HERstory

You, again.

I look for you everywhere. Every time I see an older, brown-skinned man, if his face is round and his hair is silver, if his lips are plum-colored and golden wires frame his eyes, I look for you.

I saw you, just now. It took me a moment, perhaps because it was extra dark, maybe because I had waited on 15th street for too many minutes in the cold, right hand raised, cursing rush hour for putting the masses on the road, as cab after taxi cab sailed past me, each filled with warm, traveling bodies. When a Lincoln finally pulled over, I gratefully got in, feeling extra chic in this cardinal coat (your favorite color) while I gracefully sat first, then swiveled my legs inward (just as you taught me). That's when the driver turned around to stare at me and I froze, not from the frigid January air but from the face which loomed between the worn leather seats.

It was you.

That navy woolen hat that you wore every winter, especially when you got older, which I thought looked so silly and now find endearing-- you were wearing it. The glasses with the double-bridge, defiantly out of date and so conservative; they perched on your nose, which looks a bit like mine. The imposing, salt and pepper mustache, which forever marked you as an outsider to this culture, it was there, too. But it was the look in your eyes which made my heart pound, as I gasped and felt faint, because it was like gazing at a ghost.

Then you cleared your throat and the glamor dissolved.

You were waiting for me to state my destination

"Sorry," I murmured. "2100 Pennsylvania, please."

You turned around wordlessly and drove with precision and care, just like you always did.

I wanted to hear your voice. I wanted you to turn around, one more time. The rear view mirror was not doing its job; I could see no reflection in it. It was like a toy mirror, the sort you find in a doll house or model car; a dull gray color which tells no tales.

"How are you?", I asked dutifully.

I have no other way to show you that I remember what I learned at your knee. I have no other opportunities to care for you; what I would give, now, to have you ask me to make you coffee again. I would not scoff or roll my eyes. I would not bask in ungrateful, unbecoming sulking. I would leap up and rush to the kitchen, grab a coffee pot and your mug and prepare exactly what you enjoyed. I would do it willingly and humbly.

Because I never did.

And it never occurred to me that one day you would be gone. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Mourn you always, I must, I must.

You paused and said, "Fine" in a low, almost gruff voice. Yes, it was you.

And then you said nothing. Just like you always did in the car or at the dinner table.

When we got to our destination, I made a complicated request for my own convenience; I used the excuse of safety, too many bags, unwieldy heels and a snow-slicked sidewalk.

You wordlessly maneuvered the car, bypassing laws and other drivers to fulfill my wish, even though it was not the easy or logical thing to do.

Just like you always did.

And when you finally shifted gears and the car rested in "park", then you turned around. I felt foolish. You were not you. You were a cab driver. Probably Ethiopian, possibly Eritrean, even if you did look Indian. I quietly reached for my wallet, counted out bills.

How I wished it were you, as illogical and impossible as such a thing sounds. What I would give to see your face again. What I would give to say everything which has been pent up for twelve years, twelve years, my G-d, twelve years…has it been so long. Where have you gone? Oh Daddy, Daddy…where did your love go? Don't you leave me…don't you leave me no more…

Stupid me. I don't even care for speculative fiction, but I imagined you out of thin winter air and an Ethiopian cab driver, because I miss you so much.

And just when the tears were ready to spring to my eyes, the driver looked at me kindly and said. "It's okay. You are going to be okay." And then my heart lifted in my chest. And speculative or not, fictitious or not, I knew. I knew it was you.

Tyler, Dharun and Molly: One Life Gone, Two Lives Ruined

 

Police believe they may have found the body of Tyler Clementi, the Rutgers student who jumped to his death after a roommate spied on him having gay sex. Meanwhile, some Rutgers students are saying Clementi's roommate's actions were misinterpreted.

Tyler's roommate, Dharun Ravi, turned on his computer's webcam and apparently spied on Clementi while he was hooking up with another man. After Clementi found out, he ended up throwing himself off the George Washington bridge. [gawker]

Do you remember what it was like to be 18? Most of us consider ourselves much wiser than we were back then; many of would cringe at what we thought and the asinine shit we did. The problem with being 18, if I may be so blunt, is that most 18-year olds are stupid. Yes, we are brown; we get near-perfect scores on the SAT and take so many AP classes, we can skip our Freshman year of college. Big deal. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about emotional intelligence. Compassion. Wisdom. That last trait isn't gifted to a teenager because it's a consolation prize for approaching middle age, for suddenly possessing an underperforming metabolism, greying temples and baggage "life experiences".

When I was 17, I skipped most of my Freshman year of college. I could eat garbage, flip my long, dark hair and stare at everything with the wide-eyed innocence of an idiot who had never even spent the night at a girlfriend's home, forget alcohol, drugs, relationships or anything else.

When I was 17, my three biggest worries were:

a) being forced to live at home and commute to a school I hated because of strict parents

b) my high school best friend judging my outfits because she discovered Islam

c) missing out on college "life" because I had to be home by 6pm every evening.

I knew nothing about real life, common sense or compassion. I was endlessly selfish, because as a South Asian child, I had been coddled until I was barely a solid. My peers were 18 and discovering drugs and sex; I was secretly sleeping with stuffed animals and being treated like a 10-year old. Desi children get babied in a way that many of our peers do not. As a result, I had a dim sense of consequences and whenever I did imagine anything remotely "bad" happening, I assumed my parents would fix it. They always did.

I am so glad I didn't do anything regrettable or illegal.

I am so glad that I didn't hurt anyone to the point where they harmed themselves.

I would never have forgiven myself and I doubt that I'd be sitting in some cafe in Washington, D.C., nursing a cocktail after peace-ing from my new, dream job with NPR.

See, if I had done something impulsive and harmful when I was a freshman in college, that sin would have followed me for the rest of my life; depending on what I did, maybe to some of you, that would be a just sentence. To be googled as I applied for a job and then denied. To be shunned. To be judged. To have my family blamed for my thoughtlessness. To have my culture be brought up as evidence of intolerance. To be considered a hateful criminal...a murderer.

But here's the thing; I see the other side, too. I see it so clearly, it cuts my eyes until they feel like they are bleeding. Reading the news has triggered memories so painful, I have only contemplated them once since my *first* senior year of college, 15 years ago. That's when I was bullied so mercilessly (by Desis, no less), that I abruptly dropped all of my classes, thus ensuring that I would not graduate on time, that I would not take the LSAT, that my entire future would be slightly altered. I am not a lawyer, though a love for the law runs in my family, and I had planned to become an attorney since I was in the first grade. I did not finish college in four years. My life veered dangerously off of the track it had plodded along, simply because I could not face them, the people who turned their heads to whisper to each other about me as I walked past. I could not bear the constant humiliation.

A rumor, an ugly, poisonous rumor about me, my sexuality, my tendencies. That's all it took. I want to prostrate myself on the filthy Adams Morgan cement right now and give thanks that I suffered before the internet and social media made everything far too public. There was no Facebook or Twitter to extend my mortification or amplify my disgrace. There were no web cams. All that existed was Pine and IRC, and thankfully, my tormenters didn't seem to use either; if they did, I never knew.

And yet, despite the inability for my story to go "viral", for a few years after that nightmarish quarter in college, in random cities, all over the United States, I'd meet someone who, after being introduced to me, would cock their heads to the side and regard me differently. "Wait-- are you the girl who...?", they would ask and I would want the ground to open and swallow me whole.

I hadn't done anything wrong, but that didn't stop the shame or humiliation from being flung my way, years and miles after I had been accused of something I didn't even do. Fuck it. Even if I did do it, who were these people to attack and diminish me?

So, I get it. I get it to a degree that is so painful, I tearfully downed vodka shots before writing this.

Three lives, ruined.

That is all I can think of, when I read the tips you have sent in, regularly, since this story broke.

I am not apologizing for anyone or justifying anything. I am just appalled, like all of you are. The problem with the Rutgers cyber-bullying story is that it is just like life: complicated. The more I read, the less sure I am of what happened. All we can know is that Dharun Ravi did the unconscionable; he invaded his roommate's privacy in an outrageous, indefensible way. He invited voyeurs to participate in a virtual, collective humiliation; he is guilty of being an intolerant little shit who apparently had gay friends. He is also a teenager, which may or may not explain a lot of what happened, depending on your point of view.

We also know that Tyler Clementi is gone, forever. He looks like a sweet, sensitive child, coming in to his own. A talented violin player, someone who was exploring life with all the freedom newly-afforded by life at a big, public school. But he knew his roommate was spying on him. He went to an RA and voiced his concerns. He sought advice online from a Gay forum about what Ravi was doing to him. He seemed in control.

Then, he updated his Facebook with a terrifying, tragic status message; he was going to take his life.

"Jumping off the gw bridge sorry"

The human mind, ever desperate to comprehend the senseless, likes to connect dots. "Clearly he jumped because his roommate spied on him!", our brains conclude. Is it that simple? Suicide is never so obviously explained, not in my opinion, and unfortunately, I have some experience with that specific sort of tragedy. The only things I would say, with certainty, about suicide are:

1) someone has to be in extraordinary anguish to consider or commit it

2) it is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

Our minds want an explanation. We want to assign blame, to wash our hands of the matter, with a clear sense of whom to condemn, so we can shake our heads sadly and move on. That's comforting and who doesn't want comfort after reading about such a heartbreaking tragedy, especially during a month when Tyler wasn't the only child to take his own life. But none of us, aside from Dharun, Molly and Tyler know exactly what happened or why.

And what about Molly. I have read that she was Dharun's high school friend, his college girlfriend. She was arrested, too. How much of this was her idea? How much blame do we assign her? How much of her future should be ruined for laughing, perhaps easily, perhaps uneasily at her boyfriend/friend's tweets and casual homophobia? Are we interested in a witch hunt? Or justice? Is the latter even possible?

::

You know what is possible? Change.

Do you feel awful about what happened to Tyler Clementi? If you do, instead of assigning blame and thinking about something else, challenge yourself to change your corner of the world-- it's not as overwhelming as it sounds, even if it may not always be comfortable or easy.

The next time someone uses "gay" as a synonym for "lame" or "stupid", say something.

The next time someone is depressed and struggling, reach out.

The next time you are invited to participate in ritual humiliation and baseless gossip, think about how little you know about the vulnerability of the person in whose downfall you are delighting. Even the law says you must take your victim as you find them.

