That March, Krishna and I went to the Hamptons house for the last time to say good-bye to the place the three of us had been happiest and to bring home what tangible memories we could. I bent down in the driveway and filled a ziplock bag with the pebbles he drove over by the tennis courts. I wanted anything he had touched: the cracked wood canister by his bedside that held his pens and pencils, the clay bowl in our dressing room he threw his golf gloves and extra tees into when he came home. I had coveted his comb, and the Guerlain cologne and deodorant that Maggie had rescued for me from his medicine cabinet right after his death. I could not stop the voracious appetite I had for my lover’s things and they somehow had magnified meaning now, because I could not find meaning in his being gone.
The year or so that followed Teddy’s passing I spent in a walking daze, focusing on Krishna and her ever-changing needs. My friends and family came together around us and did their best to comfort me and keep me busy. But mostly I was engulfed in my own private universe, going to work when required, and otherwise just being with Krishna. She was great company, and succor to my grief. She also slept with me, just as I had slept with Neela back in India. This gave me an enormous sense of physical well-being. I didn’t date, couldn’t imagine or consider it really. I didn’t feel like I was single, just that my lover happened to be dead. Two years on, I still felt like Teddy was with me.
Krishna was my sole source of bodily contact, and that was more than fine. I couldn’t fathom having any man close to me, and I returned to an almost childlike, prepubescent state. My sexuality was nonexistent, and that was actually liberating. On the weekends when Krishna went to Adam’s, I relished being alone, rattling around the house talking out loud to Teddy like some crazy old lady, and luxuriating in the peace and quiet. So much had happened that I was psychically exhausted. I couldn’t reenter life as others knew it, but I was trying.
When Neela told me her younger daughter, Akshara, was getting married, I knew I had to find the wherewithal to push through my self-imposed hermitism. The wedding would be on Valentine’s Day 2013. February 14 has always been a special day in our family. It was Neela’s birthday. This year she would turn fifty. It was also the day after Teddy’s birthday, so it had become dark for me after he died. I was happy that it would now represent another joyous occasion, a new beginning for Akshara and Ravi, her husband-to-be. In our family, we call each other not only on birthdays, but also on anniversaries. I was happy to add the date to my calendar, knowing that from then on, I’d have yet another reason to express my love to the people who meant the most to me.
India was the perfect salve to my wounds. Krishna was a great traveler. Over the few short years of her life, she had clocked more miles than most adults. Her disposition was easy and pleasant, and she had the uncanny ability to amuse herself on planes while I dozed and read. It was astonishing. She had been to Chennai before, but this would be the first time she’d actually remember it.
We arrived from New York after a daylong slog through airports and planes and traffic. It was 10:00 p.m. local time, but my body had no idea if it was night or day. Krishna was hungry, so I found some leftover dosa batter in the kitchen and started making one for her. Next thing I knew, my grandmother was by my side, commandeering the griddle. “Let me do it,” she said. “You don’t know where anything is.” I insisted, but she won, even though by then she cooked with only one arm, the other still paralyzed from the stroke. Then my aunt Papu came in and yelped, “You’re making your grandma cook?” She was appalled. “It’s ten at night!” Papu took over, my grandmother wouldn’t leave, and my uncle Ravi entered the fray. “Look at you,” he said. “You’re supposed to be this famous food person and you’re making these women cook at ten o’clock!” I quickly remembered how it felt to live with so many people. Every move you make is scrutinized. You get up and it’s “Where are you going?” You come back and it’s “Why are you wearing that blouse? I like the other one better.” You walk outside and someone calls from the veranda, “Don’t go that way, there’s too much sun!” It was exasperating and suffocating and God, I had missed it.
The year before, my success had allowed me to move Neela and my grandmother out of our childhood home to a larger, newer place. By my calculations, I still owed them much more. This larger three-bedroom apartment, still in Besant Nagar but on a quieter, tree-lined street, had a night watchman at the entrance of the complex. Not only did I want to be more comfortable whenever I visited, but the old flat in Besant Nagar, which was to become the site of Neela’s sari-and-blouse-making operation, needed repairs. The plumbing, electrical wiring, kitchen, and bathrooms in that house were much the same as when I was in third grade.
The city of Chennai itself, however, was much different from what it was when I had built sand temples in the courtyard. The city that had felt in many ways like a sleepy town had become a frenetic metropolis. Much of the sand was now asphalt. St. Michael’s Academy had expanded into a large compound with tall buildings and fields for soccer and cricket. The Milk Bar that was once a leafy oasis was now a seedy, dilapidated place to be avoided.
Neela and I visited the old flat. All around our old building, urban development now made the area feel very congested. We could no longer see the ocean from my grandfather’s bedroom window. Taller buildings had been erected all around. Everyone wanted to live near the sea. The courtyard below had been asphalted, too. Children no longer made temples in the sand. I couldn’t believe how small the flat looked. It had always felt huge to me. I visited each room, could still see the lizards where the cracked walls met the ceiling. The place was empty save for some sewing machines and tailors, employees of Neela’s business. So many of us had grown up here, fought as children here, cried as teenagers, and often run back to this place as adults. Several sewing machines hummed as I walked barefoot on the old green marble from room to room. Underneath the hum, I could still hear echoes of Rajni tattling on me to Bhanu, the screech of my grandfather’s metal desk chair as he rose to say good-bye to a student. The house had never been beautiful, but it was beautiful to me, even in its dilapidated and empty state.
