by Sheba Karim
Sanjeev Uncle stepped into the foyer, followed by Usha Auntie. The three of us stood before them in a row, our shoulders touching like we were lining up for prayer. My uncle didn’t resemble my father, at least not based on the photo I had. He had a thick nose, a thick mustache. He was mostly bald, his scalp reflecting the light of the chandelier. Unlike us, Sanjeev had suffered no angst over today’s outfit; he was wearing a plain T-shirt and rather ill-fitting pleated pants and flip-flops. His eyes lingered an extra moment on Ghaz, who folded her arms and widened her stance, her foot pressing against mine.
“Mariam is the middle one,” Usha Auntie said to him in Hindi.
“Yes, I see the resemblance. Nice to meet you, Mariam,” he said, reaching for my hand. Several red and yellow threaded bracelets circled his wrist.
He had a vigorous handshake, his palm sweaty against mine.
“These are my friends Umar and Ghazala,” I said.
“Hello,” Umar said.
“Namaste,” Ghaz said solemnly, smiling beatifically and bringing her hands together beneath her chin, like a life-size cardboard cutout of an Air India flight attendant.
After a befuddled moment, Sanjeev Uncle and Usha Auntie said namaste back and then Sanjeev Uncle invited us to come sit.
“Usha,” he said, “go get some chai, snacks.”
Usha retreated and he led us into the formal living room. The furniture was overstuffed, with rounded, feminine edges, the color scheme cloying pastels. On top of a side table in the corner, small dark statues of gods and goddesses stood inside an engraved wooden altar. In front of the shrine were two trays, one displaying a brass candleholder, an incense burner, and a brass bell, the other one lined with apples, oranges, and grapes.
My stomach gurgled, but thankfully Sanjeev Uncle didn’t seem to notice.
We sat on the sea-green sofa, me in the middle. Sanjeev Uncle took the lavender armchair, his fingers curving around the armrests, his feet up on the matching footrest. On his left hand was a large ring set with a deep yellow stone.
“Do you understand Hindi?” he asked us.
“Urdu,” Ghaz replied.
“It’s close to same to same,” Sanjeev Uncle said, gesturing with a tilt of the head and an outstretched hand. “My two sons spoke Hindi when they were young, but as soon as they started school they stopped.”
“They can speak a little,” Usha Auntie corrected him, setting down a tray of neatly arranged cookies, papadum, and a bowl of fried Indian snack mix.
“No chai?” Sanjeev Uncle protested.
“It’s coming,” she said, returning to the kitchen.
“Any trouble finding the house?” he asked.
“No trouble,” I said.
“Nice community you live in,” Ghaz told him.
“Very nice,” Sanjeev Uncle agreed. “We have all the amenities, even a grocery store. In fact, you can do most of your errands without ever leaving the subdivision.”
Ghaz smiled. “Amazing.”
She was being sarcastic, of course, but you’d only realize it if you knew her well.
“Mariam, you are in school?” Sanjeev Uncle asked.
“I just finished my freshman year at Swarthmore,” I said.
“Very good. My eldest son, Mohan, is starting eighth grade, my younger son, Manish, is starting sixth. They are both attending their maths classes today, otherwise they would have liked to meet you.”
Mohan and Manish. My cousins.
Usha Auntie came in, this time carrying a tray of chai, and Sanjeev Uncle told her, “Use the nice china, Usha, these are special guests.”
As she turned back to trade up the china, he said, “And get those Danish cookies—in the blue tin. Achha, Mariam, what will you major in?”
“Not sure,” I said.
“My son Mohan is already learning precalculus,” he said. “You cannot succeed without science and mathematics. I’ve told him to study robotics. The future is robots.”
I needed to start steering this conversation; I was here to learn about my dad, not get an aspirational lecture from an uncle who so far hadn’t lifted a finger to help his wife.
“And your friends, they are also in school?” Sanjeev Uncle asked.
“Ghaz goes to NYU,” I said.