Bullying is never okay. Especially because none of us knows how close someone else is to the end of their rope.

And to people commenting about how this is so awful for our community, ask yourself one question-- do white people apologize when one of their own does something regrettable?

You are not responsible for Dharun Ravi's awful decision to put his roommate's most intimate moments on blast. All you are responsible for is yourself-- and if you feel sick about this, instead of accepting blame on behalf of our community, work within it, to make it a more welcoming place for people who are queer, trans, bi, questioning. We are not all Dharun Ravi. But we can make life for the next Tyler Clementi a little bit easier.

Gather ye rosebuds, while ye may...

I can hear your voice, your brash, loud, excitable voice.

You are on the phone, making a precious, international phone call, damning someone or something in your inimitable Malayalam; the velocity with which you deliver words another generation will forget would make an auctioneer or a debater envious.  As the conversation progresses, you grow louder, gleeful, more boisterous.  I can discern happiness where others hear anger.  Indeed, "Americans" fear your voice or find it disturbing; you are forever forced to clarify that you are not at all upset, that this is just. how. you. speak.

You just shouted your punchline and you have punctuated it with raucous laughter.  As far as I'm concerned, someone might as well have cranked a Fisher-Price mobile to commence a saccharine rendition of Brahms' lullaby; there are no audible sounds which I could ever find more soothing, which is why I wake only momentarily before nestling back in to the crook of the couch, where I am lying down. 

It is a hot summer day and the fan is purring while whirring cool air around the room.  I am sick, and that is why I am passed out instead of reading, my Saturday-afternoon activity of choice.  The cough medicine I reluctantly swallowed makes my extremities tingle, I feel such velvet electricity when I stretch...and even with my arms extended and my longish legs splayed out, there is couch to spare, I don't feel the armrests and that is a reminder that I am small.  Safe.  Monsters cannot eat you if all your body parts stay on the couch or bed, this is a rule which all children know innately.

It is a languid day, with triple-digit temperatures making anything but indoor activities impossible, which is why you are on the phone in the kitchen and I am on the couch in the family room.  I am not sure where Veena and Mummy are, but that is a normal state of affairs; this is a big house...there, it agreed with me, I just heard it creak and settle its concurrence with my opinion on its size. 

There is a lull, perhaps you are listening to whichever relative you have called tell you something...but then I feel the pressure of your hand on my face, smoothing away my long hair which inevitably tangled while I tossed and turned like a little rotisserie-Anna, cooking over the flames of fever and summer.  I can vaguely smell old spice, which is a familiar scent to me; when you, thirty-eight year old you, first gave infant-me a bath after Mom went back to work, nonplussed at the cloying scents emanating from pink and yellow plastic bottles, you lost your temper, scooped me up, took me to the bathroom where you used to get ready and then splashed Old Spice on me, your gurgling, adoring baby girl.  Later on that day, when the usual assortment of friends came over to play with the only baby around, they would pick me up as they always did, kiss my cheeks, blow raspberries on my round tummy...and then turn away in confusion at my masculine fragrance.

That is what I smell, on your hands, which push my hair behind my ear and adjust the sheet which covers me.  Everything seems slightly blurred, like I'm high. It's a pleasant feeling, almost blissful, really, so I choose to sink back in to it...but the mere attempt to do so alerts me to what is really happening-- I am being yanked away from that beautiful world, from the hallucination I was so lucky to have...and despite my strenuous attempts to rush back to, and through, the looking glass...I have failed.  The window has closed, and it has taken you with it to whichever magical realm where you dwell.  This sparks tears from my eyes, which I have sewed shut with my eyelashes, because if I open them, I will lose any chance I had to see you.

Too late.

I am not eight, I am thirty-three, and this is Washington, D.C., not California.  The Tamil radio station I discovered on iTunes, which had put me to sleep easily a few hours ago with Sudha Raghunathan's gorgeous voice is now playing some sort of monologue, performed by an older actor whose voice reminds me of you.  The smell of Old Spice is coming from me, once again, but this time, instead of it being intentionally applied to my baby skin, it merely happens to be on the t-shirt I have borrowed from the one who hovers over me, concerned.  He picked out this couch from West Elm, a couch so long it made me feel small again, and if I am small, then you are still alive, and that is how I conjured you here, to be with me, in D.C., ten years after you left a gaping, Daddy-shaped hole in my heart.

Ten years.

I grow dizzy from the truth of it.  Ten years is such a very long time.  Junior high, high school and college all fit within ten years.  I could have left elementary school and emerged with a bachelor's degree, in the time that you have been gone.  For the first time in my life, I can measure your absence with a decade, instead of a year.  So much has changed, and yet, so little has, too. I still haven't gone to law school (sorry).  I still have long hair (you're welcome), and it still has stubborn highlights which refuse to obediently stay black (sorry, again).  I still stay up too late, think too much and feel too fiercely (I hold you responsible for all of this).   I am still single, in part I sometimes think, because I don't know how I can get married without you there to give me away.  At Susan's wedding, in New York, I wept uncontrollably when she danced with her father, your nephew, because I knew that could never be me.  But I knew that in that ugly hospital room, way back in 1998, when they told me that there was no hope for you; that's why I murmured, "then there is no hope for me."  There hasn't been, really.

There are some who say I should be over your loss, who question the level of my devotion to you, who characterize it as verging on illness.  At first, this deeply hurt me, then it outraged me; now, I am indifferent.  So many years have passed, I have grown immune to such stupidity.  I now realize that those people were never loved like I was, and if they were, then they still have their parents to take for granted.  They don't understand how blessed they are.  None of us do, until it is too late.  I surely didn't, and I live with that truth, morosely.

What I would give, to hear your voice again.

To feel your adamantine faith in me, to see your chestnut-colored eyes which match my own, to hear that exuberant laugh.  Such things are not possible, except in moments stolen from rare dreams or sickness-derived hallucinations.  Daddy, I never got to say good-bye to you, or tell you how much I love you.  I never thanked you, for the thousands of things which you did and dreamed for me.  I never understood why there ought to be a special day to honor our Fathers. Then I lost you, and now, bitterly, appositely, every day without you is Father's Day, and I honor you by missing you, accordingly.

Latha Antharjanam*

This was going to be my "return" post to SM, after my unplanned hiatus.

It took an unexpected direction from where I thought it would go, so I no longer felt like posting it there.

.......

This entry, which is a response to an anonymous tip one of you was kind enough to mail in, was supposed to be about Nick Nolte; apparently, he no longer feels the desire to drink alcohol because his baby mama Clytie Lane reintroduced him to Hare Krishna chanting and drum circling. Nick's current tee totaling is quite a contrast to his relationship with alcohol less than a year ago, when he was so drunk, he took a two-hour nap on an airport floor (and really, who among us hasn't done that? No? Just me? Fine.)

After over two months away from blogdom, my feeble attempts to do a bit of research on the story have demonstrated to me that my already lilliputian attention span is even tinier now, since all I can fixate on is the comments/response to Celebitchy, the blog whose link was submitted as the anonymous tip. Most of the commenters objected to the title and tone of the post on that site, which referred to Hare Krishnas as a cult and referenced some of the controversy associated with the movement (sexual abuse, brainwashing, murder). Celebitchy responded:

Update: A lot of people from different sources are vouching for the Krishnas and are saying it’s not fair to judge them based on the rampant child abuse at their boarding schools in the 70s and 80s. A similar child abuse scandal happened within the Catholic Church and it is fair criticism to say that I am biased in this article. The ISCON organization has arguably changed considerably since then and is willing to discuss their past issues with cult experts as well as change their practices

Here is a discussion thread I found which I think helps explain my original position on this issue. I would still be reluctant to get involved with a group with this type of history.

I can understand the reluctance, mostly because I've always felt uncomfortable around the saffron-robed disciples, too. My unease was triggered regularly, so it only hardened over time; when I was at GW in 1999, I ate at Amma's daily, and each time I walked from Foggy Bottom to the Mysore Masala Dosa/Semiya Payasam which would be ready without my needing to order it, I religiously saw Hare Krishnas in front of the beautiful, golden-domed Rigg's at the corner of M and Wisconsin, i.e. the busiest spot in all of Hoya-ville.

Even a few years ago, I'd spot them there, just in front of the gates to the bank. I don't know if they've chosen to grace a different part of town with their presence or if they're no longer allowed to make that intersection even more crowded for pedestrians who are trying to cross to Benetton or Lacoste in search of logos we rocked in the 80s, but I haven't seen Hare Krishnas in quite a while. 

I don't blame the Georgetown HKs for my skittishness though, I blame their cousins who were at SFO in 1983. 

I don't have much "close" family in the United States.  I grew up without the benefit of grandparents (deceased) or first cousins (all in India or Gelf) and until 1989, without any of my parents' siblings.  It was lonely and one of the things about my childhood which I desperately wish had been different. On the rare occasion when someone visited from Cochin or Abu Dhabi, it was a huge deal, a cause for much excitement and happiness.  The day I met my first Hare Krishna was one of those occasions.

My father's favorite nephew was arriving in Amreeka for the first time ever; he was excited about a promised trip to Disneyland, the opportunity to buy Levi's 501s-- and the chance to see his two youngest cousin sisters, who had been all of five and 18-months old when he had swung them around last.  We had gone to the airport to pick him up and Daddy was so exultant, when I asked if I could carry the Minolta I was rarely allowed to breathe in the vicinity of, I was rewarded with a camera strap around my neck and one amazing toy in my eager little hands. 

"Hell, maybe you should take a picture of your Georgie-chayan when he comes out, would you like that?"

WOULD I?

I immediately stripped off the molded leather camera cover and whirled around to my four-year old sister.

"This is really important.  You are responsible for Daddy's camera case!"

She nodded at me somberly.

Free of such accoutrements, I carefully removed the lens cap and stuck it in the pocket on the front of my pinafore.  We had stopped walking and were now standing and waiting. After a few minutes spent fidgeting impatiently, I wandered a few feet away, so I could pretend I was a photographer. My sister, who liked to shadow my every move, toddled along faithfully. Gingerly lifting the camera and peering through it, I turned slightly, and then saw people with cymbals who were chanting and dancing happily. One of them started walking towards us; he was holding a book.

