Monsoon Diary Read online

  “Ladies! Your turn,” he said, grinning.

  As we screamed in protest, Greg dragged us toward the hot tub and pushed us in. I sat there, shaking my head like a spaniel, surrounded by strange men and women, all of whom were laughing like banshees. Somebody retched; everyone scampered out. Shivering, I stood in a corner, looking for Natasha. She had disappeared.

  There were more screams, this time from inside the house. Curiosity overcoming caution, I elbowed my way back in and stood mesmerized at the sight of a long line of freshmen swallowing dead goldfish as an initiation rite into the fraternity, while their “brothers” thumped fists and shouted words that were Greek to me. Once I realized that I wouldn’t get assaulted, I exhaled and let my shoulders down. I looked at an attractive man standing nearby and smiled. The night was getting interesting.

  IT WAS AT Mount Holyoke that I encountered feminism for the first time. I remember clearing my throat one evening after dinner and asking the others around the cafeteria table what I thought was a naive, innocuous question: “So what exactly is this feminism that everyone talks about?”

  I was not prepared for the torrential response from the Frances Perkins Scholars—older women who’d come back to finish their education. Feminism was about inequality, they said. It was about women getting paid sixty cents for every dollar that a man made. Feminism was about choices and freedom. It was not having to play games, not having to defer to a man even though you were smarter than he was.

  The ideas and concepts were new to me, but they made sense. I came from a society in which women deferred to men in public but ruled the roost in private. This was the first time I was hearing that described as a “game” that women should not have to play. However, what stayed with me long after that evening ended was the anger I felt coming from these older women. I couldn’t help comparing Beverly, Anne, and Ellen with the women in my family.

  While my mother didn’t have the anger and resentment that was simmering in these women, she wasn’t as free as they were either. She was tethered by rules and tradition, and limited by her own vision of herself. She wouldn’t dream of wearing the stylish, tight clothes that Beverly wore, even though they were the same age. She would sniff at Anne’s enthusiasm and Ellen’s loud laugh. She would say that they ought to act their age.

  But my mother had done many things in her life, just like these women. She had my father’s support, for sure, but she also had the confidence to undertake new ventures. Would she have opened a beauty parlor against my father’s wishes? Probably not. Did that mean that she was suppressed? Was it better to question and overthrow the system as these women did or to navigate within its confines like my mother had done? Which made a woman happier, being single and independent or being married and confined? I didn’t have an answer. Indeed, it was the first time I was even asking those questions.

  The contradictions between my two cultures—one that I was born into and one that I adopted—were enormous. India’s fatalism was in direct contrast to the flux I felt in America. Everyone was moving, searching, asking for more. People were changing spouses, changing jobs, changing homes, changing sexes. It seemed like the more choices people had, the more they searched for something else, something new, something different.

  I WENT MANY PLACES on weekends. Kim Kusterlak, who was in my theater class, drove me to her home just outside Boston. When Kim announced that I was vegetarian, her father, bald, jolly, and Turkish, rubbed his hands with glee. “I will make you my favorite dish,” he said. “Cabbage dolma.” I helped him mince carrots, onions, and other vegetables and watched him stuff the dolma. Kim’s mother, a fashion designer, sat at the kitchen table, sketching designs and smoking a cigarette. “Don’t tuck your shirt into your pants, dear,” she told me in a husky voice laden with drink and smoke. “You are short-waisted and it doesn’t suit you.”

  Susan Smith, my kitchen coworker, took me to her home, set amidst a sprawling wooded estate. Susan informed me that it was owned by the Whitney family, her voice suggesting that they were somehow very important. Susan’s father was the groundskeeper and manager. We ice-skated on the lake on the property, or rather, Susan ice-skated and I careened, mostly on all fours. We built a fire and drank port, while her father, a ribald Englishman, regaled us with stories of his youth. Susan took me to tea at the owner’s mansion. We wore skirts and sat side by side eating thin finger sandwiches off dainty china, while the matriarch quizzed Susan about her studies, which the family was funding.

