Happy Birthday! And Other Stories Part 9

*Yes it is, Preeti. Please eat, Dad,' Rahul says. He pushes the palak towards me and pours dal over the rice on my plate.

Last night, in what was clearly not a private complaint, I overheard Preeti say: *I slave in the kitchen every day to make Indian food, not for us, but for him, because I know he doesn't eat anything else. And yet he pushes the food around in his plate, wasting most of it.'

*Old people eat less, Preeti,' I heard Rahul reason back.

*Yes, they do. But he doesn't eat at all. All my hard work goes to waste.'

I know they're both watching me, so I shove a spoonful of rice and dal into my mouth and swallow, wondering how so much will go down my throat.

After a while Jay's voice chimes in. *Daddy, see. I beat Grandpa again. Ate so much more than him.'

*That doesn't count,' Karan rebuts. *Grandpa has had only one bite. I saw.'

Preeti drops a tablespoon noisily on her plate and leaves the table.

The next morning, after walking Jay and Karan to Campbell Elementary School, I take a further twentyminute walk to Menlo Park Mall where I meet my group of friends. All of us live in Edison, New Jersey, in the US, and spend our weekdays hanging around the seating area outside the department store Macy's.

I met this group by chance. Five years ago, after Karen's death, I found that I had no one to talk to. Rahul worked long hours at his dental clinic in Trenton. Preeti was busy at her market research firm in Manhattan. I spent my days shuffling Jay and Karan to and from their school, but was otherwise alone at home.

One Monday, after dropping Jay and Karan to school, I decided that instead of going home I'd get a cup of coffee at the nearby mall. It had been months since I'd bought anything for myself. As I was coming out of Rainforest Cafe I noticed a group of five elderly Indians sitting outside Macy's. They were playing cards and chatting. It was rare to see Indians my age gathered in a group like this; I was unable to look away. I went back the next day to see if they were there-they were-but I didn't approach them, unsure if I'd be welcome in their group. For three more days I did this, and looking at them made me realize how much I missed having someone to talk to.

I hatched a plan. The next week, after school, I took my grandsons to Cold Stone Creamery. Since the ice cream parlour was conveniently located next to Macy's, I told them to sit on a bench opposite the group. It was Dave Pat-shortened from Devinder Patel-who came up to me and struck up a conversation. *We all noticed you last week. Why don't you join us, yaar?'

So I sat with this group, which called itself the *Mall Rats', and sometimes, as I later found out, *House Rats'. Like me, they were Indian immigrants and lived with their children. Basking in the simple joy of being heard, I started going to the mall every weekday during the children's school time.

The others are already at our usual spot when I reach. Amid the familiar noises of the cash register ringing at H&M and the hairdryer warming up at the unis.e.x salon, there's an occasional baby's cry or the guffaw of a rowdy teenager from the light crowd that potters around.

We're chatting amongst each other when Mrs Patel says, *Ah! Finally, we can have tea. Divya is here.'

I pat my head as if it still has hair on it-a habit from the past.

Each week one person from the group brings tea for everyone. This week it's Mrs Gupta's turn, which causes a minor inconvenience since she comes only by eleven-later than us all-after dropping her granddaughter to kindergarten.

*h.e.l.loji! h.e.l.loji!' she says, hurling three bags on the seat next to me. She's moved here from Nas.h.i.+k only ten months ago. *Sorry I be late. Had to walk all the way to Kish.o.r.e Mart to buy adrak and roads here walk faster than me. Without adrak chai, k.u.marji would not enjoy, no?'

She smiles at me through her dentures. A line of sweat has gathered above her upper lip, probably from the hot sun outside. She isn't wearing an ounce of makeup, and her thin mouth looks pale, her light brown eyes vulnerable. The only hint of colour on her is her patchily dyed grey-black hair, knotted at the nape of her neck.

I clear my throat before replying, *I always enjoy your tea, Mrs Gupta.'

*Arre, call me Divya, ji.'