I looked back at my Dad, but he was anomalously distracted and not paying attention to his progeny; he was too busy half-shouting excitedly with an uncle-who-wasn't-an Uncle, who worked at the airport.  Daddy was animated, his rapid-fire Malayalam punctuated by laughter as he and Uncle loudly argued about how deprived my omnivorous Achachan would be, by staying with such a strict vegetarian family.  Daddy was so intent on insisting that vegetarian food wouldn't kill anyone, and that meenkari was overrated anyway, that he hadn't noticed who was coming my way.

I lowered the camera, anxiously.

"Hello!" the man trilled.

My sister made like a crab and moved sideways until she was directly behind me.  She was spooked.  "Orange ghost!" she mumbled.

"Not a ghost, a friend."

The HK spotted the huge 22 karat crosses around our necks and did a double-take.

"You are Christians?!"

I nodded, mutely. My sister, always half a beat late in order to facilitate emulation of whatever I was doing, started nodding vigorously, too.  We were like small, dark bobble-heads.  I was certain that at any moment, my Father was going to turn around and punch this person for approaching his little girls.

"That's a shame, did your parents convert when they came here?"

I froze.  When people asked my father that question, they were immediately rewarded with a 15-minute lecture on St. Thomas the Apostle converting Indians when Europeans were still running around, worshipping trees and beating each other with sticks.

He continued, still smiling beatifically, "I want to give you something. This book is part of who you are-"

I brilliantly blurted out, "I'm not allowed to talk to strangers!", which then confused me, because I realized I just had.  I hadn't taken the book.

The man continued to hold it out.

My sister helpfully repeated, "orange ghost!!", a bit more insistent this time. 

I apprehensively reached out for "Bhagavad Gita, As it is" while the man beamed at me.  He said something final before turning away, to rejoin his flock.  My sister's nose was now pressed in to the small of my back.  I was overcome with this dire realization that my kundi was about to receive an adi par excellence from my Father, for breaking one of the rules he cared most about-- not. talking. to. strangers.

"Edi, Annay-kutty, nee evade poyee edi?"  Daddy was laughing as he called out his question in Malayalam. 

"I'm, I mean, entho.  I mean, I'm here.  I mean...yeah."

Daddy turned his head to frown at me critically.

"Edi mandi, have you forgotten how to speak English?"

His eyes narrowed as he noticed what I was holding.

"Where the HELL did you get that?" he roared.

My sister whimpered, "orange ghost!!!" one final, useless time before attempting to melt in to my spine and ass.

"Who told you to take that?  Haven't I taught you ANYTHING?"

Daddy was livid.  He snatched the book from my hands and looked as if he was about to throw it out, in the orange garbage can which was conveniently located just feet from us-- but then he stopped, and ranted about how it was still a book, after all.  Indecision about how to dispose of the offending tome only enraged him more.  He charged the Hare Krishnas, and the ghost stepped forward, his celestial smile intact.

"Who the hell are you to talk to my children and give them propaganda?  If I want my children to be Hindu, I will teach them myself, without the assistance of some hippie in an airport. You think you know more about Hinduism than me?  Go to hell.  This is like buying cloth from England which was made from Indian cotton!  Unnecessary!  Insulting!"

"Perhaps you should keep the book, it may allow you to reconnect with the faith you were born--"

"Reconnect what?  My family has been Christian for 1931 years!  Remove yourself from your cult and get an education!  Not every Indian is Hindu, you crazy son of a bitch."

And with that, my father grabbed my upper arm and hustled me away.  I frantically grabbed for Veena and got one of her overall straps. 

"What did I tell you about talking to strangers, edi?  Ay?  You disobedient girl.  Don't you ever accept something from someone else, not a book, not a candy, NOTHING."

My non-Uncle intervened, with a voice which was both soothing and conciliatory. "Thampychayan she's just a child, she didn't know."

"OH, she KNOWS.  And she'll remember too, after her punishment."

I cringed.  I had the strictest Father around.  I was fairly certain that my bottom would be sore by the end of the evening, but sometimes, when my Father was in an extra-creative mood, he'd devise "consequences" which were pure affliction, with none of the spanking.  I preferred the beating, any day. Better to get it over with.

Ten minutes later, after he arrived looking exhausted but excited, Georgie-chayan couldn't understand why my father was grinding his teeth, nor could he figure out why his two youngest cousins were so forlorn. Preoccupied by what lay in store for me, I forgot to take his picture, even though I was still clutching Daddy's SLR.

::

When I got home, I was ordered to my bedroom while my father shouted at my mother, his preferred method of informing her of our iniquity.  Immediately after that, my father walked in to my room, picked my children's bible off the shelf and ordered me to show him the Ten Commandments. 

Shaking, I took hold of my second holy book for the day and opened it, wordlessly.  After a few seconds, I found the correct page.  I stared at the Decalogue, waiting.

"What is number five?"

"Honor thy father and mother."

"Don't mumble.  What is it?"

"Honor thy father and mother."

My father stepped backwards and opened the top drawer of my desk, which had been his, years ago, when he was a student fresh from India.  He saw that it was filled with an assortment of My Melody and Little Twin Stars paraphernalia, a few pairs of Barbie's high-heeled, open-toed sandals collected in the little glitter suitcase which used to be my Hello Kitty stamp set and one pink diary with a brass lock. 

He shoved it closed and tried the drawer beneath; this time, he took it out a large stack of paper and shut it less forcefully, since it had contained his quarry.  He placed the paper on top of my desk, withdrew a pen from the box on top of it where they lay jumbled and handed the instrument to me. 

Calmly, he said, "Write that two-hundred times."

"Write what?!"

"The fifth commandment.  If your penmanship is sloppy, it won't count towards the 200, so take your time, edi.  I'll check on you later."

Miserably, I got up from my bed and trudged towards the desk.  Unbelievable.  Why couldn't I just get hit? Outside, I could hear my sister squealing gleefully as the closest thing I had to the older brother I had always wanted tossed her around and dangled her by her ankles.  I was consumed by frustration at the injustice of the situation.  I hadn't wanted to talk to the damned orange ghost.  He should get my punishment, not me.

I sat down, picked up the pen and paused, staring at the unblemished paper.  Someone was coming, I could hear them in the hall.  I looked up and there was Georgie-chayan, with Veena sitting on his shoulders.   

"What are you waiting for?  Do what Daddy said, then we can play.  I didn't come all this way to just do this," he said, abruptly grabbing Veena under the shoulders and sending her head-first for the floor, where he let her dangle so low her silky baby hair grazed it.  She chortled. 

"I want to drop you, too!"

I nodded woefully.  The far-too-fun duo left my room and I heard my father yell at them to not disturb me.  I sighed.  This was going to be a long, wretched few hours.  I commenced writing.  My hand started to move faster, but the admonishment about neatness replayed in my head and I wrote more carefully.  At number 181 or so, I felt defeated and I put my face down on the paper, and fell asleep.

When I woke up, there was a third holy book near me, next to the ruled binder paper I had misused as a pillow.  It was old, the corners were worn and it smelled of dust.  I carefully opened the cover and saw "The Bhagavad Gita" spelled out in letters which rested on serifs.  There was something barely visible in the top right corner of the yellowing paper, which was slightly translucent.  When I turned the page, I saw my father's full name, written in his bold, block-lettered handwriting.  I was confused; why had he given me the same book he almost threw away?

"Latha Antharjanam, if you want to study Hinduism, you don't need a white man or a cult to enlighten you.  That crazy man is not even a real Hindu."

I hadn't even realized Daddy was standing there.

"Besides, Hare Krishnas are Vaishnavas.  Your ancestors worshipped both Vishnu and Shiva. Damnit, If you are going to be a Hindu, at least be accurate about it."

::

* A note about the title: my father called me this in a joking, affectionate way because Namboodiri women went to the temple and the homes of family members, and that was it.  Similarly, I was not allowed to run around outside or go to many places outside of church and a few friends' homes.  Unlike those women, this had nothing to do with religion or anything else. "My children will not run wild!", I heard, over and over again, along with, "good girls stay inside the house!".   As has been pointed out in the comments below, "antharjanam" means "people inside the house".  So you see, this isn't some high caste-hangover, mang. :)

Fade Away and Radiate

1979.

My mother is 29, four years younger than I am right now.

In the precious 11.47 minutes she has before my eight-month old baby sister will need her again, Mummy has ambitiously decided she will give me a "full bath".  She is shampooing my very long, very thick hair, all the while muttering dark things about how I will be the last child of hers with such a high-maintenance head.  (Indeed, by the time my sister was three or four, she was given a modified bowl cut, one which my DBD Aunts exclaimed "looks like Sharadha".  I still don't know who this Sharadha-character is.)

I'm humming, lost in my own four-year old's world, and I pick up the khaki-colored pitcher my mom uses when she needs to dump water on my head.  Since she's futzing with tangles and an uncooperative, nearly-empty bottle of Johnson's Baby Shampoo, she doesn't care that I have commandeered her plastic vessel.  I happily commence dipping it in bath water, filling it, and then holding it up as high as my arm can manage, only to let it trickle out dramatically, splashing me and Mummy as it falls.  This annoys her and she snaps at me to stop it, but via the magic of the Malayalam language, two monosyllabic words mutate in to four: literally "find or look for another job".

I drop the pitcher and commence humming.  Soon, I'm singing, since I have nothing better to do and the music has been stuck in my head; it needs to escape. 

"Keep haaaanging up the telephooone."

I repeat this a few times, though it is always preceded by a minimum of two enthusiastic rounds of, "Blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blaa-aah..."

Mom pauses, but just for a moment.  She's considering her strange eldest daughter as her brow wrinkles.  Then, she physically and mentally shakes it off; she has no time for such shenanigans.  Any moment now, screaming will ring out from the far end of this ancient house, and she will be summoned to her other, tinier tyrant.  As if that wasn't torment enough, if she leaves me for even a minute, when she returns, she will only find tepid bathwater, because I will have run off, naked and dripping suds in my wake.

"Blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blaaah...keep haaanging up the telephone!"

"What are you singing?  What is this?"

"You don't like it?  I'll change it!"

"To what?  Did you learn this in school?"

She's referring to Montessori, where I have a very strict Sri Lankan teacher who is allowed to beat me, if no one else is looking and I'm asking for it.  If you ask her or my parents, I'm always asking for it. 

"One way and another...I'm gonna getcha getcha getcha getcha...one way...or another...I'm gonna getcha!  I getcha!"