“NYU.” He nodded. “Big school, big city is not good. I went to college in Delhi, a big city, but I was very disciplined. Also, back then there was less to do. Only two channels on TV, can you imagine? You children are so easily distracted, woh wala video game, woh wala concert, woh wala restaurant. We used to stick to our books so that we could enjoy those things later. You know, my son once said to me, ‘Daddy, I want sushi.’ And not sushi only, but edamame and eel. I said, ‘Bhai, you’re in kindergarten and you are already asking for edamame and eel? I couldn’t even know these things until I came to the US.’ I told him, ‘You want edamame and eel, you finish that math workbook I gave you that you haven’t opened.’ So, he did, and I am a fair man, when he completed the book I took him for his sushi. A very good place, too, twenty dollars for a sushi combo plate. But he didn’t like the eel. I told him, you see, dream and reality are very different. You were dreaming of eel, and now that you eat it you are calling it slimy snake. That is why your dream must stay attached to the reality, like your head must stay attached to your neck. This is how I taught my children the work ethic. My wife also works; she is a PhD in computer science, top in her field. Once a society loses its work ethic, it is lost. Black people, look what is happening to their community, half in jail, killing one another, why? No work ethic.”
He might never stop talking. His racist comments were typical of a lot of desis, including my naani, but I wasn’t about to listen to it. It was time to intervene.
“Excuse me, Uncle,” I said.
“Now Indians like to point fingers at the blacks,” he continued, “but even us, we are susceptible. You know there are Indian gangs in Queens, kids who don’t study, sell drugs? Their parents didn’t instill the work—”
“Uncle, if you don’t mind,” I said, firmer this time. “I was hoping we could talk about my father.”
Usha Auntie, who’d joined us during Sanjeev Uncle’s monologue, stood up. “Let’s have some chai,” she said. Her husband watched carefully as she kneeled on the carpet and poured it into porcelain cups with lily-white fairies painted along the rims.
“Give a little more in that one,” he directed.
Usha Auntie took our milk and sugar requests. After we’d all been served a cup of fragrant chai, I repeated my request, keeping it deliberately open-ended. “I was wondering if you could tell me about my father.”
“Yes. As I mentioned, I have had no contact with your father in many years.”
“But he’s in India.”
“As far as I know.”
Well, that was one question answered. “Do you have any photos of him?”
As Usha Auntie shifted uncomfortably in the next armchair, Sanjeev Uncle replied, “Shayad ek ya do.” Maybe one or two. “But they would be at the bottom of some box in the attic.”
Did he really not have a single accessible photo?
“But you knew she was coming,” Ghaz said.
“Yes,” he said.
“So you didn’t think to, maybe, take out a few photos of her father?” she continued.
“How was I to know she would like to see photos? If she had told me before, perhaps Usha could have gotten them ready for her.”
I patted Ghaz’s knee, as a warning to keep cool.
“Okay, I know you can’t tell me who he is now, or show me any photos, but maybe you can tell me, I don’t know, what he used to be like?” I pressed.
“Rahul has never been in touch with you? No happy birthday, happy graduation, happy Diwali?” Sanjeev Uncle asked.
“No,” I said, thinking, It’s not like you ever got in touch with us either, even though you lived a few states away, even though you’re supposed to be a better man.
He snorted, tap
ping the yellow stone of his ring against his teeth. “Why do you want to know more? You know enough.”
Shoaib’s point exactly.
An exasperated Ghaz threw her hands up. “Well, if you weren’t going to look for photos, and if you weren’t going to tell Mars—Mariam—anything, then why did you invite her to come here?”
Usha cleared her throat. “Tell her something, Sanjeev,” she chided him.
“Kya bolun?” he demanded. What should I say?
“Kuchh bhi,” I said, which meant whatever, anything. “The truth.”
“The truth? The truth is before he was a bad father, he was a bad son,” he said. “He did poorly in school, never studied. No work ethic.”