  My Greek dorm mate took me to her home in Cape Cod one weekend, where her large, boisterous family feasted on a buffet dinner. Maria’s brothers boasted about the size of the fish they had caught and suggestively eyed me through dark eyes rimmed with thick lashes. I tasted rice wrapped in grape leaves, eggplant moussaka, and a fragrant, fresh Greek salad with crumbly feta, juicy olives, and crisp romaine lettuce. It was the first time I tasted Greek salad, and I loved the combination of flavors immediately.

  Claire Wilson, who transcribed my music, invited me to her home in Woodstock, Connecticut, for Thanksgiving. Her father picked us up on Thanksgiving Day and drove us to their large Colonial house. Relatives with names like Winthrop and Muffy asked me polite questions about India. Crystal decanters tinkled by the fireplace as the men helped themselves to drinks and discussed golf, politics, taxes, and horses but never one another. In spite of their welcoming warmth, I was acutely aware that I was the only nonwhite person in the whole house and ended up in the warm, spacious kitchen, trying to make myself useful.

  “Here, my dear,” said Mrs. Wilson, handing me a brush. “You dip the brush into this paste and baste the turkey like so.”

  I watched her baste the bird with practiced strokes, trying not to turn away or wrinkle my nose. Being Hindu and vegetarian, I had never touched a turkey before. But Mrs. Wilson’s kind face and eager smile prevented me from demurring. She was trying so hard to include me, to make me feel part of her family and the Thanksgiving holiday, that I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I felt queasy, not thankful, at the opportunity to baste. So baste I did, taking care not to touch any part of the dead turkey with my fingers.

  Perfectly coiffed women wearing smart, sensible clothes bustled around, laying out the crystal, china, and silver on the antique cherry dining table that seated fifteen. Silver swans held place cards, and a large silver rabbit in the center of the table displayed the menu that had never changed since the “Pilgrims landed in Boston,” according to Claire. Classical music played in the background. Everything was so refined compared with my family’s feasts in India, where a hot, chaotic kitchen with sweaty, harassed cooks turned out vast quantities of food; where relatives insulted one another, abused the servants, or went off in a huff never to return.

  By the time we sat down to dinner at three o’clock, the men were tipsy, the women were piqued, and I was famished. I devoured the mashed potatoes, stuffing, and wild rice that Mrs. Wilson had set aside for me, and ate generous slices of every pie on the table.

  THE DAYS SPED BY, each bringing a new discovery. November turned to December. The dorms served roasted marshmallows by the fire along with hot chocolate for the nightly “Milk and Cookies” ritual. The Vespers Choir gave their annual concert in the chapel followed by a reception with warm chestnuts and spicy apple cider.

  As Ellen and I walked back to Dickinson House, it began snowing. Plump, feathery flakes lightened the gray sky and frosted the earth. It was the first time I had seen snow. Ellen and I held out our hands and twirled around. We lifted our faces and laughed out loud. I slid a snowflake to the tip of my fingers and tasted it. It tasted like iced cotton candy. It tasted like winter in a puff. It tasted like magic.

  “This is why New Englanders come home for the holidays,” said Ellen. “Because you can’t duplicate a white Christmas anywhere else in America.”

  NATASHA AND I TOOK the train to her home in Madison, Wisconsin, for Christmas. Her father was a soft-spoken college professor who reminded me of my
own dad. Her mother, tall and statuesque, looked like Natasha a few decades older. On Christmas Eve we stood in her warm kitchen, brushed melted butter on phyllo sheets for a rich cheese strudel, and mixed noodles, eggs, and raisins into a fragrant kugel, scented with vanilla essence and cinnamon.

  Mary and Doug had me over several times during the course of the semester and gave me a sweater for Christmas. I gave them a cassette tape I had made of all my music compositions.

  For New Year’s, I was back in South Hadley, where icy needles bristled off the trees. Mary Jacob, the dean of international students, whose reassuring voice I sought many a time during my early days at Mount Holyoke, invited several international students to her house for a party. Ayesha, a girl from Pakistan, and I hatched a plan to do a radio show each week, with music and guests from different countries. Since WMHC 91.5 FM was a very local radio station, we had no problems convincing the station manager that such a show was necessary, given the burgeoning international population.