This is actually my favorite song, so now I'm getting excited and dancing around while she's trying to rinse that classic "No More Tears" formula from my hyper, flailing form. 

"HOLD STILL."

"I'll getcha!  I'll getcha!"

"Oh, you'll get something..."

"One way lady next week!"

"STOP IT."

I cease abruptly and she visibly relaxes.  In return for my cooperation, she grabs my head and pushes it under the thundering bath faucet.  She's running out of time and I have a lot of hair.  This is not a moment for mere pitchers.

"I caaaaag bweeeethe!"

"You're not supposed to."

And just like that, she eases up and the second it seems possible to do so, I try and shove my head back out of the water.  My mother, being gifted with that maternal, psychic ability to predict exactly such stupidity, shoves my skull downwards slightly and swings it laterally, preventing my decapitation via early 20th century plumbing fixture.

"Be care-ful, edi..."

"Is my bath over?"

"Yes.  Thank--"

"Yippee!   Again I can sing.  Call me!  Lala you can call me, call me, call me now.  Call me!"

My frustrated mother has thrown a heavy "Turkey" towel over my head, so that I resemble a resented bird cage.  Now she is rubbing it about viciously, trying to dry wet tangles.

"Owww, that HURTS!"

"Tell your Father.  This hair is his stupid idea, not mine.  If I had my way, I'd cut it all off."

"Why?"

"It's too much work to take care of.  It's too heavy for your head."

I shrug.  As she continues her declamation, I'm already drifting off. I am wondering about tomorrow, when I will again be left with my babysitter, who is concomitantly a trusted family friend and an extra miserable teen.  I have already decided that as soon as I burst through the door to their room, and that pained look of suffering crosses their face upon seeing me, I will ask them to play this record which I like.

I like these songs more than the awkward, clattering attempts at music I encounter at Montessori.  I also like my babysitter more than the little kids in my class, but the feeling is not mutual.  And so, the more they are put upon to watch over hyper-active, curious, loquacious little me, the more sullen they become.  The more sullen they become, the more music I hear.  And that is why when I was five, my parents found me posing in front of their mirror in my white petticoat, playing "Blondie", as I haughtily informed them, when they inquired what on earth I was doing.

"I have given up hiding and started to fight..."

October 31, 1984

“Mummy, Daddy can I dress up for Halloween this year?”

“No.  You are not allowed to participate in this ritual begging for candy.”

“Daddy, I meant for school…we’re supposed to…”

He eyed me suspiciously.  “I thought fifth grade would mean the end of such nonsense, but if you are supposed to…what do you need to wear”

I had thought about this.  Based on what the popular girls were last year, I decided…“I want to be a cheerleader!”

“Absolutely not.  Those skirts are indecent.”

“Caroline Auntie was a cheerleader!”

“In college.  When you’re in college, I’ll forbid you then, too.”

Nine-year old me promptly burst in to tears.  Later, my mother came to my room and helped me match a v-neck sweater from my old Catholic school uniform with a pleated skirt I usually wore to church—i.e. one which went to the middle of my knee.  She unpacked a box in my closet and wordlessly handed me my toy pom-poms.  My six-year old sister glared at her indignantly, so Mom rolled her eyes and did the same for her.  I was so excited.  Finally, a “cool” costume, one which didn’t involve an uncomfortable, weird-looking plastic mask to secure with an elastic band, from a pre-packaged ensemble.  I went to sleep feeling giddy.

The next morning, for the first time ever, I was tardy for school.  I don’t remember why, but I was.  When I walked in to class just before recess, everyone froze and stared at me.  The hopeful smile on my face dissolved; this year, the popular girls were all babies in cutesy pajamas with pacifiers around their necks.  I thought the weirdness in the air was due to my lame costume, but within a few minutes I discovered it was caused by something else entirely. 

The moment the bell rang, my desk was surrounded.  This couldn’t be good.  Was I going to get locked in a closet or a bathroom again? 

“Why are you here?”
“Yeah, we thought you weren’t coming.”
“Shouldn’t you be at home crying?”
“Mrs.  Doyle said you wouldn’t come in today.”

The questions assaulted me one after the other.  I was baffled. 

"Why…would…Mrs. Doyle say that?” I stammered.

“DUH, because Gandhi’s daughter got killed.”
“Isn’t she like your queen or something?  Or a Hindu God?”
“No you buttheads, she’s like the president of her country.”

At the end of the last sentence, the boy speaking gestured towards me.  When did they get so enlightened?  Last week, they asked if I was Cherokee and said “How” whenever I walked by, or pantomimed yowling war cries with their hands and mouth.

“She’s not the president of my country.  I’m…I’m from this country.  My president is Ronald Reagan.”

They got impatient and vaguely hostile.

“No, you’re Indian.  Mrs. Doyle said you were in mourning.”
“Did you not like her or something, is that why you don’t care?”
“I heard they dip her in milk before they burn her up.”
“Duh…that’s because they worship cows.”

I put my head down on my desk, as if we were playing “heads up, seven up”.   

“See?  She’s crying now…she is Indian.”

And with that they walked off, to do whatever it was that popular fifth-graders did. 

::

Spring 1987.

I was sitting by myself (as usual…it’s always awesome to transfer to a K-8 school in the seventh grade, when no one is interested in making new friends with some outsider), reading something from the “The Babysitters Club”, pretending I was Mary Anne Spier.

“Hey ugly girl…”

I looked up to see a tall 8th grader whom every girl was crushing on…he was standing with his best friend, who elbowed him and muttered, “ask her!”

“Weren’t you supposed to be aborted?

I was horrified and confused.  Horrified because these people never talked to me, confused because…

“You know, since you’re like…a Hindu and we just learned that they only like to have sons.  So we were wondering if your parents wished they had aborted you. You should ask.”

The sidekick started guffawing and both of them ran off.  I sat there, my book still page-down in my lap, unable to read for the rest of recess.  I wished I could go home.

Four hours later…

“Where is your sister?  What is she up to?  I haven’t heard any noise.”

“I dunno…reading the dictionary or something nerdy”. 

I realized my father was headed to the dining room, which is where he left the huge, so-heavy-I-couldn’t-lift-it Webster’s dictionary open for me, so he wouldn’t have to constantly retrieve it from the shelf.  I slapped half the book over, to obscure what I had been looking at…

“What are you doing?  Why did you just do that?  What are you hiding?”

“Um, nothing.”

I tried to slip my finger out from the page I was trying to bookmark, but he was too quick.  The pages flipped back to “A”.

“ABORTION?  You are looking at ABORTION?  Oh my God, why did I sacrifice and struggle and come to this country, so my 12-year old daughter could be impregnated?  Were you raped?  Did someone do something to you? WHY ARE YOU LOOKING AT THAT WORD!”

I actually didn’t know what “raped” meant, either.  My parents hadn’t explained anything like that to me yet.  I was still playing with Barbie and sleeping with my stuffed Persian cat; they saw no need.  I made a mental note to look up “rape”.

My mother came running, “What is this?”

“She is looking at ABORTION!”

“Why?”

“Was I supposed to be aborted?”

My parents faces fell slack from astonishment.

My Mother looked at my Father, then me.  “Why…would…you…ask…such a thing?”

“Some kids at school asked me to ask you if you wished you had aborted me.  I didn’t know what that meant…”

My Father walked away.  My Mother came up to me, looked me in the eye and said, “No.  We did not wish that.  Your Father was very excited, in fact, he always said he hoped you would turn out to be a girl and he was so happy you did.”

My Mother seemed sad.  “You don’t like your new school, do you?”

I shook my head, no.

::

Fall 1989.

“Class, today we are going to do something a bit different—we’re going to look at Catholicism’s impact on the world.”

I tried not to smirk as I recalled my Father’s rants about how Catholicism destroyed things and was rather evil.   

“We’re going to start with India, which is where Anna is from!”

Uh…

“One of the most visible Catholics in the world has chosen India, to serve.  Mother Theresa uses her faith to care for the filthy, the neglected, the unfortunate…”

Oh, sweet Jesus.

“…let’s start our discussion by asking our Indian student more!”

“Um, I’m American.”

“Yes, dear.  But you’re Indian.  What’s India like?”

“I’m just saying, I was born here, so I don’t really know—“

“Now, let’s not fib…I now for a fact you just came back from your country.”

“Well…um…yes, but it’s my parents’ country…no, wait, even they are American citizens.” 

The nun was getting impatient. “May I remind you that discussion counts for your participation grade?  Now would you like to add something constructive to this conversation?”

“Uh…sure.  Well, I did just get back from India.  I had not visited it since I was five, so I learned a lot.”  The nun nodded, with an encouraging smile.

“And tell us about the poverty you saw, the contrasts with America.”

“I…didn’t see poverty really…”

“Calcutta is very impoverished!  How is that possible?”

“I went to Kerala.  I’ve never been to Calcutta.  I’m from South India.  I went to where my parents are from and visited their families.  And Kerala is lush and green and so pretty.  The people are all really smart and the museum I went to—“

“How far is Careluh from Calcutta?”

“It’s really far.”

“So far that you didn’t see beggars?”

“I saw a few…”

“JUST a few?”

“No more than I see when I visit San Francisco.”

“That’s it young lady.  I will not tolerate your smart-aleck behavior.  To the principal’s office you will go and you’ll have detention, later.”

“But I didn’t…”

“Would you like me to double your punishment?”

I nodded miserably and walked out, reaching in to my backpack for my headphones.  Reel Life’s “Send Me an Angel” accompanied me as I dawdled on my way to the office. 

::

I thought of all of those moments, yesterday.  I’ll get to why in a mere moment. 

Besides my younger sibling, I was the only Indian kid at all of my schools except for the last one I cited. Obviously, my little sister did not accompany me to high school, but there was one other Indian girl there. Unfortunately, she wanted nothing to do with  me, because she couldn’t relate to me; she told me I wasn’t Indian enough, that I was white-washed. 

I was South Indian and Christian, I didn’t do garba or understand what she was talking about when she asked me about whether I preferred Salwars to lenghas--in fact, I didn’t even know what a lengha was…just like I was clueless about which Bollywood actor I should have a crush on. Once she realized that I had no experience with such things, she decided she had no use for me.  We didn’t speak, despite sitting next to each other, in home room.

This is now a well-known tale, this trial-by-ignorance which older 1.5/second gens went through.  I am amazed and relieved when I understand that things will never be that brutal for generation 3, not in this world where the internet sates curiosity while dissolving international borders and knitting us all together via the web. 