*Yes, Mrs Gupta.'

Everyone smiles.

We take out our Styrofoam cups as Mrs Gupta rummages through her bags and pulls out two thermos flasks.

*This is one with sugar,' she says, handing me a flask. *And this without sugar, Patelji.' She gives the second flask to Dave.

Dave takes a long sip of the steaming tea and says, *Divya, your tea reminds me of my mother's. She used to make the best tea in the world.' His baritone voice emphasizes the words *best' and *mother'.

His wife, Mrs Patel, looks up from her knitting. Her sari, draped a little short around her portly frame, edges higher, and it is only thanks to the long cotton socks she wears-out of modesty, I conclude-that the skin on her legs remains hidden from view. She says, *His diabetes has gone to his head. He never compliments anyone without mentioning his mother first.'

Dave retorts, *Another spontaneous combustion,' and we all laugh. They're the only couple left among us and their outbursts remind us of our own spouses, dead and gone.

*Is that smell of curry coming from your bag, Divya?' Raj Sharma simpers. He tightens the brown m.u.f.fler around his spindly neck and zips up his black woollen jacket, even though the mall's air conditioner is set to high today.

I sniff the air too and catch a familiar smell that I'm unable to place.

*These are just smell of readymade curry I buy earlier for my son,' Mrs Gupta says, s.h.i.+fting in her seat, giving me a sidelong glance. That's when I realize that Mrs Gupta's big bag contains our little secret. I smile at her conspiratorially.

Two days ago, in an excited voice, Mrs Gupta had told me that she would be making a special lunch for me today. She'd added, *Please not to tell others. It will be difficult no, to make lunch for so much people?' I guess that Mrs Gupta wants to spend time alone with me-as I do with her-but is probably afraid that our group will gossip, not realizing that friends.h.i.+p is deliberate and measured at our age: its interferences and judgements only fool the young.

*s.h.i.+ney used to love curry, especially shrimp curry,' says Dave quietly, adjusting the cus.h.i.+on he is sitting on. On his right is a Victorian walking stick with a gilded spire, a gift from the Mall Rats for his rheumatoid arthritis.

Last month, a former group member-s.h.i.+ney-whom I'd never met, succ.u.mbed to a stroke. He was Dave's neighbour and for fifteen years did nothing but look after his grandchildren. Once they grew up, he was told to move out; his son wanted *s.p.a.ce'. An old-age home, which we a.s.sociated with a sterilized walk to the guillotine, was not an option, so s.h.i.+ney rented a small studio apartment and lived there alone. He slept there alone and he ate there alone. Soon he stopped talking and came to the mall irregularly; then his visits ceased completely.

Still, as they all shut their eyes and mutter a little prayer for s.h.i.+ney, I feel nothing. Death has become so predictable that I have neither the youthful reverence of it nor the middle-age fear.

Though my eyes are too jaded to perform, I notice Raj's eyes fill up. He unlocks a Ziploc bag containing pink, white and brown tablets. After watching his wife die slowly from cancer, Raj treats his body with dizzying alertness, like a first-time parent with his newborn.

Death does this to people: it makes cowards, preachers and mourners of the living; makes the dead-ign.o.ble or not-objects of respect for what they achieve before the rest of us.

Dave, his breath heavy, says, *I told s.h.i.+ney: "Even in Rome, do as the Americans do." Develop interests aside from your children. Look at Steve and Karen, my American neighbours. They didn't revolve their life and money around their children. Now in their old age, they are living in style, riding their Harley on Monday afternoons. I wish s.h.i.+ney had listened. I know it wasn't the stroke that killed him; it was the silence.'

Dave's eyes become wet. Mrs Patel wipes his fogged gla.s.ses and puts them back on him.

We're all startled by a flash. We turn around to see four teenagers. One of them has a cellphone with which he's taken a photo of us.

*Don't stare. It will only encourage them,' Mrs Patel hisses to Mrs Gupta. She has a point. Sitting in the mall day after day, like mannequins on public display, we have become objects of ridicule, especially in the easy black-or-white judgement of the young. We have to stay as invisible here as we do in our homes.

