I panicked. It was two in the afternoon, not her usual four o’clock arrival time, and I realized in a flash that there was no way to get him out, as we lived on the third floor of the apartment building and there was only one door. There was also no place to hide him in the two-bedroom unit. Bob and I ran to my room and I shoved him into my closet.
“Stay there until I can send her to the grocery store!” I said breathlessly. “I’ll tell her we’re out of something! Then you can leave!”
Kiran Masi entered the apartment and walked through it ever so slowly, finding a reason to go into every room. Into the living room. Into the kitchen. Into her bedroom. Despite the air-conditioning, a bead of sweat dropped from my brow as I waited for her next move. I sat on my bed with my biology book open, pretending to be studying, pretending that everything was fine, even though it wasn’t fine because my boyfriend was hiding in my closet.
She was taking her time, making me wait. Finally, she stood in my doorway. “Open it,” she said. She’d sniffed us out. Was it Bob’s teenage cologne that gave us away?
“Open what?” I said, in my most innocent, I-didn’t-do-anything-wrong voice.
“Open your closet!”
“I can’t!” I stalled. “You’ll be mad at me because it’s such a big mess!”
“Open it now!”
I was shaking so badly I could hardly stand and walk to the closet. I’d never seen my aunt this angry. I opened the closet door, and it was a big mess: a boy came out.
Pandemonium ensued. Kiran Masi called my mother. It was the middle of the night in India, but she was too upset to care. “I cannot believe that she lied to my face,” Masi said. “There was a boy in her closet!”
When Masi finally handed the phone to me, Mom, half-asleep and not as strict as her younger sister, simply asked, “Why did you have to get caught?” From half a world away, I could tell she was rolling her eyes.
If I’d been living with my more easygoing parents back home in India, I would have had far fewer rules to follow. But because Kiran Masi had been entrusted with my care, she felt the need to be extremely cautious and strict with me, something I now understand and respect, but back then, not so much. And I think there was another layer, too. Kiran Masi and Amitabh Mausa were first-generation immigrants, so America was a completely new country and culture for them. They were working seven hundred miles away from each other in different states so that their kids could have a great education and the prospect of a bright future. I understand now that Masi must have felt enormous pressures, but at the time, all I knew was that she was too strict. I’ve often wondered what my life would have been like if my aunt hadn’t so generously welcomed me into her home just before I turned thirteen. Her bighearted offer changed my life and put me on the course I’m following today. Thank you forever, Masi.
* * *
BECAUSE KIRAN MASI was concerned about where my relationship with my older boyfriend was headed and firmly believed we needed to be kept apart, after the Bob-in-the-closet incident I was sent back to Vimal Mamu and Vimla Mami just before the start of tenth grade, about five months after I’d arrived in Indianapolis. I didn’t mind leaving Masi’s strict rules behind, but I was sad to leave my Indiana family, especially lively, funny Priyam, my companion in the small adventures of everyday life, and the perfect audience for all my romantic stories about Bob.
Vimal Mamu and Vimla Mami had left Queens and were now living in Newton, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston, so that Mamu could start his medical residency at Beth Israel Hospital in that city. But being exiled from Indianapolis didn’t change my feelings for Bob. I was still completely in love with him and we corresponded by snail mail and email that summer. This was the late nineties, the relatively early days of personal computers and email, and unfortunately, I didn’t yet know about clearing my history.
“You’re not supposed to be in touch with this boy. He’s bad for you,” Mamu said sternly, pointing to his computer screen and the emails to and from Bob he’d discovered. (Note to self: Technology can come back to bite you in the butt if you don’t actually know how to use it.) But once Mamu had made his disapproval known, he didn’t belabor the point. In spite of the distance between my true love and me, I was committed to making the relationship work. Bob and I still wrote letters and postcards to each other, and I continued to email him, too, but now from the computer in the school library. Until I discovered that he’d started dating my best friend not long after I’d left. So much for true love.
Bye-bye, Bob.
* * *
I ENTERED NEWTON North High School at the beginning of tenth grade. There was definitely more of an ethnic and socioeconomic mix in Newton than there had been in Cedar Rapids or Indianapolis, though far less than in Queens—I don’t think any school anywhere could top Queens on the diversity scale. Navigating a big new high school was always an intimidating prospect, but my teenage self was way more confident than I’d ever been before. I’d been an honor roll student since I’d arrived in the U.S., and I’d become more and more independent. And I’d had a boyfriend, so I was surely a woman of the world. Forget the fact that we’d hardly kissed.
Again, I spent the first few weeks eating vending-machine chips for lunch; I just couldn’t bear the thought of descending the stairs into the mammoth cafeteria and seeing all the tables filled with pairs and cliques. The fact that I was entering the school in tenth grade rather than ninth, when my classmates and I would have been equally new to the school, meant that people had already found their friend groups. I noticed something I hadn’t noticed in my three previous American schools: kids of the same ethnicity definitely stuck together. There was very little mixing and overlap. There were so few Indian kids in my school that I felt as if I were the only one, although that may not have been true; Divya was the only Indian in her grade of 550 students. Eventually I settled in and made friends—Luba, Forough, Camiele—and we hung out together during the week and sometimes went into Boston on the weekends. Our crew was one of the few integrated ones: Luba is from Azerbaijan, Forough is from Afghanistan, Camiele is American, and I am Indian. I got involved in the theater and with singing programs offered at school. I went ice-skating at what was formerly known as the MDC rink and went for runs along the Charles River, to and from the IHOP on Soldiers Field Road.
