Karma Gone Bad

by Jenny Feldon

We really needed curtains on the front windows. Why today, of all days, had the porch people decided to go AWOL? I needed backup.

  Sundar was a cook. Short and stocky, he had four children, two wives, wore a black leather jacket, and drove everywhere on a motorcycle that made him look more Hell’s Angel than Hyderabad. He’d been working for expats for years, with the inflated asking price to prove it. The family he’d been cooking for had moved back to Switzerland right around the time Jay and I arrived. He’d been bugging us to hire him ever since.

  I opened the door.

  “Hi, Sundar.”

  “Good morning, Madam! Today is the day you will hire me!”

  I admired his optimism.

  “Thanks for coming by, Sundar, but we’re still not hiring a cook.”

  He pushed past me with a bag of vegetables. One of his wives followed meekly behind, shooting me an apologetic look as she slipped off her shoes.

  “I am making food for you. Free of charge, with all fresh and delicious ingredients. Step aside. When the food is ready, you will be tasting and hiring me.”

  “What makes you so sure we need you to cook for us?”

  Sundar lined things up on the kitchen counter. “Are you having a pressure cooker? Where do you keep your chaat? And your garam masala?”

  “I told you, we don’t eat much Indian food. It doesn’t agree with my stomach. We eat at Ginger Court only.” My Indian phrasing seemed to encourage him.

  “Ah, already you are speaking more like India. Soon you will be eating like India too. But not Ginger Court. That is fancy restaurant food, too rich. No good for your health. And no more Hyderabadi food, all grease and spice. No wonder you are being ill. Sundar will make you the cuisine of the north. Now go, relax. Your kitchen is my kitchen. You are looking unwell. Perhaps you should drink chai.”

  “I just brought back a lot of American food. I’m going to learn to cook the kinds of things we’re used to eating. So the timing probably isn’t great. Thanks anyway, Sundar.” I raised my eyebrows meaningfully toward the door.

  “Ah, Madam, here is where you are wrong. Sundar is wanting to learn to cook American foods too! So you will eat healthy Indian food on some nights, and I will be teaching you to make for when you take leave of Hyderabad. And on other nights you will show Sundar about your American foods, and then I will be cooking those too. So Madam won’t have to trouble herself in the kitchen at all. It is, as American say, win-win!”

  I sighed. “Just once, Sundar. You can cook me dinner just this once and that’s it. And if I don’t like it, I’m not paying you.”

  He shooed me away with a pair of salad tongs we’d gotten for our wedding. “Finding somewhere to rest. Sundar is here.”

  Jay came home after midnight. I was still awake, downstairs on the couch in my pajamas, eating Sundar’s leftover chana masala with a piece of stuffed onion paratha for a late-night snack.

  “How was your day?”

  “Why are you still awake? I figured you would have gone to bed hours ago.”

  “Just thinking.”

  “I missed you at dinner tonight. It’s not the same without you there.” He lay on the couch next to me, putting his head in my lap and pointing to the paratha in my hand. “You must be feeling better; you’re eating. Is that Indian food?”

  “Stuffed onion paratha. Homemade.”

  “Bite?” Jay opened his mouth.

  I fed him. “I hired Sundar today.”

  “I thought you swore you’d never hire a cook. What’s next, servants?”

  “Maybe. It’s the Indian way.”

  “You hate the Indian way.”

  “That hasn’t been working out so well.” I wove my fingers through his hair, tracing the strands of silver. “I missed you tonight too. Now that we have Sundar, I was thinking we could eat dinner at home a few nights a week. You can have people over if you want. But it would be nice to get into a routine, stop eating out so much.”

  “If the new you is going to be like this all the time, I vote we hire a whole staff.”

  “Don’t push your luck.” I sat up and looked at him, studying his face for the truth. “Seriously. Do you think this makes me a failure? I’m supposed to be taking care of the house, not turning into one of those ladies of leisure who eats bonbons all day.”

  “No, I think you’re learning.” He kissed me on the forehead. “And you’re not going to eat bonbons. You’re going to start writing again. Come on, let’s go to bed.”