Mrs Gupta keeps staring at them. It's difficult-I know-for her to let go of her Indian ways. We'd been alone once-when everyone else had left early-and she'd cried to me about the silence in her life. With little respect and no rights, her life in India as a widow had become difficult, so she quickly accepted her son's invitation to move to the US. *Here no one is home, no one come home. My ear it want to hear knock of neighbour or sabziwallah. I want to gossip nicely with my friend. But I am completely alone whole of day,' she had said softly.

I feel for Mrs Gupta, I really do. It is not easy being part of the immigrant story, and filling the empty s.p.a.ce of shapes that used to be there.

When I first landed in the US, fifty years ago, I'd skittishly hailed a taxi to the Illinois University campus, a ride that would cost my family half our monthly income. Outside the dorm, I pulled out my bags hurriedly, hoping the meter wasn't still running, and, as the taxi exited the driveway, realized that I'd left a bag behind. There was only one thing to do: lodge a complaint with the campus police.

*I put my bags in the d.i.c.ky and left one of them in there,' I said to them, my voice high-pitched and vowels truncated-my first conversation with white people.

*You left one of your bags in the what, sir?'

*In the d.i.c.ky.'

*In the what, sir?'

*In the back of the taxi, sir. Where you put your bags,' I said resolutely, not believing their idiocy.

*You mean to say that you left a bag in the trunk of the cab, sir?'

*No, no. Not a trunk. It was only a bag.'

I saw the two policemen exchange a look. I was making a fool of myself.

After that morning was finally over, my mortification was still bristling on my skin. I opened my controversial bag. The first thing I saw was the lemon and chilli thread my mother had made to protect me from evil. I hurled it out of my dorm window. It was the first step towards my reinvention. I learned then to speak English-not the English I'd learned with pride in my village-but American English: *elevator' not *lift' and *peppers' not *capsic.u.m'. After watching scores of Hollywood movies, attending American parties and dating American girls, I developed that coveted nasal tw.a.n.g. I ate beef burgers and steaks, and I wore jeans and T-s.h.i.+rts. My Indian clothes were slowly discarded, along with the invitations to the Indian chess club and Friday's Indian buffet at Maharaj restaurant. After a few years, I married a lovely American woman, who loved me more than I deserved, and raised our son as an American.

I became obsessed with wringing the best out of America. Each moment had to be lived perfectly, without mistakes: reaching the office on time, presenting my boss with a thoughtful Christmas gift, putting my son in a private school, not nicking my chin while shaving, becoming Vice-President of Operations at Delta and kissing my wife goodnight.

Life kept pus.h.i.+ng forward like a line of tumbling dominoes and I became afraid-afraid that if I paused to look back, I'd stumble, and my past would fall upon me in a heap, suffocating me.

A heavy-handed pragmatism set into my life. I labelled everything in two categories: convenient or inconvenient. If I longed for my mother's embrace or was. .h.i.t by a wave of nostalgia for the smells of my village, the emotion was treated as excessive, ignored as inconvenient. My wife and son pecked on the fragments of emotions I could afford-a spontaneous picnic at Hunter Mountain or a surprise trip to Disneyland.

Thirty-eight years pa.s.sed like this, with me *finding no time' to go back to India or meet my parents. And then-as happens-my parents died.

The sense of loss I felt was so immense that I didn't even know how to slot it into my life.

After all, my father had been the source of my ambition, and without him, I felt adrift, like a s.h.i.+p that sets sail for the world, only to find that it has nowhere to dock.

I stopped being the first person to arrive in the office every morning. I turned down the promotion to President of Operations. I sold my stock options and gave the money to Oxfam. When Karen made my favourite American dish-lamb roast-I asked for dal makhani, but couldn't eat it. I would not go out for a movie or for a coffee unless Karen came with me. I insisted that Rahul spend every holiday, even New Year's Eve with me.