India is no longer so weird or foreign; today, people don’t eat monkey brains on the big screen. The little ABDs I’ve met recently who are nine, 12 and 14 are informed, empowered, righteous and sassy.  Once upon a time, if you had told me that girls in this country would wear lenghas and saris to their Junior Prom or in their Senior portrait, I would have thought you were a bad comedian.  I would have and did wear Gunne Sax, to both, way back in the early 90s.

one thousand eight hundred and twenty six days

.

revised. 12.29.06

:+:

this week has been a torturous obstacle course of pain for my soul.

even after i thought i had cried away all the tears i could possibly produce...there are more.  as i type this, my swollen eyes ache, my nose is raw from the ministrations provided by "extra-soft" tissue, my head pounds like i have a grief hangover.  that's nothing, though. my heart feels a million times worse than all of that.

i have never had a good NYE.  something horrific always happens- i get mugged, have knock-down drag-out fights with my bf as the ball drops blocks away, i'm trapped on a sub-standard flight home after nightmarish delays and layovers, i have to bury my daddy...

:+:

today is december 31, 2003.  december 31. 

a day that shall live in infamy.  i thought you broke my heart on december 23rd, when you went to the ICU, never to wake again...but i was wrong.  december 23, 29, 31...i now have a triumvirate of dates which destroy the last month of the year, each of them worse than the one which it follows, for the horrific milestone each represents.

december 23.

i was in davis, 28 miles away.  mom called.  "come to the hospital, now."

click.

i made it to you in 20 minutes, daring the CHP to pull me over. they'd have to catch me, and that gigantic eight-valved mercedes you bought me first, motherfuckers. at 100 miles per hour, the engine was producing a dull roar which i couldn't hear, not because the car was so perfectly insulated (and born for such speeds, really), but because the noise in my nearly-insane head was deafening.

i parked in the first area that looked like a space, barely remembering to turn off and then lock the car. i ran up four flights of stairs, burst in to the ICU through that ugly, prison-like door. everything stretched in to slow motion as i stood there, immobilised. nurses, doctors, medical assistants looking at me with pity and fear; they knew who i was, they knew how my father felt about me, they knew how i would react to what i was about to see.  my mother had opened that hospital, trained more than half of the eyes that gazed at me so sorrowfully.  one nurse, tears in her eyes pointed to the right, wordlessly.  i don't remember walking up to that room.  i do remember standing in the doorway, thinking that if i reversed my steps, ran down the stairs backwards, and sped back to davis at 100mph, i could still change things, make them different.  rewind, right?  my mother looked up at me with an unfamiliar blankness flattening her face.  i ignored her and took your other hand.

i kept vigil by your bed, avoiding food, water, sleep and cynical, perfunctory proclamations that you were "gone".  they wanted to take you off of life support, and i calmly told them the same thing every single time;  "if you do, then i will forever consider you his murderer."  i couldn't bear the thought. it's easy to scoff at people keeping loved ones on ventilators until it's your precious daddy hovering between life and death.  no one would "unplug" that cord.  not while i lived.  "he has no chance at survival."  thank you for your opinion, now please get out.  i want to be alone with my father.  and frankly, he wants to be alone with me, since i'm the ONLY ONE not hatefully anticipating his death.

several times a day i would pass out from an exhaustion that i pray i never know ever again; an exhausted body is nothing compared to a spent heart.  i pressed your feet constantly, the way the king's feet were tended to in "Mahabharat", the serial we joyfully watched in its entirety twice.  when i did lose consciousness my hands were still clutching your feet, pressing them to my face, the smell of death ready-woven in to that hospital blanket.  i used your shins as a pillow. you would kick me awake, it was the slightest stirring, but it was you, you were moving again.  each time my heart would lift a tiny bit in my chest, strain against my ribs, flutter back to life...could it be?

my eyes would blaze with faith and invariably a doctor or nurse would be there to cluck at me pitifully.  "anna, that doesn't mean anything.  he's moving but that doesn't mean he'll wake up.  it's an involuntary spasm."  my eyes would race from the messenger, kill the messenger for such blasphemy...my eyes would rush back to your face. mental telepathy.  fuck them, daddy.  what do they know?  they are mortal.  they can be wrong.  "kick me again" i'd murmur.  "again."  i still believed.

december 29th, 1998

six days passed and i was finally convinced to go home, four miles away, and shower.  nurses had taken turns combing my long, wavy, tangled and neglected hair while i passed out.  i wouldn't let them near me if i was awake, because they disturbed my concentration, my absolute devotion to your face, your breathing, your heart rate.  i had never looked at a tv or a movie screen with the absolute attention i gave your hospital monitors.

so, i would occasionally sleep.  and i'd wake up with my hair braided. i could not have cared less.  i promised you that i would be gone for 20 minutes exactly; five minutes home, ten minute shower, five minutes back.  i stood at the end of your bed, each of my hands wrapped around one of your feet.  i bent over and touched my forehead to your toes, stealing your blessing.  "don't go anywhere, daddy.  i'll shut them up with this shower and i'll be right back."  it was a simple, unbeatable plan; five minutes home, ten minute shower, five minutes back...

it was the only time i left your side.

five minutes home...one minute in the shower...the bathroom door opening...a blur outside the glass which entombed me in my tub-- a glass door that engineer-you installed b/c i didn't want a shower curtain...my mother's voice, thickened with pain and unshed tears...

"Latha." 

she said nothing more.  she didn't need to.

"oh god, no, why?  i wasn't there.  oh my god he was alone.  he died alone.  why did i come back here? how could i leave him like that?"

i collapsed against tile, not noticing cold or soap scum, just feeling white pain.  and water.  i am in water. what do you do with water when your life is over? 

i put on the darkest, ugliest sari i had.  you loved me in indian clothes, told me i was born to wear them.  if i was born to wear them, i would die in them too, and that is what i knew i was going to do, during a life without you.  the last time you "saw" me through a corpse's eyelids, i'd be mummified in silk. i wouldn't find out until years later, that when you had gone to india just months before your death, you had come back with my wedding sari..."just in case".  i had never decided on whether i would wear a white dress or kanjeevaram silk or both...you decided for me.  i can see the conspiratorial wink you must have given the owner of that sari boutique, when you had them wrap up my future in scented tissue.

when i made it back to the hospital, all of your tubes had been removed.  the death blanket was gone; a simple, crease-free white sheet draped perfectly over your lifeless body.  your mouth was open.  it didn't look dignified.  i hesitated, then gingerly reached over and tried to close it.  you were past the point of feeling anything, let alone pain, but i was so scared i would hurt you as i moved your chin upwards. your jaw no longer worked; it wouldn't shut. that was when i knew you were truly gone.  and that was when i finally understood all of those unintentionally sepia-coloured pictures of my grandparent's funerals back home in Kerala.  why they always had white linen tied around their faces.  it was so that they wouldn't look like you.

december 31, 1998.

we buried you on inopportune New Year's eve b/c the next available day was my birthday.  i opted for my birthday, but mom said no.  i would hate New Year's eve passionately for the rest of my life.  five years ago, one desecrated holiday would guarantee that, decisively.

five years ago, today, right now, i couldn't sleep. i had never delivered a eulogy before and i wasn't prepared.  can you ever be prepared for that?  is anyone ever ready to say farewell formally to their father in front of hundreds of people?  i've given dozens of performances in my life and nothing, absolutely nothing could have prepared me for that walk up to the podium, that dull microphone, that mute crowd, eyes riveted to me.

five years ago, today, in exactly nine hours a funeral liturgy commenced.  an hour after that, my mother's mind snapped and she tried to throw herself in to a fresh wound in the earth, to be with my father.  i actually had to throw ice water in her face to bring her back to reality.  i felt like a bitch, not for drenching her, but for bringing her back...to this.

five years ago today, i touched my daddy for the last time.  i saw his face a final moment before they closed the coffin, but it wasn't his face; in real life, he didn't wear make-up and his hair wasn't parted like that.  these eleventh hour indignities couldn't hurt me, because i was so numb. 

five years ago today, a box containing my greatest ally, mentor and source of love was put twelve feet under ground, never to see light again.  my heart was buried with it.  i have never been the same since.

five years ago today, the world tipped slightly and i almost stumbled off, stiletto heels slipping on grass slick from tears, mine and the angel's...a muddy hill is no place for limousine shoes.  i didn't care.  i wasn't going to say good-bye to you and look ugly.  the oversized chanel sunglasses you secretly loved, b/c they reminded you of your beloved "jackie", they couldn't shield my already ravaged eyes from further torment.  the bright san francisco sun couldn't burn hot enough to remove the braille from my arms.  jesus, mohammed and krishna could've shown up and i wouldn't have noticed or cared unless they were preparing to resurrect you.  my mind, my vicious, over-active mind conjured the same horrific thought over and over again; "you are consummately alone.  forever."

who's going to love you now?

who'd going to take your side?  protect you?  guide you with the wisdom of the ancients?  cover you with your quilt when you sleep? fuss over your car?  scream at you when you've been bad?  cry inwardly for you when you've been had?  gloat when you win?  rail against the system/heaven/universe when you lose?

who's going to make you milky coffee every morning, pour it in to HIS stainless steel tumbler, (the tumbler no one is even allowed to wash, lest it somehow become polluted) and then painfully limp up the stairs despite the advancing decay of parkinson's disease to stubbornly present it to you, thus letting the smell of kappipala be the world's sweetest alarm clock ever?  who's going to impatiently mutter "finish it" and then grunt after you say "thank you, daddy"?

who's going to cook your dinner separately when your mother spitefully throws onions in the curry? who's going to tell you stories about your last name, your ancestors, your blood?  who will buy the house in kottayam, near "best bakery", so that the errand boy can fetch your favourite pastries for continental breakfast every morning if necessary?  who will walk you down the aisle?  who will you look at when you make your victory speech, when you eventually run and get elected?  who will brag about you to friends and especially enemies on four continents?  who will infuriate you like no other yet own your heart b/c it's a cardiac copy of his own? 

who?

only you, daddy, only you.