  In the morning, I started interviewing housekeepers. Venkat put the word out in his sister’s neighborhood; by noon, I had candidates lined up at the door. Expat households were the most desirable of all: higher salaries, fewer people to tend to. But the first five women who came wouldn’t even cross the porch. They were terrified of Tucker. Finally Sundar arrived, another bag of groceries under his arm, and a young girl by his side. Mary, a Catholic and a member of the lowest caste, was desperate for work—no Hindu household would allow her inside. For the longest time, she stood staring in the doorway. I held Tucker in my lap and stroked his fur, willing him to behave. Something about Mary’s quiet demeanor made me feel calm. I wanted her to stay.

  Finally she slipped off her shoes and crossed the threshold, head held high. I was surprised at how delicate she was, one long braid falling over her shoulder as she demonstrated her skills with a broom and a mop.

  Venkat hissed from the doorway, watching. He was Hindu and a Reddy. To him, the presence of a low-caste Christian in our house was offensive. I adored Venkat and hated to make him angry, but Mary felt right to me. Like Venkat, with his hip-hop swagger, was different from the average Hyderabadi driver, Mary was just a little bit different from the typical housekeeper. Her quiet grace set her apart. When I offered to pay her double what she’d asked for, she flushed with pleasure and pressed my hand tightly.

  “I be good for you, Madam. I not make you trouble. God bless you.” Venkat, watching from the window, stomped back to the car in disgust. But I was certain I’d made the right choice. The Indian way was working out OK after all, at least so far. And those impossible marble floors? Were officially someone else’s responsibility.

  Chapter 20

  Now that I was back, Venkat had a million questions to ask about America: what kind of plane I’d flown home on, what foods we’d eaten, what it felt like when snow came down from the sky. I tried to imagine what it would be like to grow up without television and Internet and textbooks, with no window to the world other than the one in your own home. Venkat was as fascinated by the country I’d left behind as I’d been as a child hearing stories about Neverland and the Emerald City. Through his eyes, I could see the magic of a world I’d taken for granted almost all my life.

  While Jay and I were gone, Venkat had gone home to his village and received his hero’s welcome, regaling his family with stories of working for us. I imagined their reactions, as shocked and amused as my own family had been at my tales of life in India. Our electric bug-killing tennis rackets were as foreign and bizarre to Venkat’s village Reddys as their orange-garlanded farm goats were to us.

  “Did you see Swapna, Venkat?”

  Venkat blushed so hard the tips of his ears turned red. He ignored me and grabbed his comb, swiping it over his already perfect hair.

  “OK. I won’t ask. You tell me if you feel like it.”

  Venkat heaved a huge, resigned sigh and reached into the glove compartment. He pulled out a small brown jewelry box etched with gold and handed it to me over his shoulder without turning around.

  “What’s this?”

  “Open and looking, Madam.”

  Inside were delicate earrings, gold filigree curlicues dangling from posts studded with a single ruby each.

  “Wow, Venkat.”

  He hunched his shoulders, embarrassed. “For Swapna. For when she has fifteen years. I givi
ng these to her. For when asking be my wife.”

  My throat clenched. Venkat was still just a kid. It was so hard to imagine him as someone’s husband, starting a family, shouldering the responsibilities of a man in his tiny, struggling village with a child bride on his arm. “They’re beautiful.”

  He snatched the box out of my hands, snapping it closed like the earrings would disappear if I admired them too long. “No yet. First bike. I ride home on bike and am asking. Then she will being say yes surely.”

  “Oh, right. We need to talk about the bike.”

  “Buying bike today, Madam?” Venkat straightened his shoulders and grinned broadly. “Is time? Wanting Yamaha. I told Sir which.”

  I laughed. His enthusiasm was contagious.

  “Not today, OK? Soon. We need to talk about it and figure it out.”

  “Look, Madam. No safety,” Venkat cackled, changing the subject. Ahead of us, a dhoti-clad man dangled from a length of rope, trying to regain his footing on a twenty-foot-high billboard featuring a gorgeous Bollywood actress holding up a tube of Garnier whitening cream.

  “Who is that, Venkat?”

