jewelry box—with Wesley in the room.

  “Shambo, here’s what you asked for.”

  Just to reiterate: I had asked Bishakha to buy some rubies for me. Rubies to be placed on an engagement ring. A ring I would use to eventually propose to Wesley. A proposal meant to be a surprise. Thankfully, Wesley was looking at the lehenga when my mother gave me the box. Bullet dodged. She was none the wiser.

  Except a minute later, Bishakha said loudly, “Do those jewels work for you, Shambo?”

  I froze. Wesley looked up. “What jewels?”

  I closed my eyes and shook my head, grimacing slightly. I couldn’t think of a lie to get out of this. “What?” I said. I tried to buy some time. I’m not a good liar.

  “What did your mom just give you?” Wesley said, confused.

  “Mom, why would you say something?” I said.

  She froze. The confusion on her face turned to horror. Her palm hit her forehead. “Ohhhhhh.”

  Bishakha had never been proposed to in her life. She didn’t understand that this was supposed to be a romantic surprise. She immediately became profusely apologetic. “Baba, I didn’t know.”

  I softened my expression and I turned to Wesley. “Remember when we were in India and you said that the rubies would look good on a ring? Well, I noted you said that, so I had Mom grab some and bring one back for an engagement ring.”

  Wesley blinked, nodded, and immediately turned back to her gifts. She was expressionless. We didn’t discuss it again. She knew that she wasn’t supposed to know about the box. When I was ready to bring it up, she knew I would. My mother, however, repeatedly apologized for many days afterward.

  I wasn’t angry with her. In fact, I was astonished that she and I were at a point where we could openly discuss my significant other. It seems simple, perhaps inconsequential, but this isn’t something that comes easy to some children of immigrant parents. That is especially true for a relationship as distant as ours had been.

  There are two family outings with Shyamal and Bishakha that remain clear in my memory. They’re memorable in large part because they were unusual for us. One, when I was about nine, was a trip to see Titanic in the theater. My parents enjoyed the movie, although it occurs to me that the reason I recall it all these years later is that it was the first time I
saw nudity on the big screen, with my parents next to me no less, looking absolutely horrified.

  The other was seeing the musical Cats on Broadway at the Winter Garden Theatre. I was probably around six. It was the only Broadway show that either of my parents ever saw because doing cultural excursions that were distinctly American—like going to see a Broadway show—was just not something my parents actively sought out. It was my first show as well, and I recall finding the costuming quite strange.

  My parents were more interested in exposing me to Indian culture. My mother enjoyed taking me to concerts featuring Indian classical musicians until the toxicity in the household became unbearable. I’d sit next to her in the audience and watch as she smacked her hands on her thighs along with the rhythms of the songs.

  It was in the spirit of the Cats outing that I invited Bishakha to take a long bus ride so I could take her to see a Broadway musical. Now I could introduce my mother to cultural spaces in which I was interested. Since Cats, I’ve seen many shows, mostly because of my job at the Times, where I was writing about the stage fairly often for the culture section.

  I knew she didn’t know much about theater and that she didn’t get to see live performances at all nowadays, but I predicted she would be amazed by the world-class voices and movement onstage. I also wanted to have the conversations with her like those I had with Shyamal in India. I figured seeing a show beforehand would ease any apprehension Bishakha had about discussing deeply buried issues.

  But what show? The thing about Bishakha is that she’s old-fashioned. Yes, she’s more aware of pop culture than Shyamal. But she doesn’t like vulgarity or violence. She loves family-friendly sitcoms, like Full House and Everybody Loves Raymond. I remember Bonanza reruns on TV Land being part of her television diet.

  It shouldn’t have been too hard to find a musical that would’ve been ideal for her. After all, most popular Broadway shows are campy, safe for all ages, and have a happy ending. Think of 42nd Street or The Lion King. But maybe it was the comic in me, craving to find the humor in every situation like getting blood from a stone. I asked my mother if she wanted to see a Sunday matinee of Chicago, the dark, raunchy revival about sex and murder. I told her Cuba Gooding Jr. was one of the leads, and since Bishakha knew who he was, she said yes. It would be her second Broadway show and we had great seats, eight rows from the front. I didn’t know if she would like it. A musical with an antihero named Roxie Hart at the center?