Bombay Blues

by Tanuja Desai Hidier

  And then there were the jars of mango pulp in our own kitchen cupboard, which my mother used on occasion to make kulfi and lassis. But my father’s favorite was the pulp itself — mixed with ghee and cumin and served alongside the puris she used to fry at home.

  Here, now, these seasonings returned that childhood kitchen to me, on one level brimming with life and an unshakeable sense of security. But in the corner of my child’s-eye-view lurked this mysterious sussurating cupboard, incantory with tamarind paste and agarbathi, Mysore soap and sandalwood letter openers, vases shaped like peacocks (and for some reason, loads of triple A batteries), the darkness beyond these objects insinuating a depth, a desire, a portal to another place and time if I could only follow my nose. The trail of mango pulp, the amber jars — which I now realized had probably been sent by Maasi — had been like little flares along the way.

  There were the zests of my American upbringing, and the relishes of my Indian roots. But no one ingredient embodied both. The closest connector so far as I could see was the ajwain on my tongue now — invoking India, this moment, this table … but also a midnight slice with a heavy sprinkling on Bleecker Street.

  We sat in a comfortable silence, blowing at our tea. Meera Maasi poured a bit of hers into her saucer so it would cool faster — something, I recalled with a pang, Dadaji had always done.

  —I learned from my own mother, Meera Maasi told me. —And your grandfather. He would take Shilpatai and me to the market to choose the mangoes ourselves. It was a special day. Together we’d chop up the fruit, mix the salt, pepper, sugar. Chili powder, cumin, clove. And the days we made pulp? We squeezed the mango with our hands so’s not to lose a drop, jars upon jars. The entire kitchen smelled of it — as if we’d entered the fruit itself, the walls, floor, ceiling its skin.

  —The skin’s the best part!

  —Oh, the skin! Shilpa and I would suck the peels to every last lick. We were inseparable then — very alike. People often asked if we were twins.

  —Because you both had orange faces?

  She laughed gently. —Aha! Perhaps that was why! The pickle was your Dadaji’s favorite. Sweet and sour, he’d say — like Bombay itself. Life itself. Each taste on its own could be too much, or not enough — but if taken together turned into something new.

  —Like love.

  She didn’t seem fazed by this hypothesis.

  —Yes, like love. Often so bittersweet.

  —But like the way two people together create a new taste, space — a new being in the room.

  She nodded, smiling, but was looking out the grille now.

  —Yes. Where there’s mutual love. Otherwise, one tastes the bitter, the other the sweet.

  She hesitated. Then added, —Perhaps when you try to push things together, something that might have worked falls apart.

  I looked at her.

  —Are you okay about Sangita’s decision? I asked quietly.

  She shrugged slowly, eyes woeful. —Kaka had warned me things might not go to plan.

  —And Kavita’s? Plans?

  She closed her eyes, did the side-to-side nod.

  —Did you know, Maasi? I whispered. —At all?

  —I suppose we always know. We just don’t want to know we know. People show us who they are all the time, whether they’re trying to or not. They can’t help it.

  —But we don’t see, I agreed, considering my own overactive projector, —if it doesn’t fit with what we want to see. Sabz is a great person, Maasi. She’s loyal, she’s brave. She’s the one who made Kavita come back — told her never to break the bond with her family.

  Another side-to-side, this one slighter, eyes averted.

  —Maybe, Maasi, it’s like math. Sangita with Deepak created a negative space. Like subtraction — something got taken away from her. And maybe Kavita and Sabz together get better at being themselves? Maybe it’s more about that equation than gender — being … straight, or crooked, or curious….

  We were all something to each other, whether or not we could stick to the roles we’d begun in, been directed towards, hoped for, sometimes. But now I wasn’t thinking about Sangita, or Deepak, or Kavita, or Sabz.

  —Maybe sometimes you’ve got room for … more.

  Something about the taste on my buds and the intent, even sorrowfully kind look Maasi was giving me unbit my tongue. It was funny to find myself talking to her like this — she’d been like a stranger for many years. But maybe that was why it was possible as well.

