A Good Indian Wife: A Novel

by Anne Cherian

  Leila stared at him. A job? Didn’t he make enough money as a doctor?

  Shanti spoke before Leila could respond. “Neel, you’ve become such an American. It took me a while—oh, six months at least—to adjust to this crazy, work, work, work country. You can’t expect Leila to step into a marriage, a new city, and a new job. Unless that’s what you want,” she belatedly said to Leila.

  “In a few months, yes, I think I will start looking for a job.”

  Neel was relieved to hear this. She had to work and become independent, otherwise he would be stuck with her forever. As soon as she was making some money, they could separate and start divorce proceedings. She could even return to India if she wanted. But she would probably stay here, where divorcées were not looked down on. He wouldn’t feel so bad if she was doing well on her own.

  “Take your time,” Shanti advised. “Don’t let living here pressure you into working. I waited till I found something I really liked. Until then I lived the good life: sitting around at home, visiting, watching TV. Just like India.”

  “We must have lived in different Indias,” Leila said. “I taught for the past eight years, and we don’t have a TV.” She had assumed she’d paid her dues, that being married to a doctor meant never having to work again. She had imagined herself busy raising children.

  “I wish we didn’t have a TV growing up,” Oona said. “So many wasted hours. Tell me, Leila is such a beautiful name, so lilting. Does it have a special meaning?”

  “I don’t know. My mother was reading the Leila-Majnun story—it’s like Romeo and Juliet—just before I was born and liked the name.” Amma must not have realized it was a Muslim story, or maybe she hadn’t seen the need to be traditional when young. Leila had always been pleased she wasn’t a Meera or an Asha. Every now and then a really fair baby would grow up to be Pinky, and sisters were often rhymed, Sindhu and Bindu, Maya and Chaaya. From a very young age Leila had delighted in her unusual name and its difference from the more common Leela. When a teacher said she was being silly, since both names had almost the same pronunciation, Leila pointed out how the letter “r” changed fiend to friend. “As far as I know, Leila doesn’t have a meaning like your name does,” Leila said, thinking of Una in Spenser’s Faerie Queene.

  “You are the second person who thinks I was named for the Lady of Truth,” Oona said delightedly. “But I’m sorry to say my story is more pedestrian. It’s Irish, like Charlie Chaplin’s wife, with two o’s.”

  “Enough of these tales,” Sanjay announced. “I want the real story of your marriage. No Indian censorship allowed.” He looked directly at Leila. “I can see why Neel said yes to marrying you. After all, you are very fair and beautiful. But whatever possessed you to marry this joker?”

  He roared with laughter, and everyone joined in. Leila looked over at Neel. Which of her truths should she tell them? That Neel was the first man to say yes to her? That Amma would not have allowed her to say no? That she had liked him?

  She opted for a light American answer. “He liked my cat and I thought any man who likes cats would make a good husband.”

  She looked over toward Neel. It was the first time she had turned to him for something. He knew the incident and could complete it for her, tell them what he had told the couple in Ooty.

  Neel picked up: “You should have seen that cat. Ugly and thin. Lee calls it Elizabeth Taylor to make up for its lack of beauty.”

  “That’s a sweet story.” Oona was enchanted. “But I’m confused. Neel, aren’t you allergic to cats?”

  Allergic? Leila had never heard of anyone being allergic to cats. Neel had even petted ET. Poor, sweet little ET, who gave sandpaper kisses and whose breath carried the smell of the sea, even though she was a vegetarian and had never eaten fish. Leila missed ET so much she talked to every cat she saw during her walks. She had asked Neel if they could get a kitten, but the building did not allow animals.

  “Yes, I am allergic to cats,” Neel acknowledged. “But it wasn’t around very long.”

  “Long enough to trap poor Leila here,” Sanjay responded.

  “I thought it was women who trapped men.” Bob smiled at Shanti.

  “As usual you’ve got it wrong,” Shanti parried. “Back in the cave days, men used to go hunting and trapping. You, my dear, hunted me all the way to India.”

  “I wouldn’t have, honey, if you hadn’t laid the trap by being so beautiful.”

  Neel watched as Bob gallantly raised his wife’s hand and kissed it. Bob was one of those foreigners who finds every Indian woman irresistible. The kindest adjective Neel could associate with Shanti was homely. She was intelligent and well-read, but contrary to Bob’s doting eyes, she was no beauty.

  Leila considered Shanti’s skin and widening figure. Shanti was lucky. Bob was so obviously in love with her it was clear he didn’t care that she was “black,” as Amma would say. If Leila was the same color as Shanti, she would still be unmarried.

  “Speaking of traps, has Neel taken you up in the plane yet?” Shanti asked Leila.

  Leila recalled the trip to America, the restless hours strapped in the small seat, the food she had been unable to eat, the endless bed of clouds that made a lie out of Wordsworth’s I wandered lonely as a cloud.

  “Yes,” she said, thinking it a strange question. Didn’t everyone come over on a plane?

  Neel shifted uncomfortably. Leila had misunderstood Shanti. It was moments like this that he had been dreading. Caroline was the only woman passenger in the Cessna 172 he enjoyed flying most weekends. “Shanti’s making fun of me,” he told Leila. “She’s always carping that it’s dangerous to fly small planes, warning me it’s a death trap.”

  Leila waited for him to say more. He flew a plane? Why hadn’t he told her? Was she going to learn to fly? She could become the Indian Beryl Markham, a writer and aviatrix. Excitement vied with the embarrassment of being wrong in front of so many people. “Not yet.” She looked at Shanti. “I thought you meant the trip from India.” The words faded and her face grew hot.

  “We’re still waiting for you to give us a ride,” Oona reminded Neel.

  “Any time you want to go.” Neel smiled. He was lucky that the other two partners had such busy schedules they didn’t have much time for flying even at weekends.

  “You’ve been saying that ever since you bought that plane,” Sanjay complained. “I am your oldest friend in America and all I hear about are your weekends in Sonoma and Monterey. You haven’t even given me a bird’s-eye view of the bridge.”

  “You two have known each other since medical school, right?” Shanti asked.

  “I met Neel even before I met Oona. I knew him when all he did was study and chew gum.”

  “That’s all he did?” Shanti raised her eyebrows.

  “That’s all he did that I can talk about.” Sanjay clarified. “Oh, how I remember his chewing, chewing, chewing. I thought he would turn into a cow.”

  “Lies, sheer lies,” Neel denied. “We hung out some, but then he met Oona, and the next thing I knew he was off to the East Coast to ask her hand in marriage. Why her parents gave their permission to this fellow is still beyond me.” He had forgotten how he used to chew gum when he first came to Stanford. He’d been satisfying a craving that began as a boy when his American friend Mark had given him bubble gum one day. Just one stick of gum, just one day when he had lorded it over Ashok, who gazed in amazement at the bubbles coming out of Neel’s mouth. But the memory had followed him all the way over the ocean, only being cancelled out by endless packets of gum.

  “What’s not to like?” Sanjay stood up and patted his chest. “Besides, I countered all their arguments with great intelligence.”

  “Darling, my parents didn’t give you a hard time,” Oona protested. “Or did they? I wasn’t in the room, remember?”

  “Your father wasn’t too bad. You mother was worried I might take on a few more wives. When I explained that I was a Hindu, not Muslim, she wanted to know if our ch
ildren would grow up worshipping cows.”

  “Did this really happen or are you putting us on?” Shanti wondered.

  “Oona’s parents were concerned that I was a Hindu. Boston Brahmin was one thing, Hindu another. I told them I was born a Hindu, but found too many holes in any faith to be religious. If I were Catholic, I couldn’t believe that the Virgin gave birth. I’m a doctor, after all. And as for the reincarnation that my parents so blindly accept, I die and can return as a dog? Though, of course, it doesn’t make much difference in this dog-eat-dog world…”

  “Sanjay, you are such a, such a…” Shanti struggled to find the right word as the others laughed.

  “Sensitive man?” Sanjay suggested. “True, true. If I wasn’t, I would have started laughing in church during the Easter service I attended with Oona’s family when the preacher talked about Jesus entering Jerusalem on a donkey and I kept thinking, say ass, man, say ass.”

  “Sanjay, darling, that’s enough,” Oona said firmly. “Dinner,” she announced. “And Neel, I put the cashews to the side of the biryani.”

  “Thanks, I appreciate that.”

  “You do carry medication with you, don’t you?” Oona asked.

  “I keep it in the car,” Neel responded.

  “You’re definitely becoming American.” Sanjay slapped Neel on the back. “Most Indians don’t have allergies. Especially to nuts, for God’s sake. But it’s a good thing you have the medication with you. We were at a party where this chap ate just one pistachio and it got so bad he couldn’t even inject himself. Someone else had to do it.”

  “Don’t worry about me. I’m very careful about what I eat.” Neel dismissed their concern. “Your biryani always turns out great, Oona, but I’ve been looking forward to the beef curry.”

  Vegetable biryani was spread out on a platter, slices of green, yellow, purple amidst the fluffy rice, the entire streaked with saffron in an “S” shape, as if Oona had tried to make it in their honor, Leila thought. The table was covered with food—crisp, fried lady fingers, potatoes and beans, shredded carrots, the orange flecked with the black dots of mustard seeds, and in the corner, an assortment of pickles.

  “No meat today, Neel,” Oona said, ushering him to a chair. “I wasn’t sure if Leila was a carnivore and decided on a cruelty-free meal.”

  “I’m sure vegetables don’t like being plucked. And what’s beef if not chewed-up grass?” Neel responded.

  “Vegetables aren’t alive in the same way animals are,” Oona said, not wanting to tackle the other argument. She had never known Neel to be belligerent before.

  “Who says that? A rubber tree bleeds when it’s tapped. Besides, Lee doesn’t mind if we eat meat, do you, Lee.” The question came out as a statement. He knew she would agree.

  “Are you Leila or Lee?” Oona wanted this discussion to end. It wasn’t like Neel to make a fuss. Was he suffering from post-wedding nerves?

  “I’m Leila,” she said automatically. He had never called her Lee before. Leila had looked forward to changing her surname, not the name she had responded to since she was a baby. Neel had shortened his, but that had been his choice.

  He seemed so irritable, aloof, and she was beginning to get angry with him. Then she wondered if he, too, was thinking of the night ahead. She looked at his face, directly across from hers. Was it possible that he was nervous?

  “Please, everyone, eat up. I promise you this rabbit food is very tasty.” Sanjay opened a bottle of wine.

  “I assumed all Indians were vegetarian until I met Sanjay. And when I met Neel, I realized how wrong I was! But I guessed correctly with you, right?” Oona asked Leila.

  “My whole family is,” Leila said. “And so is…” she was going to say Neel’s family when he cut her off.

  “Lee, can you pass me the okra, please?” He pointed to the dark green lady fingers in case she didn’t know their American name. Neel didn’t want her discussing his family. She hardly knew them.

  Neel was addressing her. Lee, Didi, she had accumulated two new names in one evening.

  “Arre, here comes Mr. America with okra,” Sanjay taunted. “And see, he’s even eating with a fork. What’s wrong with the original one?” He lifted his fingers.

  “Nothing, I’m sure,” Neel responded. “I simply prefer a fork.” He cringed at the sight of turmeric-stained fingernails and the odor of curry powder that clung to one’s hand hours after the meal. Forks had been invented for a reason. Like gloves. He always used gloves when peeling garlic and had taught Caroline to do the same.

  “But the food tastes better when you use your fingers. Oona, we are surrounded by Americans. We are the only true Indians here.”

  NEEL SUPPRESSED AN URGE to drop Leila off at the condo and go immediately to Caroline’s. He compensated by having a shower. He hadn’t realized how much he would dislike being coupled with her. She just didn’t fit in. If only, if only…he refused to complete the thought. Yes, he had made his bed. But he didn’t have to lie in it—and he didn’t have to like it. Bits of the evening’s conversation, the look in Shanti’s eyes, came and went through his mind as he washed his body, his hair, even under his fingernails.

  Who would have thought, during their Stanford days, that Sanjay’s relationship would be the one to work out? While Neel did his best to rise up to Savannah’s standards, Sanjay liked to say that he had to slow down for Oona to catch up with him.

  At least Sanjay had encountered some problems with Oona’s parents. But it hadn’t lasted and Sanjay had got what he wanted, while his own quest had been unsuccessful. He was so used to getting what he set his mind on that Savannah’s rejection blindsided him. That was the moment he realized that the number three on his list was not going to be easy to check off. Anyone could go back to India and get married, even a taxi driver. Had his desire for a non-Indian wife started with Mark’s mother, with her short hair and perfumed dresses? Sanjay had reminded Neel of all that tonight, along with the bubble gum.

  LEILA LEFT THINKING it was a most confusing, un-Indian gathering. Back home it was easy to categorize people—rich, poor, modern, old-fashioned, upper or lower class—and then deal with them accordingly. America seemed to have done away with such useful demarcations. This evening, everyone was uniformly courteous (she had never heard so many “thank-you’s” and “please’s”) and Oona, especially, was kind. Even Sanjay had grown progressively more American as the hours wore on. He was consistently polite like an American, even though he joked like an Indian, using “Arre” instead of “Hey,” and the combination was disconcerting.

  She had wanted more than anything to shine and make Neel proud. She had envisioned making witty comments and being so intelligent that everyone would think Neel was lucky to be married to her.

  Curled into the side of the bed, Leila smelled the perfume she had sprayed on with such hope. This was supposed to have been a wonderful dinner at which she sparkled, followed by a romantic drive home and then their coming together in the bedroom. But Neel had not said a word the whole way back in the car. This was worse than the first night in Ooty. What was he thinking?

  She felt confused and hurt. Had he forgotten about tonight or did he just not want her? Should she remind him or would he think her ill-raised? If only she had the courage to touch him, to cover his face with kisses. But she was intimidated by his silence and her ignorance. This marriage, and Neel, were perplexing. All along, she had assumed the difficult part was capturing a husband. Her friends had made the transition seem as natural as motherhood, but she was discovering that being a wife wasn’t as simple as learning to open a milk carton. If she made a mistake, she still managed to pour the milk.

  Amma’s voice reverberated in her head. “Leila, it must to be your fault. It must to be because you have stopped fasting. You must keep the fast. Not for a good husband. That I have given you. But to be a good wife.”

  Amma was right. It must be her fault. For years men had rejected her and now it was happening again.


  Unbidden, she saw again the photo of the blond girl, the different hues of the love letters. Maybe Neel wanted a more American wife. He had become quite American.

  So could she.

  SANJAY AND OONA HURRIEDLY did the dishes before rushing upstairs to “play God,” as Sanjay put it, “and you, my believing wife, can pray to God that we conceive a healthy child.” As he put the champagne bottle in the recycling bin, Sanjay thought that finally, finally, Neel was finished with Caroline.

  “Did you like Leila?” he asked.

  “Very much. I’d been worried we’d have to entertain that blond bimbo he’s been seeing.”

  “Caroline? No, I never thought he’d marry her, for God’s sake. But I was beginning to wonder when he’d give her up.”

  “Well, she’s out of the picture now. Wonder how she took it.” Oona wasn’t really interested, her mind on the ovulation test she had done that morning.

  “Oh, she’ll probably find another intern or doctor. She only went out with Neel because of his money.”

  “Oh, Sanjay, how can you say that?”

  “I knew she was a gold digger the moment I saw her. You think everyone is like you. But people don’t just come in different colors, you know.” Sanjay held up a champagne flute to check the glass for streak marks. “I never thought Neel would return with a desi wife, but I think Leila will be good for him. He needs someone stable.”

  Oona agreed. Savannah had been so sweet at Stanford, but had changed her mind in Atlanta. Oona and Sanjay had been planning a surprise engagement party when Neel returned alone. “We broke up,” was all he said. No mention of the diamond ring Oona had helped him select, no details of what had happened. After that, Neel didn’t date for a long time. Oona knew he had been badly hurt, but she also knew he had picked the wrong girl. Anyone looking at Savannah could have told him she was waiting for her mirror image: a blond-haired, blue-eyed, trust fund husband. Certainly not an Indian who was working his way to the top.

  Now Oona said, “Neel’s a lovely man, but quite complex and difficult. Do you think Leila will be able to cope?”