Amulya Malladi - The Mango Season

Sowmya just smiled. “Now we will have a family Mahabharatam.”

I leaned against the cement base of the tulasi plant, not too keen on going back inside. The tension was flowing out of the house in small waves slowly coming together to form a tornado. I plucked a tulasi leaf and put it inside my mouth to stop tasting the rising bile of fear.

“They’re going to kick me out or they’re going to tie me up and marry me to this Adarsh fellow,” I said. “What if they don’t want to ever see me again?” I asked, my eyes filling yet again. “Will they just let me go?”

Sowmya took her hand in mine. “No,” she said. “No one will let you go. They will be angry with you for a while but they will come around.”

Lata came outside and asked if everything was okay.

“She is scared,” Sowmya said sympathetically.

“So she should be,” Lata said. “Once your mother gets over the shock, she is going to beat you within an inch of your life.”

I sighed.

“And your Thatha is… Well, he is going to watch,” Lata continued with a grin. “At least it is done. Now you can let what has to happen, happen.”

“Let’s go inside,” Sowmya suggested. “Otherwise they’ll think that you ran away.”

Running away sounded like a real good idea, right about now.

Everyone was sitting in the living room when we came back in. There was still no sign of Nanna. He never just left without telling anyone where he was going, no matter how upset he was or how big the fight he’d had with Ma. This was unusual but then it wasn’t every day his favorite daughter not only broke his dreams but walked all over them with pointed shoes as well. Even though this was my life and I knew in my head that I had to live it the way I wanted to, I couldn’t shrug the guilt away. It was there, rock solid, without give. And there was another form of guilt, the guilt for feeling guilty in the first place. Nick was part of my life, the man who had accepted all my flaws and I was feeling guilty about loving him, living with him. I was wishing, in a small corner of my mind, that he didn’t exist in my life so that I could marry Adarsh or some other sap like him and not have this conflict with my parents.

“So we’ll tell the Sarmas that you are saying yes, right?” Ma was agitated and her face was flushed, her tone flustered. She was scared, I realized, afraid that I had actually meant what I said about an American boyfriend. My heart went out to her. Like Sowmya, she was trying her best to make Nick go away.

“No, Ma, we can’t,” I said, and sat down beside her.

She slapped me across the face and tears streaked down her cheeks. “How could you, Priya? We taught you well… we raised you right and… How could you, Priya?”

I buried my face in my hands. This was just as bad as I had thought it would be. I stemmed my tears by pressing my eyes with my hands.

“I’m sorry,” I said to Ma, facing her with clear eyes. “I didn’t plan to fall in love with Nick, it just happened. And I can’t just marry someone else. I don’t want to marry anyone but Nick.”

“Then you should have said something earlier,” Jayant said, looking just as agitated now as Ma. “What will we tell the Sarmas? You have put us all in an embarrassing situation.”

I wanted to remind them all that they had forced the pelli-chupulu on me, that I was not to blame for that, but I couldn’t because a part of me blamed myself. I knew that if I had told them about Nick earlier, they would’ve put a stop to it. Even if Ma and Thatha wouldn’t, I knew my father definitely would have.

“You have shamed us,” Ammamma added her two cents. “An American? At least Anand married an Indian… but you have just ruined our good name. It is not too late, Priya. Forget this American, Nicku-Bicku, and marry that Sarma boy. Good boys like him don’t come around all the time.”

I waited for Thatha to say something but he was not saying a word. He was sitting as rigidly as he had before, looking into space. I wished he would say something, anything. The two people who I had been most afraid of hurting were hurt and they were the two who were saying the least; in fact, they had said nothing.

“When are you planning to marry this Nicku person?” Ma asked.

“Sometime this year,” I said. “I know you don’t approve-”

“Approve?” Ma charged at me. “You don’t care if we approve. You don’t care if our names are dragged through the mud. You are a selfish girl, Priya, only caring about yourself. We should never have let you go to America without marriage. Your father and I were too soft and you have taken advantage of us.”

It was not like that hadn’t crossed my mind and because it had, guilt, which was already lying heavily on me, increased in weight.

Several of my classmates from engineering school in India had married “boys” in the United States, while I and a few others had not. Our parents had not insisted that marriage be a criterion for leaving their home. They could have made it an issue but they hadn’t. They had trusted me to take care of myself, to not fall in love with some foreigner, and I had betrayed their trust. That was what Ma had said when she had talked about Anand marrying Neelima, “What can we do when someone takes your trust and throws it away?” And I had done exactly that.

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” I cried out. “Ma, these things happen. I’m sorry that you don’t approve, that you feel I’ve betrayed you, but this is my life and I have to live my life, you can’t live it for me. I have to be happy and I can’t let you be happy for me. And for me to be happy, I need to marry Nick. It’s that simple.”

“Nothing is that simple,” Thatha finally spoke. “You think your marriage to a foreigner is going to be all roses?”

I shook my head. “All relationships have problems. That’s a fact of life.”

“But this relationship will have more problems than most,” Thatha said assuredly. “You obviously will not have any support from your family. I don’t know about his family but I am sure they are not completely happy about this. How can they be?”

“But they are, Thatha,” I said. “They are. Nick’s family loves me. They accept me and don’t notice that I’m Indian.”

“Then they are being dishonest,” Thatha said confidently. He couldn’t fathom that a world existed where people didn’t notice skin color and differentiate on its basis.

“They will never accept you completely,” Thatha declared. “And what will you be left with then? A marriage to a man who your family, your world, doesn’t accept and his family accepts you, but reluctantly. I promise you that if you get married to this American, your marriage will end in divorce.”

I was shocked at his cruelty. It was cruel to tell me that my impending marriage had no chance of survival. It was cruel to tell me that he would abandon me if I married Nick. It was cruel and unkind and he hit all the marks he wanted to strike with his words.

“Then it will be a risk I must take,” I said bravely and got up. “Do you want me to leave your house now?”

“Priya!” Ma exclaimed.

Thatha shook his head. “No. You are still my granddaughter.”

I nodded.

“It will never work, Priya. You cannot make mango pickle with tomatoes,” he warned. “You cannot mesh two cultures without making a mess of it. I say this because I love you. Forget about this American. They are not our people. They will never understand us. Marry Adarsh. He is a good boy and it will make your family happy.”

I shook my head.

“No, no…” Thatha said with a tight smile. “Don’t make any rash decisions. Take your time to think about it. We don’t have to say anything to Sarma-garu until tomorrow afternoon.”