  “Aish. Bollywood star, much famous. All women want be like her. Much fair skin. Green eyes also.”

  “Does Swapna look like her?” I teased.

  He refused to take the bait. “Music, Madam?”

  “Put on Wilco, please.”

  “Dhoom, Madam?”

  “Madonna.”

  “Garam Masala?”

  Venkat won, as usual. His debate skills, even in his third language, were far superior to mine. Also, I knew if I tried to force the issue, he’d deliberately make my CD skip until he could announce “CD no working, Madam” and replace it with his own. So it was a jubilant, 150 BPM Bollywood soundtrack playing in the background as the Scorpio crept along in traffic, two hours into a “quick” trip to the vegetable stand.

  Usually this drove me crazy. But with my new plan in place to embrace all (or at least some) things Indian, Bollywood didn’t seem like a bad place to start. I’d always loved those old Hollywood musicals, jazz hands and dancing umbrellas, melodic happy endings. From what I’d glimpsed on the billboards, Bollywood didn’t seem so different from bedazzled versions of My Fair Lady or Singing in the Rain.

  “Venkat, let’s go to the movies.”

  “Movies, Madam?”

  “Yes. I want to see a movie. Something Bollywood. What’s playing?”

  “At Prasads is Dhoom 2, Madam. IMAX. Much big.”

  “Perfect.” I leaned forward, urging him ahead.

  “But vegetables, Madam?” Venkat asked, trying to figure out if I was serious.

  “They can wait. Let’s go.”

  Outside the giant Prasads complex, Venkat idled the Scorpio, waiting for me to get out.

  “Go ahead and park, Venkat. I want you to come with me.”

  “Mine coming? No, Madam.” Venkat managed to look simultaneously horrified and elated, which meant I’d no doubt broken Rule #387 of the Driver/Drivee Code by asking him to park the car and go to the movies with me. I didn’t want to make him uncomfortable, but the theater was huge and intimidating and teeming with Indian teenagers, and I wanted to avoid having to navigate buying a ticket and finding a seat all on my own. Plus, I knew how much Venkat loved his Bollywood movies…even if it was some crazy breach of etiquette, he should still jump at the chance to see one, for free, in the middle of his work day.

  “Come on. It will be fun. You’ve been listening to the soundtrack for weeks.” He still hesitated. I decided to sweeten the deal. “I’ll buy you McDonald’s if you come.” The very first McDonald’s in Andhra Pradesh had opened in the Prasads entertainment complex a few weeks earlier. The restaurant offered a heavily edited Indian menu (no cow meat, milkshakes, or Chicken McNuggets) for customers willing to brave the two-hour lines. Venkat, who’d never eaten french fries before, was obsessed.

  “Chicken Maharaja Burger?”

  “And fries.”

  Venkat pulled out with a screech and headed for the parking garage.

  ***

  The final credits of Dhoom 2 rolled, and I stood up, wiping a tear away with the back of my hand. I’d loved it. Well, loved it…but didn’t really get it. Why was everyone so happy and dance-y when life in India could be so unspeakably hard? Why were the costumes barely there risqué in a country that frowned when my ankles showed beneath the hem of my skirt? Still, Bollywood made me feel happy and dance-y too…nothing short of a miracle considering how miserable I’d made myself in the past few months. Here was something Indian I could get on board with: glitz and glamour and fairy-tale romance. Under the bright lights of Bollywood, everything seemed more exciting and less tragic.

  I made Venkat stop at the movie rental place on Road #1. Jay and I had been in before, balancing our Prison Break marathons with their small selection of American titles from the ’80s and ’90s. But this time, I had a different agenda. I carried out as many Bollywood DVDs as the confused clerk would allow, promising to have them back by the end of the week so I could rent a new batch. The movies were the perfect hybrid of action and intrigue and romance, set against the dazzling backdrop of the magical, colorful India I’d always imagined. Maybe I’d been going at this India thing all wrong—instead of learning to be a housewife, I should have been training to be a Bollywood star.

  “Venkat, do they take white people in movies? I want to be in one.”

  He cackled. “No, Madam. No white peoples. Only Indians. You no speaking Hindi. Bollywood only Hindi.”