:+:

daddy i love you, and i miss you more now than i did then.

i'm sorry i'm didn't go to law school.

i'm sorry i'm not married to a good syrian christian malayalee boy.

i'm sorry that the last time we talked on the phone, i hung up on you, b/c we fought.

i'm sorry i'm not the girl you dreamed i could be, prepared me to be, needed me to be.

most of all, i'm sorry i never got to say good-bye or thank you or i love you...

my hair is long now.  i wear saris more often than ever.  i'm not opposed to arranged marriages.  i came home from new york and i rarely go out to party.  five years after you could have delighted in it, i have become the daughter you deserved. 

i go to church constantly.  every time i do, a candle is lit in front of the altar.  it burns for a week, on the left side of the church, the side for the dead.  i burn forever, on the left side of G-d, who obviously hates me a little because he took you away from me.

from the left and right sides of church, the choir sing the memorial hymn in greek, then english;

may his memory be eternal.
everlasting be his memory.
may his memory be eternal...

...it deserves to be, for that is how long i will yearn for your love.

Safe Ways, Here I Come

Wheezing and slightly dazed, I inched down Wisconsin Avenue trying to remember something that I was supposed to do.  I didn’t need to go to the bank.  I had already checked and made sure my damned student loans had been paid.  I had sent that thank-you note…oh, right!  Peanut-butter.  At home, there was no more of the goopy goodness I couldn’t live without.  At work, my disastrous experiment with shite I.M. Healthy Honey Creamy Soy Nut butter (Peanut-free!) left me craving the real stuff:  JIF.  Well, Skippy would do, in a pinch.  I know-- I'm a terrible vegetarian, but I am starting to think life is too short for soy.  *Shudder*

I swerved a sharp, last-minute left in to the parking lot of the "social" Safeway and lucked out in that way which Californians adore most: I sailed in to a stellar parking spot.  As I got out of the car, a somewhat elderly woman with a slash of fuchsia lipstick started speaking to me as if I were someone familiar. 

”You can have my cart, dear!”

“Thank you.”  I smiled at her as she delicately pushed her wheels towards me.

“Oh dear, where is my purse?”

I felt awful for her—forget advanced age; we all know that dreadful feeling, that sense of panic which burns as dozens of negative "What if-?"s race through your thoughts. 

“Maybe you dropped it in one of your shopping bags?  I do that all the time.”

I wasn’t sure what to do, so I stood there uselessly while she talked to herself, wondering what she had done with it and then—

“Found it!  I put it on my seat, so that I would see it before sitting down, so that I wouldn’t lose it, isn’t that funny?  I’m just so glad that I didn’t misplace it, there are all kinds of terrible people who will steal your identity and have you seen that commercial where—“

I was studying her more intently than I was listening.  Pale grey cashmere twin set, even in this near 80 degree heat.  Well-cut black trousers, sensible, classic Ferragamo pumps with grosgrain bows.  Her hair was short and carefully set, brushed out curls reminding me of very fluffy clouds, because of both their color and their shape.

Would I be like this one day?  Lonely?  She hadn’t paused to take a breath.  She was still speaking, and hurrying through what would be normal pauses in conversation in that tentative, slightly fretful way a person does when they want to keep you.  My exhaustion was replaced by sadness as I wondered who she was, where her children lived, if she had grandchildren, if they kept in touch with her.  I hadn’t moved.  I was suddenly in no hurry.

I continued to listen to her and as I did, I wanted cashmere; my skin prickled as if I were in a freezer as I thought of my Mother, alone.  I know she was shy, that she wouldn’t talk to strangers as this woman had, but she was growing older.  Perhaps fifteen scant years separated her from the person before me.  She already had the silver hair and if my sister and I would let her, I’m sure it would be this short.  My eyes started to water and I felt so guilty, for being 3000 miles away, for not being “settled”, for not giving her grandchildren to dote on. 

“Well, I should go.  Don’t you be like me and lose your purse now”, she admonished.  I forced a pathetic smile and visibly pushed my right hand through the strap of my pink framed wristlet for all to see. 

“Good girl.”  She closed the door to her White Volvo and fastened her safety belt with shaking hands.  I think I’ve been happier after listening to my Smiths records.  I felt sick again, but not because of what ailed me; I didn’t want to accept that my sole parent would look like that, perhaps feel like that, some day too soon.

I walked away, melancholy pulling me down like gravity.

:+:

I’ve always loved Safeway.  When I was a toddler in the bay area, we lived a few blocks from one and every day when my mother took my then-infant sister for a walk in her stroller, that’s where we’d go.  Unlike the hulking, cup-holder equipped, SUV-like behemoths of today, you couldn’t carry a full load of groceries via your baby transportation back then, so it was both practical and fun to go so often, especially since everyone at our local store was so nice.  It didn’t hurt that it was next to Walgreen’s (still my favorite drug store/chemist, natch) AND my local Sanrio shop. 

Like all good sugar-fiends, my favorite department was the bakery.  Safeway’s brilliant outreach strategy for toddlers is what keeps me going out of my way to shop with them to this day, as a wizened 31-year old. I’m especially partial to their glazed donuts, which are superior to oily, noxious Krispy Kreme in the same way L’oreal mascara bests Great Lash: the latter may be more popular, but that’s all it has going for it. 

During those walks which took place while it was still the '70s, I was the proud carrier of an Official Safeway Cookie Card, which entitled me to one cookie a day from the glorious, sparkling case where they also kept cupcakes and tarts.  I developed both my preference for the archetypal chocolate chip variation and the store in general during those critical early years, especially after those not-so-rare days when they made a huge show of looking both ways before slipping a gleeful-me two cookies instead of just one.

I can’t believe I didn’t think of that halcyon time on the peninsula as I walked in yesterday.  I have always remembered it briefly, whenever I’ve Safewayed.  It’s one of my quirks, it connects me to home.  I really must not be feeling well. 

:+:

I know better than to shop for groceries when hungry, but I did it anyway and suddenly a simple PB-run exploded in to a shopping cart filled with munchies.  Honey-roasted peanuts, popcorn, “healthy” oatmeal raisin cookies…and Oreos, just because I freaking felt like it.  My lust for products from Safeway’s bakery is, after the last few paragraphs of this post, now well-known and though I tried to stay away from that corner of catastrophic carbohydrates, as soon as I sniffed the slightest whiff of sourdough bread, I was its bitch.  I floated towards the fake bakery cart in a trance, my heart lifting for the first time since depression kicked it with extra-pointy Fluevogs in the parking lot. My favorite words danced across the simple paper sleeve each baguette was sheathed in: “San-Francisco Style”.  Awww, yeah.  That’s the STUFF.  I don’t think it’s possible to spend under two dollars and make me THAT happy, no, not even at the Sanrio store. 

Once I delicately placed the pungent bread where a baby would go, in the little seat which had previously only contained my wristlet, I looked down with dismay.  How did I end up with so much crap?  I started to feel weak and inefficient but then I reminded myself that more accurately, I was weak and ill.  Situation reframed, I happily strolled onwards, replacing my Oreos with double stuff.  I’d probably only eat a few of them, but they would be glorious.  As my mother reminded me the other day, I never recover when my diet is restricted.

“I want some too, Mummy”, a very small voice implored.

To my left, an absolutely gorgeous little girl sat in a hematite Maclaren Volo.

Interlude:  I know, I know.  I’m pitiful for knowing the difference between that and a MaclarenTechno XT (and a Stokke Xplory…and a Bugaboo frog…) when the only coupling I do is via the BBC.  You may also consider me impossible and pretentious, since though I’m partial to the first two brands and not the third, my favorite stroller is from a fourth company which makes all of the above look like econoboxes.  Of course, if by some miracle I do get knocked up and I continue to live somewhere urban, I think the Maclaren is the way to go.  You can pop it open with one hand.  Solid.  Are you done heckling me?  Good.  I will probably never procreate.  Therefore, it makes PERFECT sense that I should know about such things which are useless to me.  Mmm, tastes bitter!

So anyway, the very small voice belonged to a very beautiful baby in a very sturdy, respectable stroller.  Bounty Bar that I am, I still experienced that inward shiver when I realized she was possibly desi.  I looked away, since it’s the “staring” our people do which I tend to mock most strenuously, but I wanted to focus on her, she was so cute.  In a pathetic attempt at being casual, I contemplated something random on one of the nearby shelves which put her in my peripheral vision. 

“No, beta you may not.”

Yup, desi.

“Whyyyyyyyy.”

“They are bad for you, Meenakshi.”

Definitely desi.

“Come on, don’t make Mummy’s day hard.  We will be here for five minutes only, then we are going to the park, won’t that be fun?”

“Nooooooooooooooo,” howling only made her prettier. 

Meenakshi. 

To me, the name conjured that most holy of fictitious texts, the tome which named my empire.  I could’ve sworn that the name also meant something about fish-eyes, but I wasn’t certain.  Ah, Meenakshi, you stunning, heartless vamp of a character.  Only another Bengali beauty could out-bitch you, but Moushumi did that and did it decisively. 

I loved the little girl’s name.  I loved her twin pigtails, too, sprouting from the top of her head like silken handles.   I wonder how old she was…three?  Four?  Four felt too old for a stroller, but I’d seen desi parents coddle more egregiously.  I couldn’t stifle my curiosity; I wanted to see her Mother, so I did an awkward three-point-turn with my cart o’unhealthy junk and smiled when she pulled the stroller back slightly to ease my tortured attempt at flipping around. 

Meenakshi's parent was pretty, not as pretty as mine was at that age, but like every decent child, I am biased.  Medium hair in a neat ponytail (I’d call it short, but my standards are ridiculous it turns out, after having hair down to my knees for all of my teen-aged years), reasonable diamond studs, sleeveless collared shirt, Capri pants, comfy sandals…I could see the “Made in India” spot on her upper arm.  That’s how I always thought of it, the old, jagged, slightly round, puckering scar where people over there get some horrific shot (I’m terrified of needles) in order to come over here. 

“Meenakshi, I will call Deddy and he will not be pleased.  Stop it or not only will we go straight home, you will get punishment.”

Meenakshi sulked, now a balled up bit of baby in her Volo. 

Soon, she was out of my sight and I could no longer hear the sound of Mother-toddler bickering.  Well, bargaining, really.

Now is the part where I should wax on all Bradshaw-esque, like so: “I couldn’t help but wonder—will that ever be me?  Will I ever have a Meenakshi?  Sorry to disappoint, but instead of becoming that cliché, I headed to the produce section to snag a few flawless bananas and one random nectarine before rolling to the register. 

