Well-Behaved Indian Women

by Saumya Dave

She drowns out Mom’s yelling and debates what to text back. She can’t hesitate in the text box because then he’ll see those bubbles pop up and know she’s self-editing. Hmm, what does one type to their role model?

  After a few seconds of agonizing, she types, It was really nice seeing you, too. And I’ll definitely stay in touch. Thank you for everything.

  “Why are you hanging out with him that closely?!” Mom asks after Simran tells her it was Neil. “I know you might not think this is a big deal, Simran, but you know how important a girl’s reputation is. Once it’s ruined, it’s very difficult to change it back, especially with your future in-laws. Is this really how you want to start your life with them?”

  “Ruined? How the heck could anything be ruined for being in public with a friend?”

  Nandini ignores the question. “There’s always something with you, Simran, isn’t there? There just has to be.”

  “Seriously, Mom? You think this is fun for me?”

  Neil: Thank YOU. I mean what I said.

  Oh my god . . .

  Okay, so maybe seeing Neil was fun. But still, she’s never understood how her family could believe that she does these things on purpose. It was like in seventh grade, when Kyle Wilkins asked her if it was fun to wear huge glasses. Yes, Kyle, yes, I love these hot pink frames that take over my face. Thank you so much for asking.

  She texts Neil back: I mean what I said, too.

  And then, without thinking, she inserts a heart-eyed emoji. It’s only after she hits SEND that she realizes her message looks flirty.

  She’s about to send a clarification when Neil sends a winking-face emoji. Time to stop texting.

  “Don’t give me your sob story about being misunderstood,” her mom says.

  Simran hears her mutter something to her dad, and she says, “Look, Mom. You know me. You know I have guy friends.”

  “I do,” Mom confirms. “But Kunal’s family sees things a little differently. At least, his mom does. She made it a point to imply that Dad and I must have raised you to think certain inappropriate things are okay.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Simran scoffs.

  How dare Meghna Auntie imply anything about the way her parents brought them up? Simran knew Meghna Auntie had dropped passive-aggressive comments before about how Mom’s busy career (and the nannies who were always around) had to impede her homemaking duties, but those seemed more sympathetic and understanding. Nothing like this.

  “I’m not going to change anything with anyone because of her. That’s just ridiculous.”

  “Beta, you don’t have much of a choice. She . . . she called me back to suggest that the wedding be called off.”

  “Are you kidding me? She can’t say that.”

  But despite Simran’s defiant tone, she’s scared shitless. Call off the wedding? It was never supposed to come close to that. This isn’t the way she wanted to start her relationship as a daughter-in-law to Meghna Auntie. Everyone’s supposed to be happy right now.

  “Well, that’s what she said. And I’m not going to have my daughter paraded around as immoral or raised with questionable values. If she thinks we need to prove to her that you come from a good household, we’ll do it,” Mom says. Simran can tell that as much as Mom’s pissed off at her, she’s even more upset at Kunal’s mom for saying these things in the first place. She just has to be careful now that she’s at home with Dad. He’d want her to please Kunal’s family.

  “Is that what you did?” Simran asks. “Accommodate whatever your mother-in-law wanted when you were marrying Dad?”

  Mom sighs. “My situation was different. But yes, that is what I did.”

  “How was your situation different?”

  “That’s not relevant right now.”

  “Every time I ask you some specific detail about your engagement, you say it isn’t relevant. It is relevant right now.”

  “At this point, our concern is you. Your engagement.”

  “So that means I can’t even ask my own mom about her life?”

  “Look, beta, things are always hard at first. There’s this . . . loneliness . . . that comes with being a woman and starting something new where all these expectations are placed on you,” she reminds Simran, her voice softening as she dodges her question. “Whether it’s with a husband, mother-in-law, new job, anything. Just have patience, and it’ll eventually get better.”

  Classic immigrant mentality: take pride in putting up with difficulty.

  “You know Nani passed her stubborn streak to both of us,” she continues. “But even with that, when I was growing up, Nani told me to do anything I had to in order to be accepted. That’s just how things are. There’s no need to make things so difficult. Believe me, it’s only going to hurt you in the end.”

  “Well, unlike what you suspect, I hate making you upset. Or worried. This is supposed to be a happy time,” Simran says.

  When there’s no response, she adds, “Mom, I’m not like you. I’m not all dutiful or selfless or able to become someone different on a whim. I don’t know when to hold myself back, even if it’s the appropriate thing to do.”

  In elementary school, when their family met a renowned Hindu priest who refused to speak to girls, Simran threw a fit (a screaming fit, to be exact) at the sexism. She couldn’t shut the hell up and let him be. The same thing happened again when she learned Hindu women aren’t supposed to enter a temple or kitchen when they’re menstruating because they’re considered impure. Now she still can’t do what she’s supposed to.

  “I know you’d never intend to be hurtful, beta. And all of these other things, they’ll fall into place, with time,” Mom says. “Trust me, if Nani was here, she’d tell you I wasn’t always this way.”