  “Well, then I’ll learn to speak Hindi.”

  Venkat laughed harder.

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Venkat.”

  “Vote, Madam?”

  “Never mind.”

  ***

  Sundar and both his wives were arranged around the kitchen in a chapatti-making assembly line. One wife mixed flour and water together in a giant bowl. The other wife kneaded the dough by hand, then used a tiny wooden rolling pin to form perfect saucer-sized discs. Sundar was at the stove, flipping chapattis like pancakes with an orange spatula I had bought at the dollar store in college.

  “Is much good, this tool,” Sundar said as I walked into the kitchen. “We are not having this here.”

  “It’s called a spatula.”

  “Spah-choo-la,” Sundar repeated, testing the English word out loud. His wives looked on, bemused but uncomprehending. Neither spoke a word of English. His first wife, who, like Sundar, was from Kolkata, spoke Urdu. His second wife, from Hyderabad, spoke Telugu. Sundar told me they used Hindi as a common language, though their four children spoke primarily Telugu and English.

  I’d never asked Sundar why he had two wives, and he’d never volunteered the information. Their arrangement was highly unusual, especially in Hindu culture. Watching the three of them interact was fascinating. There didn’t seem to be any animosity or tension between them. They each performed within the boundaries of their individual roles: the first wife, Amita, was older, more maternal. She seemed like the caregiver, the glue that was holding their eclectic family together. Devika, the second wife was younger, pretty but shy. Sundar flirted with her, catching her eye over the sticky bowl of dough and nodding slightly, like they shared a secret. But it was Amita he deferred to, letting her order him around and treating her with humble, understated respect. Sundar and Amita seemed more comfortable with each other, worn in the same places like a perfectly faded pair of jeans. I wondered, if I had to choose, which wife I’d want to be.

  I sat on the kitchen counter and watched them, my legs dangling over the edge. Sundar, always thrilled to have an audience, started to tell me about his latest motorcycle adventure.

  “We are driving one hundred kilometers per hour, maybe more. The road to the village is much rocks. Soon I am passing the train, the farms, everything,
when there is a dog asleep and I am not seeing. I am saying to Amita and Devika, ‘Holding on!’ And we are in air, like flying. Then safe.” Sundar laughed. “They are much angry for many days after.”

  “Sundar, do you think I should learn Hindi?” I stuck my finger in the bowl of chapatti dough and tasted it. I never understood how mere flour and water could transform itself into golden-warm, delicious Indian bread with a couple of kneads and a few minutes in a frying pan.

  “You are wanting to learn? I am teaching. Say, ‘Ap kaise he.’”

  “Ap kaise hay.”

  “Yes! Now again. Longer sounding. Aaaap kayyyysssSUH hayyyy.”

  “Aaaap kayyyysssSUH hayyyy. What does that mean?”

  “Meaning, how you are.”

  “How are you?”

  Sundar smiled. “Very well, Madam. Thank you for asking.”

  That night, I dug out the slip of paper I’d stashed in my nightstand months ago and called Simrahn, the Hindi tutor who’d advertised on the bulletin board at Coffee Day. The phone rang dozens of times before she answered.

  “Is this Simrahn?”

  “Yes?” She sounded furtive, like she was speaking from a closet. I could hear children shouting in the background.

  “My name is Jenny. I found your ad in Coffee Day? About a Hindi tutor?”

  “Ah. Very well. You are expat?”

  “Yes. I don’t know any of the language, but I really want to learn.”

  “I can teach you.”

  She named her fee. It was exorbitant. My true function in India seemed to be as a walking ATM machine: handing out coins to street urchins, buying touristy souvenirs, employing “expat-friendly” staff that charged us triple because they knew they could. Still, it seemed worth it. The Australian’s words still rang in my ears: Sometimes the words only come when you teach yourself new ways to think about them.

  Maybe my impromptu coffee date had served a higher karmic purpose. I wanted to communicate better: with Indians, with Jay, with myself. I wanted to write and think and feel creative again. If learning Hindi would bring me closer to the feeling of home I’d been searching for, then that’s what I needed to do.