Vimla Mami was like a Pied Piper of children. She and Vimal Mamu cared for so many of us over the years—not just me, but my friends, her kids’ friends, and her friends’ kids, too. Even though there were five of us living in their two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment, she had an incredible knack for making everything—chores, shopping, the routines of everyday life—fun.
Like Kiran Masi, though, Vimla Mami took her responsibility for my safety and well-being seriously, and at fifteen, I was getting a lot of attention. Too much for my family’s liking. Puberty had hit hard since I’d arrived in America: flowing hair, expanding chest, swaying hips. The idea of me with my dark hair flying loose around me as I ran along the river or walked down the street worried her, because in her mind, beautiful long hair + teenage girl + out alone = attracts too much attention = trouble! When a simple request to tie back my hair didn’t work, she tried to scare me into it by reminding me of a folkloric belief widely held in some parts of India.
“Priyanka!” she would plead. “If you walk around with loose hair, especially at night, you will be possessed by a churail! Please, please tie back your hair!”
I’d heard of churails, demonic ghosts said to enter a living being through its most vulnerable spot—loose hair—but I wasn’t really worried about evil Indian ghosts chasing me all the way to America. If Mami had known how I was dressing at school, she wouldn’t have been nearly so worried about my hair. Divya and I were all about the fashion in those days, and we’d figured out that we could go to the Salvation Army and Wal-Mart and The Limited/Express with money from Diwali or Christmas or th
at we’d saved by skipping lunch, and we could buy what we needed to assemble the wardrobes we wanted. (This seems somehow prophetic: artistic, independent Divya eventually did have a career in fashion, and later when I traveled to the U.S. for music, she styled me for many years.) For me, that meant a lot of tight clothes and high heels. So each morning I left the house in normal jeans and a T-shirt with my hair in a ponytail. (I granted Mami’s wish at the start of the school day just to make life easier.) Once I got to school, I’d head straight to the girls’ bathroom, open the backpack I brought with me every day, and pull out something much more stylish. Off came the jeans, on went the tighter, shorter skirts and the heels, the thick coats of lipstick and mascara. The queen of understatement and subtlety I was not.
Some things don’t change. My locker was my new closet.
* * *
I SPENT MOST of my sophomore year in Newton hanging out with my friends and involved in school music, theater, and choir, all the while making sure to keep my grades high. The academic component of life wasn’t my favorite part, but my ambition was to become either an aeronautical engineer or a criminal psychologist—Vimal Mamu steered me away from the “weird” field of psychology and toward engineering, saying, “Science is a good thing. All Indians do it.” Fine advice, since I’ve always been fascinated by science and innovation—and so I needed good grades. Everything was great except for one thing: I was getting bullied.
Each morning after I’d pulled my quick-change trick in the girls’ bathroom, I’d have to walk down “Main Street”—a hallway that ran right through the middle of the school where all the lockers were, and where the stairs to the cafeteria were located. Everyone sat and hung out on those stairs between classes, and whenever I had to pass by on my way to class, my bullies—Jenny (name changed to protect the not-so-innocent), a ninth grader, and a devoted group of her friends—would yell out to me:
“Brownie, go back to your country!”
“Do you smell curry coming?”
“Go back on the elephant you came on.”
When the taunts first started, I tried to ignore them. I put my head down and made my way through that section of the hallway as quickly as I could. Then I tried avoiding Jenny and the other hecklers: I stopped taking the school bus because I knew they’d be on it; I took different routes to classes even though they were longer; I stayed away from where they congregated near the lockers. Sometimes I was alone; sometimes I was with my friends Camiele, Luba, and Forough, fellow outsiders who were treated by Jenny and her clique exactly the same way I was. The four of us clung together, an exclusive club unto ourselves, trying to create a sense of being cool and superior in order to combat the battering our egos were taking. We dressed well, and in school, we talked to almost no one except one another. It just felt safer that way.
As much as I tried to manage the bullying situation and avoid direct conflict with Jenny and her friends, things eventually escalated. I was tired of being called names, having vile things written about me in the bathroom stalls, and getting shoved against lockers and buses. I’d spoken to my guidance counselor, and although she spent quite a lot of time talking to me about it—trying to be sympathetic, I guess—I’m not sure how much time she spent talking to Jenny. Nothing much changed. I would hope the situation would be different now, as the dangers of bullying are far better understood, but back then, there didn’t seem to be any school policy or any repercussions for the offenders.