Yet for all the changes, much felt the same in the new apartment. There were still buckets of hot water for bathing, in spite of showerheads being installed in these new bathrooms. There were still far too many of us, old and young, from my grandmother to Krishna. We would crowd onto the floor, draping ourselves on pillows, grooming and feeding like a troop of monkeys, me scratching my nephew Sidhanth’s back, Neela braiding my hair, kids climbing among our bodies. Aunt Bhanu kneeling on the floor, peeling potatoes or mangoes. My grandmother haggling with every vendor she came across on the porch below.
And we still talked, a lot. Our conversations were a blur of languages. Everyone in the household was tri- or even quadrilingual. I grew up speaking Tamil, the language of my ethnicity; Hindi, the national language but also the language of Delhi; and English. Others in my family added Malayalam, the language of Kerala, my ancestral home, to that list. “Please” and “okay” were in English and bookended many bursts of speech. “Please”—someone might begin, then switch to Hindi—“could you make some chai for me?” Then, without skipping a beat, she might continue in Tamil, “I’m really craving it”—then back to English—“Okay?” Certain words were just better in one language than another.
And still, just as soon as the plates from lunch were cleared, we talked about what we might have for dinner. When tiffin time came, my grandmother and Neela still disappeared into the kitchen to short-order-cook dosa, bringing them to us as they were ready, our greed and impatience scorching our fingers as we tore apart the crepes. We still walked on Elliot’s Beach, and as we turned back toward home, we still had to make the old heart-wrenching decision whether to stay in for dinner or go out for chaat.
The new place had cool marble floors, too, though not speckled green but glossy beige. Each bedroom had its own veranda and bathroom: one for my grandma, one for Neela, and one for Krishna
and me when we came. Still, because of the wedding, we managed to fill every square inch of floor with out-of-town relatives. As lovely as Krishna had been on the plane, she was now in as foul a mood. At home in the East Village, it was usually just the two of us. My mother and Peter came to visit once every other month. Here, it seemed to her, people were pouring in from every corner. She was a novelty to most of our extended relatives, many of whom hadn’t met her yet. The idea of personal space in India does not extend to children. Total strangers would come up to her and pinch her cheeks or squeeze her nose. Her pale-white skin was too tempting not to touch, as was her soft light-brown hair, which fell in short ringlets around her face like Shirley Temple’s. “You are so cute, Krishna kutti,” they wailed in their thick accents as they tried to engage her. “Stop touching me!” Krishna wailed back. Krishna was pissed. She struggled to find an unpopulated corner of the house. I had to speak to her about respecting her elders, but at three, the cultural differences were hard for her to adapt to.
I wondered then if Krishna would have the same connection to family that I did, with all of us cousins functioning more like siblings. It was the love and support of all these people that had seen me through the various tumults of my life. Suddenly, in the middle of my family, who practically knew me better than I knew myself, I began to miss Teddy terribly. Coming here had been good. It had woken me up from my grief-stricken stupor, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing. It was Teddy. Teddy should have been there with me in that place I considered home. Teddy had shown me so much. Teddy had taught me about unconditional love and forgiveness. I could hear his voice in my head as I looked at the floor trying to find a place to sit. “This is the only game in town, Junior. Big tribe. Everyone should be so lucky.”
So when I received a letter from Adam the following Christmas, at the end of 2013, it was Teddy I thought of, of the forgiveness he had shown me, and of the way he had loved Krishna, how he had placed her and my well-being above his own hurt or pain. It had been almost two years since I had taken the stand in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, since Adam and I had reached our custody settlement. Since then he had been a consistent, present, and loving father to Krishna. He had hardly missed a day of his time with her, and I could see how much Krishna had blossomed under the warmth of his love. He took great and enthusiastic care with anything related to her. I didn’t spend much time in his company, but I knew my child enough to see that her well-being was also due to him. I tried to focus on that. It was what counted now.
Adam’s letter was long: five pages handwritten in his minuscule chicken scrawl, about eight pages in human penmanship. In it he covered many topics. He spoke of his love for Krishna, thanked me for being a good mother, apologized for the lawsuit and for hurting me. And he wrote of how much he enjoyed being a father. I wasn’t sure if I believed everything in there, but I didn’t doubt for a moment his love for Krishna. The letter softened me. I could appreciate the courage it must have taken to write it.
For two years Adam had tried to get various messages to me through mutual friends. Every once in a while, he invited me for a drink or dinner via text or e-mail. I always declined. In those days, my housekeeper or I would bring Krishna down to the lobby rather than allow Adam up the elevator to come to our front door. His main sources of information about me were Tara’s husband, Matt, who knew him well from before, and my mother, who kept in occasional telephonic contact with him. Matt tried to lobby for Adam, feeling that he had changed a lot after becoming a dad. I told Matt that if Adam had anything to say, he should write me a letter, not pass messages as if he were in high school. And so I had received his magnum opus of a letter.