  I was good at strangers, it would appear.

  —Do you think you can love more than one person, Maasi? Be in love with more than one person? Or with the wrong person?

  Slowly, a nod. A pause. And an opening.

  —I loved a man once, Dimple, she told me now. —More deeply than I thought my heart went. With a schoolgirl’s abandon and a widow’s grief.

  I craned in, amazed at this revelation.

  —Did he … die?

  —No. It was grief for something that would never come to be. He loved someone else. And, funnily enough, I had begun to as well. But this didn’t stop my heart from opening wider to fit him in. And hurting when that wasn’t enough for me to work my way into his.

  —Well, I said consolingly, —I can’t see how someone would choose another woman over you. She’d have to be extra extra special to come anywhere close.

  —Yes. She is. Your mother is extra extra special.

  I froze.

  —Wow! I cried. —And what did Mom think of the dude?

  —She loved him back. With a schoolgirl’s abandon and a widow’s grief — but this grief like an advance grief. An imagining of one day, someday, losing the person she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. We all met at the same time, a picnic in Borivali. But they had eyes only for each other, and I grew invisible — more an echo than a twin of your mother. And that was that; they were inseparable from very early on. And I ran into the arms of the first taker — the other person I was beginning to care for: your uncle.

  I was gobsmacked.

  —I’m so sorry about how you felt, Maasi. But frock! Mom never told me. I thought she didn’t have any boyfriends before Daddy?

  Maasi smiled that sweet sorrowful smile.

  —No, she replied. —She didn’t.

  I let that sink in a moment. Lots of jagged little pieces I’d always felt defined my aunt’s sharp tongue and bitter actions suddenly fell together into the smooth image of an unhurt heart; those splintered fragments had once beat together as a whole.

  —So your mother had the mad romance, my aunt summed up. —Was swept off her feet all the way to America. Wed, wandered, worked … and then was lucky enough to have you.

  Something about the way she said it made it seem these events had happened yesterday, rather than roughly two decades ago.

  —Well, it took them so long to have me, I replied, hoping to offer some comfort. —And you had Kavita and Sangita so easily. Maybe she thought you were the lucky one?

  —Maybe. But it didn’t feel like that in the beginning.

  —Did Mom know how you felt? About … my dad?

  —She knew how she felt. And — though I suppose I did blame her for a long time — can you really fault someone for this?

  I related to Maasi on many levels. And I admired my mother in another way as well. It couldn’t have been easy for her to follow her own heart when it would cause so much grief to someone she was so very close to.

  —Maybe, I said, —the heart has more rooms, more room than we can fathom. And when you feel that connection, it doesn’t matter whether the person is too young, too old, boy, girl, taken, not. Could be the heart is expansive enough to include all the pieces that don’t fit. And love is … the glue?

  A momentary silence.

  —Then why, beta, my aunt asked me now, —does my own heart feel like it’s breaking?

  I reached across the table and took her hand.

  —I think, Maasi, I replied, —it may just be gro
wing.

  She smiled then. And as soon as I’d said it, the truth of the sentiment struck me. Growing pains — is that what these were?

  She spooned more chundo onto my plate, then handed me the utensil to lick.

  I still had one last question.

  —Maasi? Did Kaka know how you felt?

  —He never said so much. But he is very, very wise. He knew I’d fallen in love with someone … but he also knew I might rise, stand up, land in love with him one day. He’s a patient man.

  She rose now to put away the jar. I caught her stifling a yawn, and gestured for her to go on and lie down; I’d tidy up. She hugged me.

  —It’s no coincidence, she said, —mangoes arrive just a moment before the monsoon.

  And with that, Maasi retired to her bedroom. As the steel plates began to shine under the steady stream of water, I recalled those monsoon rains during childhood visits to India, night-dancing naked in torn sheets with Kavita and Sangita, exhilarated by the torrent of rain upon our young skin. Surely my mother and Meera Maasi had once joined in that dance before the complications of romantic love drew them apart on that soaked earthen dance floor.