Usha Auntie shot Sanjeev Uncle a look that made him pause, swallow whatever he was about to say, and begin again. “He was younger to me. He was talented at cricket—a very fast bowler. He could have been a cricket star but he couldn’t apply himself to anything. He was not unintelligent, he thought he was better than all of us, speaking in this pukka sahib accent, quoting Yeats-Kates. He had no concern for anyone but himself. My mother spoiled him, even though he was always troubling her. He would disappear for one, two, three days. Once he went off to Manali with some foreigners he’d met without even telling my parents, you know, those hippie-shippie types. When he came back, he was growing a beard and saying, ‘What is the meaning of work?’ My father actually beat Rahul with his belt for running away, but he had to stop when my mother threw herself on top of Rahul. My father wasn’t quick enough; he accidentally gave her one lash. Your father, he saw our mother bleeding and suffering because of him, and he didn’t even apologize.”
“Tell something nice, too,” Usha said. “It’s her father.”
“She asked for the truth! And what is the point in lying? He’s already shown her what kind of man he is!”
“It’s okay,” I told Usha Auntie. “So how did he end up in New York?”
“One day he said, ‘I’m moving to Bombay to become an actor.’ This was before email, cell phones. Months would pass, no word. Then one day, he calls and says he’s going to New York for art school. How he got admission, how he paid for his ticket, I don’t know.”
“What kind of art?” I asked.
“No idea. He never shared anything with us, he never cared about us. We are a respectable Brahmin family; he knew how much it would upset our mother if he married out of our caste and religion.”
“Sanjeev,” his wife said gently, but he ignored her.
“Bhai, if you decide to marry against your family’s wishes, then at least be a good husband and father. But what does Rahul do? He leaves his wife, his two children, returns to India, doesn’t even pay a visit to our mother. By then she was in very poor health, all the stress he had caused her. One day I hear he’s gone to Kerala to start a tea plantation, another time that he is guiding tourists on Himalayan treks. I kept telling my mother to come to America and live with us, the health care is better here, but she stayed, saying, Nahin, mera Rahul ayega, mera Rahul ayega.
“No, my Rahul will come, my Rahul will come.
“But he did not come once to see her, not even when our mother was on her last dying breath.”
“Sanjeev,” Usha Auntie persisted, and this time he waved her off. His resentment of my father clearly flowed long and deep.
“Family, obligations, responsibilities, they mean nothing to him. I took care of our parents when they became sick, I studied and I worked hard to make sure they lived a comfortable life, I paid for their medical care, bought them a better house, and when they died, who showed up asking for his half of the inheritance! ‘What inheritance?’ I told him. ‘The house they live in I bought with my own money!’ But he had no shame! Wearing a nice suit, stinking of whiskey—”
“Sanjeev, please,” Usha Auntie pleaded.
“I told him, our mother didn’t die of type two diabetes or high blood pressure, she died due to broken heart! And he had the nerve to tell me I need to relax! He is a scoundrel, through and through! I gave him one tight—”
“Sanjeev!” Usha Auntie cried, startling us all.
Sanjeev Uncle shut up for a moment, his compact body visibly tense against the lavender chair, a vein in his forehead throbbing with bitter blood.
“Usha, please,” he said. “Meri tang ki maalish karo. My leg is cramping.”
Usha Auntie left her chair and perched on the edge of his footrest so she could press his legs.
Though difficult to bear witness to, Sanjeev Uncle’s diatribe had at least been informative. One, he clearly didn’t know much about my father’s life post–high school. Two, he couldn’t stand him. Three, my father was also a dick to the family he was born into, not only the one he made. Four, my grandmother had loved him better anyway.
As Usha Auntie’s small hands massaged his calves, Sanjeev Uncle’s posture relaxed a little, though his vein still throbbed. Something about watching it move, like a pulsing, angry worm, was making me ill.
I needed to get out of here.
“Please, have some snacks,” Usha Auntie insisted.
Umar reached for a cookie.
“Tabitha,” I said.
Umar shoved the cookie in his mouth.
“I’m sorry?” Usha Auntie said.
“Tabitha is an incredible dancer,” Ghaz replied, standing up and beckoning for us to do the same. “Who we are late to meet.”
“Yes,” I said. “Thank you, this was very informative.”
Sanjeev Uncle took a deep breath. “Most welcome. You should visit India—your homeland,” he said pleasantly, as if we’d been making chitchat about the weather.