Look, Ma…no line.  Figures.  The one week I want to read about Shiloh Nouvel Jolie Pitt, there would be no delay to justify it.  I unloaded everything which is the antithesis of “clean eating” on to the slightly soiled conveyor belt.  I’ll resume construction on my abs when I don’t require cough medicine with codeine, thank you very much.

“Ma’am, do you have a Safeway card?”  Indeed, I have one from so long ago, the number associated with it belonged to my alpha-numeric pager of 1998.  I punched it in violently on the touch screen and silently said what’s up to the sad sack who has to analyze my purchase patterns.  Would he be bothered at all that a “530” was shopping in “202”?  I think too much, you know that?

After paying, I walked away from the cashier with my bags, narrowly avoiding a head-on collision with a very grumpy, frumpy woman who didn’t even have the courtesy to apologize.  Whatevs, I have two kinds of peanut butter and two kinds of cookies.  If I were six, I’d be in heaven.  The thought made me smile. 

A slightly familiar, very small voice pleaded, “Pleeeeeeeeeease, Mummy, please, I want to!”, though it was difficult to hear over the bustle of checkout lanes.

Meenakshi?

Turning the corner towards an exit, I saw her. Each entry/exit of Social Safeway has a small lobby of sorts, with double-doors opening up to a small room with…another set of double-doors.  I’m assuming it’s done to protect their heating and air-conditioning bills.

In this lobby, you will find copies of free local newspapers (does anyone actually read “The Georgetowner”?), assorted potted plants, charcoal and what Meenakshi was unsuccessfully lunging towards—gumball vending machines.  Except her perfect, delicate little finger wasn’t outstretched in a vain attempt to touch candy or even my childhood weakness, super rubber bouncy balls (oh, the ones with glitter…sigh), no, Meenakshi was struggling to touch the sticker machine.  Her little grunts made me want to nickname her piglet, but I was the only one who was listening.  Her mother was paying consummate attention to the receipt she held in her hand.  I broke in to a wide smile at this.  Gang recognize gang and whatnot.  Repeat with me the brown mantra: I will NOT be ripped off.

“Meenakshi, chup!”

“I…want…THAT.”

I remember exactly what that felt like.  To pass those machines and think that priceless treasures lay inside.  If only someone would give me a dime (Ha! Told you I was old), then I could possess something which came in a plastic capsule and then, then my life would be improved by this new acquisition from the forbidden red metal dispenser.  I don’t think I was ever allowed to get anything from those ubiquitous vending machines as a child.  I do recall going through a viciously obsessive phase where I constantly pumped quarters in to them as a nineteen year-old who had her first job, exacting vengeance for a childhood spent denied.  I wore all those stupid rings and fake chains and candy necklaces too, but hey, I also wore docs and carried a Makita case for a purse. 

I suddenly had the urge to do it again, to buy a sticker, but I looked at the lust in Meenakshi’s perfectly huge eyes and realized what an asshole that would make me.  Solidarity, my tiny sister.  If you weren’t getting an “I love bloggers” sticker, neither was I.

Jigga WHAT?

Was I hallucinating?  I had been feeling dizzy on and off for a few days, especially when I was feverish over the weekend.  I felt like my brain was possibly cooking again.  I screwed my eyes shut and shook my head, a cartoon character clearing her mental etch-a-sketch.

“I love bloggers”

Are you shitting me?  I almost didn’t notice that Meenakshi had been hauled away, her mother hunched around the side of the stroller arguing forcefully with sniping beauty.

Since when do kiddie machines dispense stickers that had to do with blogging?  Talk about jumping the shark. 

“I love geeks”

Again, wtf?  What parallel universe did I suddenly inhabit? What other choices were offered?

“I love dancing”

Ah, that’s more like it.

“I love soccer”

Hell yes!  I can wholeheartedly get behind that.  Excellent timing, too.

“I love music”

Again, hallelujah.

“I love reading”

Whoa.  We’re not in 1982 anymore, that’s for damned sure. 

Walking outside, I realized that Meenakshi had pointed to two stickers in particular: “I love bloggers” and “I love geeks.”  Oh yes, little one.  Of course you do.  I fought the urge to go back in like a freak and either try my luck at purchasing one (I’m sure I would’ve received everything but “bloggers”, which is what I really wanted) or worse, take a picture of the whole setup, to use as proof.  Well, that and to garnish the blog post I suddenly had the overpowering desire to write. 

Traffic on Wisconsin was moving smoothly.  Good.  I dropped my bags behind the driver seat, got in, locked all the doors, belted and carefully pulled out of my space.  As I prepared to make a left turn, I eased out of the lot so that my front end wouldn’t smash in to pavement.  Once safely on asphalt, I accelerated slightly, until I reached my rightful place, just behind a car waiting for the red to change.  Lazily, I looked out the driver’s side window, at that random Japanese restaurant which, though it is the only joint in Gtown to have its own parking lot, seems haunted.  The decrepit wooden sushi place that time forgot.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen a car park there or a human go near it, except to walk past it on the sidewalk like that woman with the stroller was doing.  Hey…wait a minute.  Meenakshi, you’re not done with me?  She was staring at me intently and her mother was on her mobile; they both waited to cross the same intersection I needed. 

Awkwardly, I waved to her, using my left hand, which had been resting on the door.  Maybe she couldn’t see me?  It was still rather bright out.  Her face was scrunched up because of it.  I sensed movement in front of me and looked up.  The light had changed.  I took one last look at her (it’s in my DNA, I can’t help it) and my heart skipped the tiniest bit; she was waving back at me, in that way little kids do, hand opening and closing again and again.  Barreling down Wisconsin, past the shops at Book Hill, I inhaled deeply while telling my ovaries to STFU. 

One day. 

Maybe.

You cliche.

daddy's girl, part 1

i saw my daddy the other day.  i had been neglecting him; it had been ages since my last visit.  he's a good and forgiving daddy though, so he didn't even mention my transgression.  he was just happy to see me, period. 

he and i are remarkably similar and that's why he grasps why it is so difficult for me to spend time with him.  it is entirely possible to love someone too much, to experience a sentiment so powerful it overwhelms you to a point of sickness.   that's how he lived every day of his life after my birth.  sometimes, when i was younger, i wished he didn't love me so much.  it would've meant less pain and stress for all of us.  but that's neither here nor there.  he DID love me fiercely and that is what created the me you read about on this blog.  so all's well that grows up and ends well.  but i digress.

i knew he wouldn't be thrilled with my hair.  though he'd love the length-- what daddy doesn't love little girls with long hair-- i knew he'd loathe the auburn colour.  too bad, dad.  this is the price paid for me growing it long...i get bored and it gets coloured.  "why can't you just leave it black?"  my hair ISN'T black though.  it's dark brown.  "no, that's your sister.  she was born with the chembicheh thalehmoodi, the bleached hair.  you had nice dark hair."  first of all daddy, people PAY to have hair like veena's.  "pay?  you paid someone for this disgrace on your head?"  i roll my eyes.  my hair was the first battleground my father and i fought on; he wanted it long as in, hangs to my knees long, because "good kerala girls have hair such as this".

i was mortified at my horrid crystal gayle impersonation.  once i got to high school, i couldn't bear the ridicule.  unlike miss gayle, my hair was so thick, you couldn't put a scrunchie around it twice...well, not without causing you AND me immense amounts of suffering...so i really looked more like cousin it.  yes.  THAT cousin it.  sigh.

at least it's long daddy.

he glares at me in response.  but the anger fades as he looks me up and down.  "what are you doing?  fasting for shiva?  you are disappearing!"  i did lose some weight, yes.  "how much???"  um.  about 16 lbs. "child, i can see your collar bone.  is your mother feeding you?  or are there onions in your food?"

at some point, when i was around six, i decided to stop eating cooked onions.  i thought they looked like worms, the very same worms i saw shriveled up outside on our sidewalk in millbrae.  i was horrified to recognise the scraggly, purple carcasses fairly infesting my favourite "mashed" potato sidedish.  i remember exploding in to tears, pushing my plate away and looking up at my father.  i was beyond squeamish and so was he...surely he'd understand...

"what."

"daddy i don't want to eat that."

"you will eat it or i will shovel it down your throat myself."

i cried harder.  my mom bitterly chimed in with her two paisa "see?  you spoil her and she does these things.  last week she finished the entire pan, this week she is too good for it.  this is your doing."

my dad glared at her more fiercely than he had glared at me.  "can a man eat in peace?"

i sat.  my appetite had absconded to some less scary clime.  i'm not exaggerating about my delicate sensibilities; to this day if i hear someone step on a snail, i'm unable to eat for a few days, the clattering  shattering of that gnarled brown edifice continuously looping in my tortured imagination, the thought of an eviscerated slug left to die between pavement and the bottom of a shoe haunting my mind's eye. my stomach twists just typing that.  so i saw the onions, thought "worms!" and couldn't eat.

dinner passed.

i didn't eat.  my father calmly walked over to where i was sitting, dinner's only leftover, as plates had been cleared and people excused hours ago.  he picked up my fork, took a massive helping of potato and dared me not to open my mouth.  as tears flowed freely i begged him not to make me eat.  but as soon as i opened my mouth to desperately plead my case, he forced my dinner, and i wept.  i swallowed only out of fear.  i ate most of the cursed, cold gruel and then i ran off to my room, to seek solace under my desk, with my doll lily and my bear babu.

several hours later, i tentatively walked back in to the living room, where daddy was watching tv.  i clambered up next to him, with my back to the television, braceletted ankles tucked underneath me, big toes touching, hands clasped solemnly in my lap.  i looked at him with baleful eyes.  "mutheh-kanee" he had nicknamed me, moments after my birth.  "giant eyes."  he used to brag that everyone flocked to my window at the nursery, to see the baby with huge eyes and so much hair.  "you were the only baby who was alert.  intelligent, even before your first hour passed!  obviously.  you were mine." he looked at me, perched next to him on the couch, and that was my cue to speak.

"daddy.  i don't want to eat onions.  please don't make me ever again."

"why."  his eyes narrowed, and he slowly commenced grinding his teeth, an unconscious habit that meant he was not pleased.  this was not good, but i had to state my case.  this was too important.