  On Thursday nights Ayesha and I carried bags of warm buttered popcorn and mugs of hot chocolate from our dorms to the radio station at the edge of campus. We wrapped ourselves in turquoise and aquamarine Pashmina shawls, surrounded ourselves with colored beads and silken bedspreads reminiscent of an Eastern pasha, and sat within the cozy confines of the recording studio. We had many guests. Niloufer, the daughter of a Turkish diplomat, played mournful music and shared recipe secrets from the Topkapi Café, which her family owned. Carlos, who attended Hampshire College, introduced us to Mexican rhythms and taught me to make salsa picante, which I replicated on days when the kitchen served bland food. Reza, an Iranian consultant who took part-time courses at U. Mass. “just to meet girls,” instantly guaranteed himself repeat-guest status by bringing a gilt-wrapped box full of the most delicious Iranian pistachios, salted almonds, and dried fruits. Emilie, my next-door neighbor from Camaroon, brought her friend Elizabeth from Ethiopia; they wiggled their hips in time to the hypnotic drumbeats with a precision and speed that awed us. Todd, an English painter, drank lots of wine and denounced English cuisine. Polish professors and Russian poets engaged in fits of nostalgia. Thai scientists, Vietnamese musicians, and Indian philosophers felt bouts of homesickness as we played music from their home countries.

  JUST BEFORE school reopened in late January, Claire invited me to go with her to New York City. Her parents had arranged for us to stay in the apartment of old friends of theirs who were visiting Europe. In exchange for three nights at a two-bedroom apartment on Roosevelt Island, all we had to do was feed the three resident goldfish. Between visiting the museums, catching a Broadway show, eating at different restaurants, and seeing the sights, we were horrified to discover that the goldfish had died. There was nothing left to do but procure new goldfish to replace the dead ones. But where did one buy goldfish in New York City? I didn’t know a soul, and Claire didn’t want to call friends for fear that word would reach her parents, who had already been lecturing her about being responsible.

  After calling every pet store in the yellow pages, we finally discovered one in downtown Brooklyn that claimed to have goldfish the same size and color as our dead ones. So Claire and I got off the aerial tramway that connected Roosevelt Island to Manhattan and hailed a cab. To my delight, I discovered that the driver was from Kerala and quickly lapsed into Malayalam. His name was Gopi. He had grown up near Vaikom, he said, and in fact his parents still lived there. When I told him that we were driving to Brooklyn to buy goldfish, he stared at me as if I was mad.

  “You’re going to spend twenty dollars taking a cab to buy three-dollar goldfish?” he asked.

  “Well, not exactly,” I stuttered. “You see, they have to be a certain size and color.”

  “What color will goldfish be except gold?” he asked.

  I didn’t know what to say. Claire had made the calls, found the shop, and negotiated the deal. She had seemed very excited about pulling off the whole thing.

  “This is ridiculous,” the cabbie said in Malayalam. Before I could say a word, he screeched to a halt and made a U-turn. “I live right across the Queensboro Bridge,” he said as we drove in the opposite direction. “I have dozens of goldfish. You can come to my house and pick out any that you like.”

  I jubilantly translated for Claire, proud that a fellow Indian had come to our rescue, but she squirmed. This was our first time in New York, she said, and she would much rather go to a known shop than a stranger’s home. She caught my eye and shook her head.

  “Tell your friend to trust me,” Gopi said. “Guruvayur is my family temple too. On the name of the Lord, I promise that you will be safe.”

  Within minutes he pulled up in front of a ramshackle house in an alley just under the bridge. Three children rushed out, surprised and delighted. A woman followed, wiping her hands in a sari. “My wife, Shanti,” Gopi said, and explained our mission to her.

  In broken English and with a lot of smiles, she welcomed us into their home. Amidst the frayed carpet and the musty brown furniture was a giant aquarium filled with fish of different types.

  “Kerala people can live without money, but they can’t live without plants and water,” Gopi said with a smile. “Please. Help yourself.”

  Claire and I stood on tiptoe and picked out three goldfish from the tank, which Gopi briskly packed in a plastic bag filled with water.

  “You have come to our home for the first time,” his wife said. “You must eat something.”