“It won’t be easy for me to get a visa,” I said.
“Why? Your father is Indian.”
“But my mother’s heritage is Pakistani,” I said, surprised I needed to remind him.
“Oh. Yes. Well, as your mother’s side says, Insha’allah.” He smiled broadly, pleased with himself for using the terminology of the other.
“Yeah, well, thank you and good-bye!” Ghaz said cheerily, and we followed her out of the room, through the shiny foyer where we put our shoes back on, and out the front door.
We were almost to the car when we heard Usha Auntie exclaim “Wait!” She hurried toward us, glancing back over her shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” she said to me. “Please forgive Sanjeev. He had to bear the whole burden of taking care of his parents . . . It was very difficult on him.”
The fact that my father had remained their mother’s favorite must have made it even harder. “It’s okay,” I said. “My father hasn’t exactly done right by me, either.”
“I met your father only once,” she said, “when my mother-in-law died. He could be very charming. A very good dresser, too. And . . . I’m sorry we never contacted you. Sanjeev said, if you wanted to know your father’s relatives, you would reach out to us. We thought it was better to let you decide. Maybe we were wrong.”
Now that I’d met Sanjeev Uncle, I doubted his presence would have had any positive effect on my life. His wife was nice enough, though. “It’s all right. It was good to meet you. Take care, and say hello to my cousins.”
“Oh.” My mention of her sons made her suddenly emotional, and as she stepped back, her hand pressed a scrap of paper into mine. “Sanjeev thought it better not to tell you, because of the kind of man your father is, but I don’t want to lie to you, now that you’ve come all the way here to find him. Your father’s come back to the United States; he married an American. I knew you were coming so I wrote down all I know—his wife’s name, the city’s he in.”
My father was in America.
“Thank you,” I said, getting into the car. As we pulled away, she waved. I waved back, keeping my fist closed tight, paranoid the piece of paper might get lost or blow away, even though I was in the back seat with all the windows closed.
We drove past the tennis courts, past the spurting lake, past a different auntie walking her d
og.
Umar broke the silence. “No room should ever have so many pastels.”
“Well, thankfully we never have to see it again,” Ghaz declared.
“I get why he can’t stand my dad,” I said. “I get why he thinks it’s better for me not to know him. Maybe he’s right. You can’t really hate someone until you know them. I don’t want to hate my dad. I don’t want to hate anyone.”
“Oh, Mars. Of course you don’t. I’m sorry,” Ghaz said.
“The thing is . . .” The thing was, Usha Auntie had given him to me. I literally had him in the palm of my hand. If you’re in search of something, the closer you come, the more curiosity overrules caution, even if the destination might be dangerous, even if it might end in an explosion.
Maybe he lived far away, in Iowa, or California.
But if he lived somewhere on the way to New Orleans, or within easy driving distance, then surely it was a sign from fate that, for better or worse, I was meant to meet him.
I uncurled my fist, read Usha Auntie’s small, neat handwriting.
Hannah Rae Tipple.
Nashville, TN.
“Hey,” I said, “how do you guys feel about stopping in Nashville?”
Eighteen
“ACCORDING TO THIS TOURISM SITE,” I read as Umar sped us down the highway, “Nashville is more than just country music.”
“Thank God,” Ghaz said. “I hate country music.”
“Like what more?” Umar asked.
“Like Nashville offers free Roy Rogers to anyone named after one of the first four caliphs,” Ghaz told him.
“Ha-ha,” Umar said. “Hey, Mars, I was thinking, if your dad’s married again he might have kids.”
“Shit,” Ghaz said. “You could have, like, a bunch of half siblings?”
“I bet they’re hot,” Umar said. “Half Indian, half white. Half anything is hot.”
“Yup,” Ghaz agreed. “Though when it goes wrong, it can go really wrong. But I’m sure yours are hot,” she added quickly, lest I be offended on behalf of my imaginary siblings. “Hey— What if you never found out about them, and you went back to Swat, and fell for this hot half-desi, half-white dude, and you slept with him, and then you found out he was your brother?”