  “Actually, I was going to ask if you’ve heard from Nani. We spoke last week for a few minutes and she said that the pipes were being fixed. But I’ve called her twice this week and there was no response. Do you think she’s busy with the girls at school?”

  “I’m not sure. She hasn’t called me back, either,” Mom says. “We need to confirm her flight information for your engagement party.”

  “Do you think something’s wrong? I haven’t checked her Facebook page lately.”

  Nani’s latest obsession (outside of Dr. Phil and any thriller with the word “girl” in the title) is social media. She shares inspirational quotes on her profile every day and is now attempting to use emojis. Unfortunately, she hasn’t figured out that the emoji is supposed to correlate with the message, so her latest upbeat, optimistic quotes have been accompanied with red angry faces.

  Simran tells Mom to hold on while she checks Nani’s Facebook profile. Nothing posted for five days. The last time they didn’t hear from Nani was when she fell, broke a hip, and didn’t tell them for one month. They found out from her neighbor. Ever since Nana passed away, she has what Mom calls “pathological independence.”

  “No, I’m, uh, sure everything’s okay,” Mom says. “At least, let’s hope it is. I’ll call her again today.”

  * * *

  — —

  Kunal’s reaction isn’t any better.

  “What the hell is going on?”

  “I’m so sorry, honey. I promise I can explain,” she says. Hearing Kunal’s voice snaps Simran back to reality. The past couple of days with Neil haven’t been her real life. Kunal is her real life. Their future marriage is her real life.

  “Then please do, because it was so shitty for me to hear all this stuff from my mom about you and some other guy!” he yells, his voice barely audible over the shaky connection. “What were you even doing? And who were you with? Vishal?”

  “No.” She pauses. What was she even doing? And why would she ever be with anybody in a way that looked inappropriate? That’s not who she is. “I was hanging out with someone I met at my book party. It was Neil Desai, that Indian write
r from the New York Times.”

  There’s silence on the other end, and for a second, she’s worried Kunal has lost service.

  But then she hears his voice, heavy with a mixture of confusion and sadness. “What? You were hanging out with that guy you’ve been following? The one you’re a fan of? How did this even happen?”

  She sits down at her desk, her hands shaking as she explains that she met Neil at her party and the conversations they’ve had since.

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “I don’t want you to think that you can’t trust me. I promise I was going to tell you about Neil and that it’s nothing for you to worry about. You and I just haven’t had time to talk and I . . . I thought you’d be excited. He’s actually a good—no, great—person to be in touch with. He wants to help me with some ideas I have for articles.”

  “Well that’s just fantastic,” Kunal scoffs.

  “Fantastic? Really?”

  There’s only the sound of Kunal’s breathing.

  “Hello?” she says.

  “So that’s it? Nothing happened? He’s just some mentor you’re fangirling over?”

  “Nothing happened,” she says.

  “You know,” he says, his voice softer than before, “it’s been hard for both of us since I’ve been in Africa. I haven’t been able to talk to you as much, and when we do talk, we’re fighting more. I know you think I take you for granted, but I don’t mean to. I really don’t. And yes, it’s been challenging for me to accept that there are some interests of yours I simply don’t share. Or understand. But hearing from my mom that you were with some dude came out of nowhere. Kind of knocked the wind out of me, to tell you the truth.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispers, remembering that one of the first things she loved about Kunal was his tenderness. Being on the receiving end of it made her feel more special, simply because it only emerged with select people at select times.

  “I realized, maybe for the first time ever, how you must have felt about Rekha and me,” he says.

  Rekha and Kunal became friends on the first day of medical school orientation after they both signed up for the neurosurgery interest group. Thanks to some Facebook stalking, Simran quickly learned that Rekha was single and attractive (of course—and in that athletic, outdoorsy way that makes you want to work out . . . or stuff your face with Oreos). She depends on Kunal for emotional support with her erratic love life, high blood pressure, and family problems. Simran’s jealousy waned after she spent more time with Rekha, but every once in a while, she pictures them in the dark library, delirious from sleep deprivation and their inevitable isolation from the rest of society. . . .

  “Kunal, I’m glad you have people in your life who understand and share your interests. And I want you to be happy when I have that, too. I’m sorry everything with Neil started this way.”

  “But why? Why were you with him in a way that looked inappropriate?”

  She pauses. Why was she with Neil that way? What the hell is wrong with her? Kunal’s syllables anchor her back to the present.

  But then another thought emerges. What if Kunal is all she knows? What if their comfort is just that—a comfort—and that’s why excitement with Neil had a chance to break through? She forces herself to stop thinking that way. No, she simply let herself get carried away. Kunal’s her future husband. Her home.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t say that enough. And I promise you nothing happened and that we were just meeting to discuss some ideas. Look, I love you,” she says. “I love you so much. Please don’t be upset. I’m really sorry.”

  It’s the truth. She tends to miss Kunal the most when they fight, after the fire of the argument is extinguished, leaving only embers of intense longing behind. That’s what happens after you’re together for a long time: you learn how to fight with rhythm, and you learn when it needs to end.

  “Let’s just talk later,” he suggests. “I think I need some space.”