"because they look like worms.  and when mommy makes the thiel curry they look like slugs.  and i'm scared of worms and slugs."  my eyes filled again with wet.

my father looked at me in a way that i had never experienced, and i commenced trembling...i thought for sure a spanking would be mine for such insolence.  his eyes searched my face, stopped at my chin-- the "family" chin-- and dropped down to my little hands, which were now wringing an imaginary towel viciously in my lap.

his hands came out so swiftly, i cringed and whimpered instinctively, turning my face away from inevitable pain.  i hated spankings.  i knew this would end badly, with me over a lap getting bruised by an angry hand, while i pleaded for mercy.  he seized my underarms and jerked me towards him, but i wasn't going face-down in to the couch; no, he was pulling me in to his chest, and my face found solace in his aramis-scented neck. "don't cry little one." he said, in malayalam. arms wrapped around me, and he let one hand roughly stroke the back of my head, pulling my hair almost out of its ponytail (he never knew his own strength).  "you will never have to eat onions again.  not while i'm alive.  you're right.  they do look like scary things.  i never noticed."  with one final squeeze, he set me down in front of pbs and launched himself towards the kitchen.  i heard anger pouring forth.  voices escalated and i cringed...

"why do you cut onions like that?  they look awful.  you're scaring her.  cut them smaller next time.  THAT's why she didn't eat."

"you're spoiling her!  don't tell me how to cut onions.  tell HER to eat."

"cut.  them.  differently.  she does not have to eat what she does not want."

"i am not cooking without onions for your little princess."

"then *I* will cook for her.  this is finished."

and he was back on the couch.  he didn't look at me, but when i rested my head against his bicep, he nestled me closer, and i fell asleep...

+++

i miss chole daddy.  she doesn't make it like you do."

daddy snorts.  "nobody does ANYTHING the way i do, girl."

it's not like she puts ooly, or onions in it...it's just not the same.  i frown at this.  feels like it's been years since i had daddy's fiery chole.  i make it like he does, and it's good.  ask my cousin's panjabi friends in d.c. for proof, there were no leftovers.   but i don't cook when i'm with my mom.  her kitchen is very much her space.  just like my kitchen is mine.

"are you sick?  you need to drink some horlicks."

horlicks.  whore licks.  my little sister veena and i forever snickered at that unfortunately named drink.  horlicks.  bournevita.  ovaltine.  gah.

i'm not sick.  i think i look fine...my opinion earns me another glare.  i can't believe daddy never needed botox; his face forever frowns.  he's fierce like that. 

"how's your sister?"

oh!  she's fine.  she was a little sick a few weeks ago, but you knew about that.  i think she's going to be okay.  she might be coming home for xmas/new years!  remember the last time she did...the last time we were all together...

the memory makes me frown.  and my eyes sting as i immediately cast them downwards.  i don't want him to see me cry.  fate does what it does despite the pain that comes.  this is not daddy's fault.  it's been so long since he's seen me; i want to be radiant, not sniveling.  he's kind enough to give me a moment, and the pain passes. 

"your hair is ruined, you're too skinny and your mother isn't putting onions in your food.  what else?"

sigh.  oh daddy.  everything.  everything else.  i'm so lost without you.  you were the mapmaker in my life, literally and figuratively.  yes, i have mapquest now, but how it thrilled me to no end that whenever i went somewhere new, you'd grab whatever paper was nearby and with your magic red felt-tip (or my waterman fountain pen)  you would wordlessly, flawlessly sketch streets and landmarks.  all of your training as an engineer...so that you could be my personal cartographer.  i never got lost with you, daddy.  never.

i can live without THOSE maps (um, barely) but i cannot bear to be without the other, more necessary ones. the unwritten verbal exchanges that always ended so decisively.  everything i did that was glorious, came through you daddy.  you pushed me to debate class, when i was too terrified to speak to someone at the door, let alone at a microphone, and i ended my lincoln-douglas career 12-0, undefeated anna...what was my nickname?  the iron maiden.  "being in a room with anna is like being locked in a medieval torture device" because no one knew that they were debating me, they just saw a code.  and they would walk in to that room and betray the terror in their hearts by the horror on their faces.  you used to gloat, you bad daddy, you.  :)  taking pleasure in other people's pain.

no wonder i'm me.  you never missed a single speech or match.  you carried my briefcase, consulted, advised.  helped me rewrite a brief in one 15-minute break when someone else stole my award-winning case and used it against another st. francis girl.  she ran up to you breathlessly..."someone copied anna's negative!  that's so wrong!"  you were unshakeable and that would made me unbreakable.  "that happens, baby.  it's a shitty world.  excuse us for a moment."  and you took my elbow and steered me to an empty classroom, checking first that no one followed.  "anna.  sit and write a new negative construct." but daddy, i don't have time?!  "write.  i need to go find out something."  ten minutes later, daddy came back, a slight bit of grim dragging down impossibly full lips under an imposing moustache.  "just as i suspected.  you are in the final round.  he is against you, and you are negative.  he will obviously know your old strategy since he stole it.  if he is this shrewd, he will have changed his affirmative to reflect this."  i was stricken. 

i felt like my heart was somewhere between my kidneys.  what the hell would i do now?  my hands were shaking above my legal pad...daddy reached in to my open briefcase, pulled out my hidden stash of cadbury fruit and nut and opened it carefully and deliberately.  peeling away the gold foil, he put it in front of my mouth. "bite!" he commanded in malayalam.  daddy this is no time for chocolate!  "BITE!"  my hands are shaking can't you see that?  "your blood sugar is low, girl.  bite."  i bit, and then protested rudely through a mouth full of decadent milky cocoa love.  that's not why my hands are shaking, daddy!  "nonsense.  that is the only reason they would shake.  nothing to be ashamed of.  daddy is hypoglycemic too.  see, i'm going to eat some as well."  daddy they are shaking because- "because you need sugar.  i did not raise a coward or a quitter.  now bite and WRITE.  he is nothing without your intelligence.  he is in the final round because of YOU not him."

i nodded meekly and started to write.  it was gibberish at first but daddy's eyes never wavered, and then my pen started to move feverishly.  after ten minutes i had sketched out a new case.  my fear was already ancient history.  i became animated, and i felt a hot sort of confidence infusing my limbs. daddy, what if i do this?  and what do you think about this point here?  isn't it unbeatable?

daddy looked at the rolex that i coveted, the one that i would receive a duplicate of as soon as i finished college one day.  "time to go.  you will be late." he said gruffly.  i snapped the briefcase closed and he grabbed it wordlessly, leaving me free to pore over my yellow paper.  i muttered points to myself over and over again, until daddy stage whispered "quiet!" in malayalam.  i looked up.  my opponent had reached the door of our appointed boxing ring just as i had.  he smirked.  i smirked harder.  i saw something unsure pass through his eyes for a nanosecond, but then he recovered.  "after you," he said with an exaggerated sort of chivalry.  i snorted.  "ladies first," i spat, waving him in with my hand.  he stood and looked at me and i shook my head.  i wanted to rip him to shreds, i didn't have time for this bullshit.  we each set up and met at the podium, where he shook my hand.  my grip was stronger.  "good luck" he said, with an excessive amount of sweetness.  "luck is for dilettantes.  you can have it all."  oh i was going to enjoy this.

the plagiarist walked back to his desk and i stayed at the podium, steeling myself with the same ritual i always used.  i took a deep breath, closed my eyes, bowed my head slightly, asked God for his blessing (dear God, please help me do well with this debate.  help me win.  help me destroy my lame-assed opponent.  for everything is possible through you.  thanks.)  spiritually fortified, the third and final step of the ritual was left; i looked up and locked eyes with my father, who was as motionless as a statue.

my mouth opened and my opponent's jaw dropped.  an hour later, i shook an excessively sweaty palm and wheeled away on my kidskin heel.  daddy was already at my desk, digging through the briefcase he had bought for me.  he found the blue hospital solution that was almost pure alcohol and disdainfully put a quarter-sized puddle in my hand.  "dirty white people, you know they don't wash after they..." he muttered in malayalam.  i happily destroyed germs the way i had decimated my unworthy opponent and savoured the moment. 

a few hours later, my heart was thumping like a dhol in my chest.  they were announcing second place and i waited to hear my opponent's name.  the smirk was already there, and i was tasting vindication..."2nd place goes to the pride and joy of st. francis-- and her daddy-- Anna..."  WHAT?!  what the fuck was this??  i was too stunned to show such sentiment, so i ambled up to the stage and accepted the lesser trophy.  i looked at it dumbly as i heard the words that made my stomach nearly disintegrate from the churning acid inside..."and taking first place for varsity lincoln douglas tonight, a truly amazing feat if i may say so, considering who he had to beat to make it here-" the man nodded at me as he said this, " ____________ !!  congratulations!!"  as soon as it was polite, i walked offstage, down the three stairs that lead to the gym floor.  i couldn't bear to look at my father. 

it wasn't really an issue, since he wasn't looking at me at all.  he had already managed to retrieve all of my scoresheets and he was mentally recalculating everything.  my coach walked up and put his hand on daddy's shoulder.  "George, i know you're heartbroken right now, but you should know that he only beat her by one point.  he won decisively in the first two rounds and it gave him the boost he needed.  but you know what?  2nd is GREAT.  look at that trophy!"  my coach lightly punched my shoulder.  "good job kiddo.  first place for your speech on the japanese educational model and second for LD.  i'm so proud of you!"  i think he sensed that it was a "moment" so he wisely left us alone.

my dad nodded to himself, tucked my scores carefully in to a briefcase pocket and snapped it shut.  he withdrew the keys to his fleetwood from the right pocket of his trousers.  "let's go."  i followed, silent and humbled.  he opened the back door for me and put my briefcase on the passenger side floor.  he paused for what seemed like an unnaturally long time after igniting the engine.  looking straight ahead in to the starry night, he quietly said.  "the only way to beat you, was to be you.  he didn't win because he deserved to...it's okay."  he put the giant car in reverse and backed out expertly.

as the car bounced upon leaving the parking lot and moved on to the street he commenced a tirade i was familiar with; "i always told you, you have to be better.  because of your skin, because of your sex, you have to do more, be more.  if they get 100% you need 200%, if they get..."  my eyelashes fluttered at the comforting sound of what most people thought was a gruff, loud, menacing voice.  i was asleep before we hit the freeway, curled up in the backseat of the fleetwood, my navy blue blazer a makeshift sort of blanket.  the trophy fell from my hand, on to the embroidered floor mat below.

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