I was hugely relieved when my sophomore year came to an end. I needed some time to recover my equilibrium, and maybe Jenny and her crew needed some time to grow up. And summer meant that it was time to pile in the car and take a family road trip, just like I’d done with my parents when I was a child. All of my mom’s siblings and their families were included. Kiran Masi and her family and Vimal Mamu and his family were joined by my mom’s other two sisters—Sophia (Leela) Masi and Neela (Munnu) Masi—and Parwez Mausa, and my cousins Sana, Irfan, and Parisa, and we’d take two or three cars and hit the road. During the years I was in America, we traveled all over: to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming; to the Carolinas or to Maine on the East Coast; to the windy city of Chicago on Lake Michigan or Kansas in the Great Plains. Mom and her four siblings were so close to one another and raised us nine cousins as siblings, taking the time and energy to make sure all of us got together regularly and really knew one another. It clearly made a lasting impression on me, as I do that now with my cousins and their kids.
Unfortunately, the start of my junior year meant the start of bullying again. I’d essentially been on my own with the problem for almost a whole year. Divya knew about it in a very vague way, and of course Camiele, Luba, and Forough at school, and my guidance counselor. But I hadn’t told my uncle and aunt. Nor had I told my parents in our weekly or biweekly phone calls. I hadn’t wanted to involve them in something I thought I should be able to handle myself. My parents had raised me to be someone who finds solutions, and since I hadn’t been able to find a way to stop the bullying, I was starting to think that my solution was to go back home.
The hostility coming at me from out of nowhere, for no apparent reason, was getting just too hard to process. While I had been happy and self-confident when I arrived in Newton, my self-esteem was now suffering. My parents had taught me that confidence is not a permanent state of being, a piece of wisdom I still believe. It’s something you can work to develop and something you have to work to maintain. Well, the taunts and the graffiti and the physical aggression had done their jobs, and no matter how hard I worked, I couldn’t maintain my sense of self-worth. I started to believe that I was somehow less than those around me. I couldn’t sleep. My grades dropped.
I’ve thought a lot about this whole painful period over the years, and long ago I came to the conclusion that I will never know exactly why Jenny and her friends, both black and white, targeted me and my friends. Because we looked and sounded different? I imagine this was a large part of it. What’s ironic here is that Newton was so much more diverse than Cedar Rapids and Indianapolis, where my schools were largely homogenous and predominantly white. So why were my friends and I harassed for being different here, where difference hypothetically should have been better understood? Were there other factors contributing to the bullying in Newton? Perhaps there were, perhaps there weren’t. I will never know for sure.
* * *
ONE CALL HOME was all it took. My parents heard my pain, confusion, and complete emotional exhaustion, and my mom was on the next plane with my brother.
Living in the U.S. for high school was a decision I’ll always be glad I made. It brought me closer to my aunts, uncles, and cousins, and it opened up a new universe of people from different countries and cultures. The exposure to such an array of distinctly different people broadened my thinking and helped me to interpret the world more independently. It allowed me to see that I didn’t have to be just one way, or from just one place. It helped me grow up, and it absolutely influenced my global outlook today. But at that moment, I couldn’t appreciate any of those things. My heart hurt. My spirit hurt. I just wanted to be home, protected by my parents in a cocoon of comfort and safety.
Mom accompanied me to school to help me clean out my locker, which was really only a formality at that point, since there were no books inside it, just makeup and various wardrobe items.
“Where are your school things?” she asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t need them, Mom. I’m smart here in America.” (Note to self: Pride goeth before a fall.)
Mom shook her head and we had a big laugh. She was always cool about things like that and she deserves props for it. In times of strife, rather than being judgmental she’s totally supportive of me. Instead of reprimanding me or telling me how something should be done or should have been done, she’s always let me find my own way. At the same time, she makes sure I know I can fall back into her protective arms.
; My dad was like that, too. I never heard a “because I said so” in my life. Each of my parents is an example of the kind of parent I want to be someday: one who sees their child as an individual, someone to be raised to live their own life thoughtfully, intelligently, independently, and empathetically.
That day, as Mom and I stuffed into a backpack what was inside the metal locker—all the bits and pieces of my thirteen months in Newton, who I’d been and who I was still becoming—it was hard not to feel like I’d failed. But slowly, over time, Mom and Dad each helped me to rebuild the confidence I’d lost. It was only fitting that Mom was with me again on that final day in Newton North High School. She’d been with me when I first made the decision to stay in the U.S. just over three years earlier in Cedar Rapids, and now she was there on my last day as I left a place and an experience that had helped form me. The symmetry felt right to me, as if there were bookends to a chapter of my life I was now closing.
Five days later we were on a plane heading home.
I’m not a girl,
Not yet a woman.
PERFORMED BY BRITNEY SPEARS
THE JOURNEY FROM America to India takes more than twenty hours and used to require a layover somewhere. Mom chose Paris and built in a couple of extra days there—partly because she has a travel bug, which is why I call her “heels on wheels,” but also to help me out of the funk I was in after I’d made the decision to come home. She understood that I needed something to revive my spirits and help me to dream big again, and where better to feel life’s sparkle than in the City of Light?
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