  Which reminded me of another midnight. The midnight my mother had received word that Dadaji had passed away. I’d been woken by the murmur of my father on the telephone, buried down a corridor of the house. His voice had been low, but something about its frequency and desolate calm roused me out of drowsing. I’d wandered from the dark of my bedroom — past the hallway in which he stood, hunched shadowly, nodding, phone pressed too hard to his cheek — to the lit kitchen. At the entrance, I’d halted.

  At the table, my mother had been sitting, hair loose and wild down her back, eyes closed — a very similar jar of chundo open before her. She hadn’t been eating any of it, just breathing deeply, inhaling. I’d been a little frightened by this odd action, but touched as well, watched as her tears dripped into the glassware, adding more salt to the sweet.

  Somehow, without yet knowing the news about Dadaji, I knew — understood then that she was conjuring what was lost, filling her senses with its memory so as to piece together a sort of afterimage, submerge into an afterglow.

  She missed her daddy.

  I wanted to move closer, wrap my arms around her, or be wrapped by hers, but didn’t want to break the spell. Time travel was a delicate thing, and from the tiny smile tugging the corner of her mouth, I knew she’d found just the right balance of sweet and salty, sour and spice.

  I wondered now what her once-twin had been going through at that moment. The sister who’d had to call with the news from a mid-morning Bombay kitchen, wrapped in the arms of the man she’d made her life with, speaking quietly, urgently, to the man she’d longed for, who’d answered the phone at the American end. I wondered as well how Kavita and Sangita had coped — losing the grandfather they’d lived with. It had never occurred to me to wander into anyone else’s grief; I’d never realized mourning could password you down a secret passageway into another person’s heart. I had always seen it as a closed and emptied room.

  I finished tidying up, stood for a moment at the sitting room window, watching Gilbert Hill rising valiantly up from the Andheri dust and construction, somehow resisting camouflage by the encroaching night.

  Passing the bedroom, I saw Maasi sleeping with Akasha curled up in fetal position in her arms. They breathed in sync, the soft undulation of their bodies like gentle waves.

  A blessing — distraction from the mood of gloom — arrived the next day in the form of my parents, back from their second honeymoon.

  The pair was chubbier, giddier — and louder — than I’d seen them in ages. My mother’s Indian accent was also switched on to full, and they seemed to carry the aura of their travels with them. I was even pretty sure I could catch a whiff of jasmine oil clinging to their clothing from their stay in that Delhi five-star (or, four-star).

  My aunt appeared ready to weep with relief when they entered — and to be honest, I felt that way, too. I raced towards them, yelling, —Mommy! Daddy!

  My mother cast me a long look of suspicion tinged with pleasure. My father’s smile was all happiness.

  —You’ve lost too much weight, beta, she admonished me now. —Have you not been eating the Parsi eggs at the free breakfast?

  —Um. Actually, I’ve been here a lot lately.

  —Much to our delight! my uncle chimed in. My mother raised her brows quizzically at me, but let it go.

  In fact, everyone seemed to be pretty keen to let everything go. For one, no mention of the herd of elephants in the room: the earthquaking revelations that had taken place just yesterday. Then again, the three main characters involved in them had gotten gone ages ago; I was pretty sure Sangita, Kavita, and Sabz were shacked up at the hotel. Even Akasha was off squaring roots in a neighboring apartment, most likely teaching her tutor a thing or two.

  As if to fill in these notable absences, my aunt and uncle commenced bombarding my parents with questions about their trip.

  —I did not like Delhi, my mother announced grandly.

  My father smiled good-naturedly.

  —You didn’t see Delhi, no? he pointed out, winking at me. —She wouldn’t leave the hotel.

  —It was so lovely? my uncle inquired.

  —It was too expensive only! my mother exclaimed. —I wanted to be sure to get our money’s worth.

  —I remember my own visit to Delhi, years ago, my aunt remarked. —It made me want to take a broom to this town. Why does it require the visit of a US president for anyone to clean up Bombay’s act?

