Amulya Malladi - The Mango Season

Sowmya took Nanna’s plate and he walked up to the sink by the doorway to the back yard. No one said anything while the water from the tap splashed on his hand and cleaned it.

“And you think that marrying this American is going to make her happy?” Thatha demanded while Nanna dried his hands on the towel hanging on a rusty nail over the sink. In all the years we had all been together, I had never seen or even heard of Thatha and Nanna having a confrontation.

“I think that how she lives her life is her choice and yes, I believe that she will be and actually she is happy with Nicholas,” Nanna said, still standing, keeping his advantage by looking down at Thatha.

Thatha washed his hands in his plate and looked at Ma. “Radha? Is this okay with you?”

Ma sat still for a very long moment and then nodded.

“It is going to only end badly,” Thatha told Nanna. “And when it does,” he pointed a finger at him, “I want you to know that you will be the person with the most blame. You can stop her. Do it now.”

Nanna shook his head. “She is my daughter and this is my choice to make, just like you are making yours. I trust her. I believe her to be a smart and intelligent woman. I think that if she says she is happy with Nicholas, she is telling the truth. Priya is no fool.”

“But you are for letting her do this,” Thatha said agitated, his chest heaving with the rage he was trying to control. This was his family, he was supreme here. How dare anyone go against him.

“In that case, my family and I will take leave of you,” Nanna said politely, so politely that it was insulting in its weight.

Ammamma cried out then. “No, no. Why do you talk like this?” She looked at her husband of fifty-one years with admonishment. “He didn’t mean it, Ashwin.” She tried to assuage my father.

“Then he shouldn’t have said it,” Ma said angrily. In all the years that we had all been together, Thatha had never called Nanna names. This was quite an event and I was solely to blame, or so I felt. Guilt that I had banished just a little while ago came back in big waves rolling me into them and throwing me on the shore of repercussions.

“I shouldn’t have said it,” Thatha said slowly, realizing that he was breaking up his family.

“It is not right but… she is a daughter’s daughter,” Ammamma said, patting Thatha’s shoulder. “And if Radha and Ashwin feel it is okay, who are we to say anything?”

Thatha nodded grudgingly but didn’t look at Nanna or Ma or me. This was the end, I realized. There would be no sneaking away to the pomegranate tree or taking walks with him. There wouldn’t be phone calls on the weekend where he would complain about the Indian politicians and how the corporation he had leased the mango orchards to was treating him.

“I hope that you will one day feel better about this,” I told Thatha. “I’m happy with this man. I thought that would be important to you.”

Thatha shook his head, defeated. He didn’t say anything. He was coming to terms with the fact that he was not master of my father’s house, that when push came to shove, Ma would always stand by her husband and they both would stand by me, regardless of my decision and their consequences.

“And at least,” Ammamma said with a broad shrug, “he is white, not some kallu.”

I froze.

Damn it!

Had I forgotten to mention Nick was black?

TO: PRIYA RAO ‹PRIYA_RAO@YYYY.COM›

FROM: NICHOLAS COLLINS ‹NICK_COLLINS@XXXX.COM›

SUBJECT: SORRY!

I AM SO SORRY FOR BEING OUT OF TOUCH ALL DAY YESTERDAY BUT THINGS HAVE BEEN A TOTAL MESS. I WENT TO LUNCH WITH STEVEN AND SUSAN TO THIS PUB IN THE CITY AND SOMEONE GOT AWAY WITH MY LEATHER BAG AND MY LEATHER JACKET. MY CELL PHONE WAS IN THE JACKET AND MY PALM ALONG WITH MY COMPUTER WAS IN MY BAG… I AM COMPLETELY FUCKED!

I THINK I HAVE SOME OLD STUFF ON YOUR LAPTOP SO ONCE YOU’RE BACK YOU CAN HAVE A LOOK AND LET ME KNOW. FOR NOW, I HAVE LOST ALL MY CONTACTS BUT AT LEAST I HAVE SOME CDS THAT I USED TO BACKUP MY HARD DRIVE TWO MONTHS AGO.