  Her actions come into focus as reality settles in. Her fiancé shouldn’t be worried or angry or upset. He doesn’t deserve that. Maybe she is at fault. A part of her wishes she hadn’t met Neil, that this whole thing had never been triggered in the first place.

  * * *

  — —

  That Saturday, Simran’s sprawled across an old blanket at the southeastern corner of Central Park. Solitude has become more of a need than a want since she’s been engaged. She doesn’t indulge in any of the behaviors she thought she would: staring at her ring incessantly, binging on trashy wedding shows on TLC, or looking up bridal diet plans. Instead, she craves space to reflect on everything from her career to wedding planning.

  God, wedding planning. There’s something about an Indian wedding that transforms an entire family. Every detail becomes a point of anxiety. Mom texts her with important concerns: How will they prevent her dad’s older brother from drinking too much and breaking out in dance moves from Saturday Night Fever? Will Kunal’s endearing but creepy cousin, Dev, try to hit on her picky but desperate cousin, Aarti? What if they run out of hotel rooms—or worse, food?

  “Hindu weddings are supposed to be a time for the community to reunite,” Mom tried explaining when Simran asked why they had to invite so many people. “A poorly done one reflects poorly on the parents of the bride and groom.”

  Simran doubts that the three-day occasion will be classified as “poor” by anyone. As of yesterday, six hundred guests are on the potential invitation list. There are even people who are still inviting themselves, which can be common with Indian weddings. For some reason, people have no shame against casually mentioning their invitation “never made it” or “may not have been mailed yet.” One auntie even had the audacity to pencil in her grandchildren’s names and a smiley face on the card.

  Simran puts on her Chanel sunglasses and people watches. Every New Yorker seems to flock here when the thermometer crosses seventy degrees. A line of girls sunbathe on striped beach towels while a frail, elderly woman skims through a novel with a shirtless man and woman on the cover.

  From the corner of her eye, Simran notices a group of teenage boys playing lacrosse. She still wonders if she fell for Kunal during one of his lacrosse games, when his aggression and testosterone surge helped him win (the way they still do). Her mind drifts to the most significant game she attended, when they became a couple.

  Kunal never directly asked her to be his girlfriend; like many relationships where both people are friends first, things fell into place in an unplanned way. There was no first date or “will you go out with me” routine. To her parents, the adolescent years were purely for academics, to earn that “My Child Is an Honor Student” bumper sticker. All Indian parents saw relationships as taboo (and all Indian children eventually learned how to sneak around). Romance was an inappropriate distraction, something she only had through books or television.

  Not that she had a chance at romance, anyway. She spent many middle school dances in the dark corners while her fellow classmates swayed to songs by Savage Garden and *NSYNC. (Side note: her parents forbade her from attending said dances once they learned there was slow dancing. According to them, only married people were allowed to slow dance. She had to tell them slow dancing was “out of style” in order for them to allow her to attend prom.)

  Luckily, by high school, she learned that:

  1. Bringing rotli and chickpea curry for lunch is not the way to make friends at school.

  2. Large, thick glasses don’t pair well with low self-esteem.

  3. A bowl cut is never excusable on an adolescent girl trying to leave the dork days.

  Starting at the beginning of freshman year, she had found Kunal attractive in a way that was difficult to explain and often negated by her friends. He wasn’t the kind of boy most girls would look at, more likely to be described as “cute” than “hot” but still distinctive, with a babyish face on a manly b
ody. An anatomical paradox. He also didn’t match the complete list she had made of qualities a guy had to have, but those were influenced by Bollywood movies; Kunal was real, so naturally, he had a leg up.

  For months, she was happy to keep her emotions confined in the margins of her class notes and in whispered conversations with her girlfriends. She and Sheila had to give him a code name—“Sonya”—so her family wouldn’t find out. She did what any other girl touched with unrequited love did: fantasized about him, overanalyzed their interactions, told herself no girl would ever like him the way she did, and memorized tiny details about him, like the heart-shaped birthmark under his left ear and the way he always shifted back and forth on his white Nikes when he was talking to someone.

  Sure, they were friends—good friends—but she knew as well as anyone that people had lower expectations for their friends than for a potential significant other. And it wasn’t a cliché-dorky-girl-liking-popular-guy scenario; if anything, it was almost the opposite: girl liking nerd and not feeling brainy enough for him, considering his last girlfriend had been the Science Olympiad champion and first chair of the orchestra.

  On some level, she was aware that she was special in her own way, should not want anyone who did not want her, and all those other lessons she metabolized through the final seconds of Full House episodes. She tried her best to tuck her hope away and find gratitude in their friendship. Perhaps she was too influenced by Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, the revered Bollywood movie where two friends end up together after not seeing each other for years, but she imagined that, at the very least, Kunal would look back on her one day—preferably when she was worldly and accomplished—and see her as “the one who got away.”

  But things changed sophomore year, two weeks before finals. She raced to the park from a newspaper editor meeting so that she could watch Kunal’s lacrosse game. That day was the championship game, so a lot of their mutual friends were there, which gave her an excuse to show her face and see him play for the first time.