I gingerly answered the letter and thanked him for the olive branch and apologies. But it would take time, I wrote. The following February, in 2014, his mother passed away after a long battle with cancer. I knew Adam was grieving. For some time, Adam had been asking if I would join him and Krishna for dinner at his house. It seemed like a yes from me could be my first olive branch, and that perhaps the three of us being together, even if it was awkward and tentative, might do some small part to ease his grief. I could hardly say no. Krishna was ecstatic to have both her parents in the same room.
After the success of that first dinner, Adam invited me the following month to an Ides of March dinner. He and Krishna were going to make homemade pizzas and dress as Romans in togas. Again, I said yes, remembering how much joy it would bring Krishna. I dressed up in my old Princess Bithia costume from the Ten Commandments miniseries I had filmed years before. Adam insisted we had to immortalize the night—our costumes were just too good not to get a photo of. I sat stiffly, and nervously on the couch, Krishna between us, while his housekeeper took a photo. We all looked quite splendid in our ridiculous family portrait. The Ides of March dinner marked a turning point for Adam and me. It wasn’t a 180-degree about-face, more like a gentle bend in the road, but from that point forward, Adam, Krishna, and I had a monthly get-together. We agreed Krishna needed to see her parents get along. We both felt it was important for her to feel we were sharing notes, informing each other of her life, communicating. She was four by then, sharp and keenly observant.
Over the course of that year, we lurched forward bit by bit, month by month. My chill, though not my caution, toward Adam began to thaw. As Christmas approached, Krishna decided she desperately wanted our monthly outing to be ice-skating at Rockefeller Center, followed by seeing the larger-than-life tree (this from a kid with one Hindu and one Jewish parent). Until then, all of our monthly get-togethers had happened in private, so going to Rockefeller Center at the height of the holiday season made me queasy at best.
I had grown up in New York, too, just like Krishna, however different our lives may otherwise have been, and I remembered acutely how special an occasion it was to go ice-skating at Rockefeller Center. My mother could rarely afford it—the skate rentals were so costly. It was a memory I wanted to make with Krishna, as I had made it with my own mother. I couldn’t resist and agreed to go.
That chilly Saturday, Krishna and I arrived at Rockefeller Center close to six. We had just gotten out of a matinee of the movie Annie, emerging into a dark winter night. Christmas was just around the corner, and Rockefeller Center was bursting with holiday shoppers, out-of-town tourists, and Salvation Army Santas ringing the bells. Glittering wreaths and tinsel garlands adorned the shop fronts, and the display windows were done up to the nines, functioning as elaborate holiday dioramas: toy trains circling miniature tracks that traversed snow-sparkling miniature villages of dazzlingly complex detail. It was hard to find space to maneuver on the sidewalk. I had recently acquired a highly impractical, extremely puffy red goat-hair coat that made the upper half of my body look like a giant cranberry snowball. So it was hard to even carry Krishna in my arms. She was also almost five and getting heavier every day. My baby wasn’t really a baby anymore. The air was bitingly cold, so much so that you needed a hat and gloves to be comfortable outside for any length of time. It pricked our faces, though we ignored this by keeping ourselves moving.
The minute I caught sight of the glass elevator at the entrance to Rockefeller Center, I instantly smelled the undeniable aroma of roasting chestnuts, blackened on iron skillets by the seasonal street vendors. The scent had always heralded the holidays for me and my mother. Though ice-skating trips were expensive, and though my mother herself could not ice-skate (she often stood at the edge of the rink and watched me skate alone), part of what we loved about making the excursion were those delicious roasted chestnuts. We loved the earthy smell of them, the acrid whiff of char combined with the sweetness of the nut meat. We relished holding the hot little stones in our hands, then stuffing our pockets with the crinkly paper bags of nuts, which functioned as impromptu hand warmers, pulling out one chestnut at a time and peeling it gingerly, the released steam stinging our naked fingers. We loved the charred, chewy outer parts, and the steaming, soft, almost buttery center
s, too. Our Rockefeller Center outings were, actually, almost entirely an excuse to indulge in this wintertime delicacy. Standing there thirty-five years later, the scent instantly transported me to being nine years old again. I wished I could somehow harness the aroma and mail an envelope of it to my mother in California, who was right then probably trimming the roses in her sun-filled front yard.
I looked up at the night sky. High above all the national flags flapping vigorously in the winter wind, as well as the larger-than-life toy soldiers, the great Christmas tree towered above everything, twinkly and imposing. I pointed it out to Krishna, who was far more enchanted with the statue of Prometheus at its base. Below the golden Titan lay the ice rink, shimmering and impossibly white, crowded by holiday revelers crisscrossing it in loops and twirls. We waited there for Adam to meet us and take us to the VIP entrance, which until recently I never even knew existed. Adam had generously paid extra so we would not have to wait in line. He knew about my aversion to crowds, and I appreciated this added luxury.
Love, Loss, and What We Ate Page 32