I SPOKE WITH FRANCES AND SHE TOLD ME YOU WERE WORRIED. I’M RIGHT HERE… A LITTLE LIGHT ON HI-TECH TOYS BUT RIGHT HERE.

HOW WAS EVERYTHING? ARE YOUR GRANDFATHER AND FATHER FEELING ANY BETTER?

I CAN’T WAIT FOR YOU TO COME BACK HOME. AND FRANCES TOLD ME THAT YOU AGREED TO GET MARRIED THIS FALL IN MEMPHIS? ARE YOU SURE ABOUT THAT? I THOUGHT YOUR HEART WAS SET ON MONTEREY OR CARMEL, SOMEWHERE BY THE OCEAN. AND SHE SAID THAT YOU WANT TO GET PREGNANT BY THE END OF THE YEAR? I’M ASSUMING THAT A LOT OF THIS IS WISHFUL THINKING ON HER PART, IN ANY CASE, WE’LL TALK ABOUT IT WHEN YOU GET HOME.

OH AND I HOPE YOU HATED THAT GUY THEY TRIED TO HOOK YOU UP WITH.

I LOVE YOU AND I MISS YOU, SO COME HOME SOON

NICK

The avakai arrived with an Indian who was coming to the Bay Area and whose parents Ma and Nanna knew. Raghunath Reddy didn’t seem to mind carrying the midsized glass jar. “One amongst the many,” he told me when he dropped the mango pickle off at my office, which was right next to his. “I have two more jars and one sari to deliver,” he added.

Nick thought the pickle was too spicy but continued to eat it without ghee or rice, which was as close to killing yourself as you could come with the hot-hot pickle.

My experience with India in the summer had left me with a better understanding of Nick and my relationship with him and my family. Nick was pleased that I didn’t end up marrying a nice Indian boy and assured me that he had never thought about leaving me because I couldn’t tell my family about him.

“We come from different cultures, I understand that,” he said. “I was frustrated at times but never enough to not want to be with you. This is who you are; you’d not be you if you didn’t care about your family.”

It was a relief to be back in the U.S. This was familiar territory and I didn’t feel like a cross between a delinquent teenager and a bad daughter anymore. That feeling had passed when Ma, at the Hyderabad International Airport, had waved good-bye with tears in her eyes.

I got an email from Nate with all the family gossip. Thatha was not speaking with Nanna anymore as the last time they talked, which was just a week ago, they ended up talking about me and almost came to blows. Ma was back to normal, bitching and moaning that I didn’t call enough and when I did, she bitched and moaned that I talked too long with Nanna and wasted my money.

“Write long letters, tell everything there, don’t waste money on phone calls,” she said. “Send email, send us a picture of Nick. We still haven’t seen him.”

Lata had ballooned up with her advancing pregnancy and couldn’t wait for the baby to get out. Despite Jayant’s insistence she refused to have an ultrasound done. When I called her, she told me that she thought it was another girl and that she was just fine with that. She even had a name picked out, Nithila, which meant “pearl” in Telugu. If it was a boy, she said, she would go with Abhay, “the one without fear.”

Sowmya was getting married on September 21 and was very sorry that Nick and I couldn’t make it to the wedding. She understood our predicament as our wedding date was set for October 3.

Nanna and Ma were coming and even Nate had decided to make an appearance.

“Your wedding and I won’t be there?” Nate had written in his email. “Are you trying to be funny or something? So, are you going to introduce me to some hot chicks?”

Apparently, Tara, the girl from Delhi Ma would have hated, proved to be unsuitable as she had kissed another boy at a cousin’s wedding in Madras.

“It was just a kiss, she said,” Nate wrote in yet another email where he told me the entire sob story and how much her betrayal had hurt him. “I go for lots of weddings, don’t catch me kissing anyone, just.” But at Nate’s age, relationships come and go with little pain and Tara had already faded into a forgotten yesterday.