  —It seemed a rich and interesting city, my father mused. —Deepak must be looking forward to the move.

  An awkward silence.

  —Where is Sangita? my mother asked now, as if just noticing.

  —Working on her portfolio, my aunt sighed, finger-quoting the word, which I think roughly translated to: schmortfolio.

  —And Kavita?

  My aunt looked at my mother … and her eyes began watering.

  —I’m … I’m sorry, she mumbled, coughing, embarrassed. —It must be …

  —The chameli oil, my father said quietly, reaching quickly into his pocket and bestowing upon Maasi a compact Toblerone, clearly procured from the overly fragrant hotel’s minibar.

  My uncle’s eyes were pained on my aunt’s behalf. But my mother sprung into action.

  —You know what, she said now. —I did catch a bug in Delhi. And I’d like to do something about it.

  —Delhi belly? I ventured.

  She smiled with forced cheerfulness. —The travel bug! What is all this sitting around the house? Come, Meera, just the girls! Let’s go … shopping! For … pashminas!

  My uncle nodded. —Superb idea. Go on, Meera. It will do you good. An outing is in order!

  —And you come along with us, Dimple, my mother added, training her ESP eyes on me. I squirmed. —You look like you could use some air as well.

  And so we three found ourselves heading steadily south, to Apollo Bunder.

  Arvind instructed us to feign interest in the overpriced pashminas at this shop around the corner from the Taj so he could then park there for free for a couple hours while we wandered the area.

  In the store, with its rainbow aaray of gauzy cashmere scarves, stoles, and shawls, twirling salesmen flounced and flaunted their fabrics like suicidal matadors. My aunt moved about like a zombie, though she did seem relieved to have my mother around again, sticking close to her.

  My mother managed to bargain the hell out of the shopkeepers, and even swung a buy-five-get-one-free on a series of part-silk wraps.

  —Gifts for all of us, she announced as we exited, unfurling three of them: a rani pink for my aunt, purple for herself, and turquoise for me.

  —But why six? Maasi queried.

  —We three, my mother said, pointedly avoiding my aunt’s eyes. —And of course, Kavita, Sangita, and Sabina. For when they return from Bandra schmandra.

  My
aunt startled, but clearly chose not to ask how my mother knew this. And if she wasn’t going to ask, I wasn’t going to, either. Instead, we crossed over to the Gateway, which loomed suddenly, regally, deus ex machinally before us. I took a shot of the two of them from behind, draped in their new shawls, slightly out of the frame of the approaching enormous yellow basalt arch.

  My aunt looked more out of place in this part of town than my mother, who was sweeping around as if she owned it. I wondered how long it had been since she’d done any sightseeing in her own city. Who ever did, really?

  Past the balloon sellers, the hawkers, the gawkers, and closer to the slap of the Arabian Sea: I stood at the tip of Apollo Bunder, on the once fishermen’s jetty, gazing at the Gateway. Built during the British Raj in honor of King George V and Queen Mary’s 1911 visit (though they were only able to view a papier-mâché model of the structure at the time since it wasn’t completed until sixteen years later). Where the governors and viceroys would land. Architectural harmony between the Muslim-style arch, the Hindu-design embellishments — but still the target of two terror attacks. The Gateway was the first thing those boating in to Bombay used to see, the entry point to the nation (and portal to colonialist rule) … and the fire exit for the last British troops upon India’s independence.

  Restored to tourist status again — a fitting final-days role to play, I supposed. The point of so many arrivals to Bombay — and me, finally here, a mere four days before my own departure.

  I just wanted to keep arriving.

  I photographed my mother and aunt, right through the Gateway. Then we roved the periphery, me shooting sightseers shooting the space.

  Lining the promenade, the beautiful miserable horses of Apollo Bunder, pulling silver chariots for the tourists by day, legs bound by night. A constant whinnying struggle to simply stay standing. I’d stopped to snap the hooves of the closest ones, white-spoked carriage wheels trundling behind, when my aunt suddenly piped up: