Amulya Malladi - The Mango Season

“Anand, we don’t need a fuss now. Lata didn’t say anything,” Ammamma warned, not wanting to witness a fight.

“There is no fuss,” Anand said and stood up as if towering over everyone at the table would make it easier for him.

Nanna, who was sitting next to me, lifted his eyebrows in query. I shook my head. I knew what Anand was about to say, though I wondered if he had the courage to go through with it.

“Ever since Neelima and I got married, you all have been treating her really badly,” he began.

“Badly?” Thatha demanded, his voice thunderous. “What nonsense! You are imagining things.”

“Not nonsense, Nanna,” Anand said, his voice for once confident as it measured up against his indomitable father. “Neelima is my wife, she deserves respect. If as a family you all have decided to ill-treat her-”

“No one is ill-treating her, Anand,” Lata interrupted him. “I was simply telling her to be careful. The first trimester is always a delicate one. I don’t know why she misunderstood what I was saying.”

Neelima started crying softly. It was partly the tension in the room and partly because her hormones were raging. “I am sorry,” she whispered.

“No, I am sorry,” Anand said, sitting down to hold her hand. Such display of emotion between couples was not commonplace in our family and again I felt envy raise its head inside me. They loved each other, they were married, they were going to have a child; I was in love with a man who had the wrong skin color and nationality, I was living in sin with him and I had just lied to him.

“I keep sending her here”-Anand looked at Thatha when he spoke-“so that you will accept her. You will get to know her, see what a wonderful person she is and love her, treat her like a member of the family. But… if you don’t want to do that, she won’t come here… I won’t come here… and neither will our child.”

The line had been drawn. Anand had just crossed over and become a man. I couldn’t have been prouder.

Ammamma was about to say something but stopped when Thatha raised his hand.

“I agree, she is a daughter-in-law of this house and as such she deserves respect,” Thatha said somberly. “But it will take time before we love her. She will never be our choice for your wife, Anand. What is done is done; I can’t change the past or our past behavior. But from now on we will treat her like a member of the family.”

Ammamma looked away and Lata made a small clicking sound. My mother pursed her lips and then shrugged.

“Are we clear?” Thatha repeated, looking at the women of his house.

“Yes,” Ammamma finally said, speaking for everyone.

“Good,” Thatha said, and nodded toward Neelima. “Congratulations on the baby. We can’t wait to hold another grandchild in our arms.”

By now Neelima’s tears were racing down her face with the speed of a heavy waterfall. Anand looked at me and mouthed “Thank you.” I nodded, feeling like a total fraud.

TO: PRIYA RAO ‹PRIYA_RAO@YYYY.COM›

FROM: NICHOLAS COLLINS ‹NICK_COLLINS@XXXX.COM›

SUBJECT: PHONE CALL!

IT WAS WONDERFUL TALKING TO YOU.

I KNOW YOU ARE UNDER A LOT OF PRESSURE AND I WISH I COULD FIND A WAY TO EASE IT. I DON’T UNDERSTAND THE INTRICACIES OF YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR FAMILY AND SOMETIMES THAT MAKES IT HARD FOR ME TO UNDERSTAND WHY YOU DO THE THINGS YOU DO.

BUT I DO UNDERSTAND THAT YOU HAVE TO FOLLOW YOUR INTUITION AND YOUR HEART TO KEEP YOUR FAMILY HAPPY BECAUSE THAT’S HOW YOU CAN BE HAPPY. I REALIZE NOW THAT MAYBE THE DETACHMENT YOU FELT FOR THEM WHEN YOU WERE HERE ISN’T EASY TO FEEL WHEN THEY’RE NEXT TO YOU. HERE YOU COULD SEE YOURSELF TELLING THEM ABOUT ME EASILY BECAUSE I WAS WITH YOU, NOW YOU’RE WITH THEM AND YOU FIND THAT IT’S NOT EASY.

I WON’T LIKE IT BUT I’LL UNDERSTAND IF YOU FIND THAT AT THE END OF THE DAY, YOU CAN’T TELL THEM ABOUT ME. I WON’T LIKE IT AT ALL BECAUSE I WANT YOU WHOLE, NOT DIVIDED AS THE DAUGHTER OR GRANDDAUGHTER AND WIFE AND LOVER.

BUT ULTIMATELY, I’LL TAKE YOU ANY WAY I CAN GET YOU.

TAKE CARE.

NICK

I couldn’t sleep.

Sowmya, Anand, Neelima, and I were spread out on the terrace on straw mats, chappas. I lay my head on a flat cotton pillow and looked up at the stars. For the past half an hour since Sowmya had fallen asleep, I had been staring at Saptarishi and, just my luck, I couldn’t see Arundhati.

Instead, the vultures were circling.

The last time I had slept on this terrace, I had been twenty years old, ready to face the world with the strength of the innocent. I was gearing up to go the United States; I had gotten my F-1 student visa and my bags were packed. I was spending a last weekend at Ammamma’s house before heading over across seven seas to the land of opportunities. I had been so eager to leave, so excited that I had never thought that when I came back everything would be different to me and for me. I had never thought about how it would never be the same again, about how the cliché “you can never really go back home” would stand true.

This was not home anymore. Home was in San Francisco with Nick. Home was Whole Foods grocery store and fast food at KFC. Home was Pier 1 and Wal-Mart. Home was 7-Eleven and Star-bucks. Home was familiar, Hyderabad was a stranger; India was as alien, exasperating, and sometimes exotic to me as it would be to a foreigner.

I heard the gate opening and got up to see who it was. A lanky figure with a backpack stepped into the yard and then under the small yellow light that glowed with a flicker under the carport. He looked up and waved. I had never been happier to see Nate.

“I’m starving,” he said, as soon as I came down. “You guys sleeping upstairs?”

“Yes, and there’s plenty of food in the kitchen,” I said. “Let’s go in from the back door.”

“Good idea, last thing I need is Ma waking up and going, ‘oh my son is home,’ ” he said with a grin.

I hugged him tightly then. He was taller than me now, I realized as he stroked my hair.

“Hey,” he said, and pushed me away after a moment, “I’m a man, this hugging thing is for sissies.”

“Ah,” I said and tweaked his nose with my fingers.

Nate left his sneakers outside the back door before coming inside the house. We turned the light on in the kitchen and Nate flopped down onto the floor.

“What’re you doing back?” I asked, as I picked out a plate from the cabinet for him.

“Got bored,” he said, and then shrugged. “I wanted to be here for the bloodshed. Or has the fat lady already sung?”

“What fat lady?” I demanded, and filled a glass with water from the earthen pot next to the stove. “ Pappu with rice work for you?”

“What kind of pappu?”

“Mango?”

“Sure. Sowmya makes this spinach pappu that’s painful to swallow,” Nate said. “You think you can heat the rice a little? Fridge-cold rice makes my hair in all the strange places stand up.”

I pulled out some rice and pappu for Nate from the fridge. I mixed them both with my fingers and put the mixture in a frying pan to heat.

“This house so needs a microwave,” I said.

“The American-returned daughter brings in some fancy ideas,” Nate said with affected mockery. “So… when’re you going to tell them?”

“I’m not,” I said, not looking at him. “They set up a pelli-chupulu for me.”

“Rice Sarma’s Venkatesh type.”

“You know?”

“Not really. It isn’t like Ma discloses all to me. But in all fairness, the boy-ah, man-is very handsome, has a good, stable job. Don’t know about the smoking and drinking part, though his mother claims he is a gudu-baye,” Nate said.

“A good boy, my ass,” I muttered. “Remember the gudu boy from Chicago?”