  Claire and I demurred, or rather, Claire demurred and I pretended to demur. I hadn’t eaten Indian food since I came to Mount Holyoke some months ago, and the most delicious smells were wafting out of the kitchen. I would have liked nothing better than to plunk myself on the floor and eat, but I didn’t want to impose on them. We had given enough trouble already, I said. But Gopi wouldn’t take no for an answer. He would go out and try to get a local fare within Queens and come back in forty-five minutes, he said. That would give us some time to eat lunch.

  Claire and I sat at the rickety brown table while Shanti set out a sumptuous sadhya (feast) for us. I fell on the food with the fervor of a parched desert traveler spotting an oasis. Red rice straight from Kerala, spicy onion theeyal with a dollop of ghee on top, and a delicate olan brimming with coconut milk. It was sublime, returning to me the memory of several bus trips that my parents and I had undertaken in Kerala.

  I remembered attempting one such journey, when the bus arrived brimming with people and the harassed ticket collector told us that there was no room, especially not for a family of four carrying a dozen pieces of luggage. My parents glanced at each other, worried. The ghat-mountain road was narrow. We had to get to Cochin before dark. The cool mountain air carried the fragrance of turmeric and cloves, causing us to shiver. Desperate, my mother opened her tiffin carrier under the ticket collector’s nose. The aroma of ginger, curry leaves, and coconut milk filled the bus. “All right, get in,” the ticket collector said impatiently, eyeing the thick white olan. Quickly we clambered on. As the bus careened through the drizzle, my mother mixed the olan with rice and passed it around in cone-shaped banyan leaves. No one refused, least of all the ticket collector. We got to Cochin by midnight.

  Shanti’s olan was just as fragrant and tasty. “If you had come after a few months, I could have served you lunch on a banana leaf,” Shanti said with a smile.

  As promised, Gopi returned in forty-five minutes to give us a ride back into Manhattan. I thanked Shanti profusely for the meal, the memory of which I was sure I would hoard during the long winter months at Mount Holyoke.

  Gopi dropped us near the tramway and refused to accept any money, even though Claire and I insisted on paying for the cab ride at least.

  “You are from my town,” Gopi said. “You are like a sister to me. Does one take money from a sister?”

  With that, he tooted his horn and took off into the zigzagging traffic.

  SHANTI’S OLAN

  Authentic olan uses milk squeezed out of
fresh, grated coconut. Powdered spices are not used in making olan—it relies only on green chiles for heat and curry leaves for piquancy—and so it contrasts with some of the other curries.

  SERVES 2

  1 cup white pumpkin, cubed (available in Indian grocery stores)

  1 cup orange pumpkin, cubed (available in Indian grocery stores)

  1 teaspoon salt

  2 green chiles, Thai or serrano, slit in half lengthwise

  1 cup cooked black-eyed peas

  1 teaspoon coconut or other oil

  1 1/2 cups unsweetened coconut milk

  10 curry leaves

  Simmer the pumpkin, salt, chiles, and 1/2 cup water in a 2-quart saucepan for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the pumpkin is tender. Add the black-eyed peas, coconut oil, coconut milk, and curry leaves. Heat for a minute and remove from the heat. Serve with rice.

  TWELVE

  Creation of an Artist

  I DECIDED TO TAKE a sculpture class for my second semester simply because Leonard DeLonga, the sculpture professor, was widely regarded as the best teacher on campus.

  “Don’t leave Mount Holyoke without taking a class from DeLonga,” ordered Millie Cruz, a political science major.

  “But I’ve never taken art before,” I replied. “I’m not artistic anyway. I can’t draw.”

  “He doesn’t just teach you about art,” she said. “He teaches you about life. Take his class.”

  Curious, I called the sculpture studio. A mellow voice identified the speaker as “DeLonga.” I said I wanted to take sculpture but had never studied art before. Not only that, only the advanced sculpture course fit into my schedule.

  “That’s all right,” he said. “Enroll in whatever level fits your schedule.”

  Somewhat disconcerted by his casual response, I enrolled nonetheless, and that’s how I, a person who knew nothing about art, became an advanced sculpture student.