Two years pa.s.sed. I lost twelve kilos.

Karen grew concerned. She consulted doctors and psychiatrists on my behalf. She crammed our kitchen shelves with Indian recipe books and spices. I overheard her tell Rahul, *He looks lost, unhappy. I've never seen him like this.'

When Rahul married an Indian girl raised in the US like him, I suggested that we live together as a joint family. When Preeti said no, I sold our home in Long Island and bought a three-bedroom apartment on Oak Avenue in Metuchen, which was closer to Preeti's and Rahul's workplaces. I opened a joint bank account in all our names, where I pooled my savings, luring the struggling newlyweds with the *money-for-all' hook. When Preeti quit her job to take care of her newborn, I pitched Karen and my services as babysitters, which, if we lived together, would allow Preeti to start working again. I promised to gift Rahul my last treasure-an Audi A6-which he could drive to work.

*You can't buy love, Sunny,' Karen said to me gently.

But I had to speak in the language I'd taught my child. Ambition. He was ambitious for my love. He was ambitious for my generosity. So I used both.

Three years later, when I retired, we all finally moved in together. For Rahul and Preeti it was a pragmatic short-term decision to live rent-free for a couple of years and grow their savings.

Karen warned me, *This may not turn out as you expect.'

*I can tolerate anything as long as I'm with family,' I replied determinedly.

The first year of retirement, which is tough for most, was pleasant for me. Karen pampered the grandchildren and me; and Preeti and Rahul were affable and appreciative. It was only after Karen pa.s.sed away from a heart attack two years later, and our living situation became a permanent possibility, that all our att.i.tudes s.h.i.+fted.

Preeti became resentful. She bristled when we crossed in the corridor and her face carried a look of bitter perseverance when I was around.

Rahul took no one's side, adopting an oblique approach, as would any man walking the tightrope between his wife and father. Still, he honoured his promise to his beloved dead mother, to look after me. He was a better absentee son to me than I'd been an absentee father to him.

Meanwhile, I was gripped with a fear of living and dying without family, as my parents had. After all, Jay and Karan were growing up fast, already ten and seven years old, and Rahul's dental practice was flouris.h.i.+ng: he'd soon be able to afford his own house. I couldn't give them any cause for grievances.

So I let Karan push more and more for the lion's portion of the queen bed we shared. I took Jay and Karan to school, swimming lessons and soccer practice; made them grilled cheese sandwiches and pasta when their mother wasn't home; nursed them through their falls and fevers. I babysat them when Preeti and Rahul went for dinner and the movies on Sat.u.r.day night.

I did all the things I hadn't had time to do for my own son.

I lived like an uninvited guest in my own home, relegating myself to the background, coming out of my room only at mealtimes, showering after everyone else. On weekends I went for long walks alone, giving their family *family time'. I took no offence when Rahul didn't inform me that he was buying a new couch for the house and a bigger clinic.

I watched Rahul's daily failures, quietly, as he had once watched mine. I saw him make the same mistakes with his sons as I had made with him-already isolating them with his ambition.

Remember, son, every man ends in his own family, was all I said to Rahul.

The tea in my cup has gone cold.

The mall is bustling now with scurrying office goers, more teenagers and bored housewives. There's a sticky smell of food and the hurried clang of utensils coming from the food court a floor above us. It must be lunchtime.

Mrs Gupta rubs her nose and says, *I'm going to the toilet.'

Mrs Patel corrects her, *Divya, you must say, "I'm going to the ladies room, please excuse me."'

*Yes. Please excuse,' says Mrs Gupta. She looks at me and I remember her instructions two days ago to follow her after ten minutes to the food court. I watch her as she tentatively steps onto the escalator; her bags cover half the stair and she covers the other half.

I smile at the thought of being alone with her.

The owner of the jewellery kiosk in front of us packs away her wares and locks them up. I wave to her. She gives me a stiff smile. I've never bought anything from her.

Seeing her pack up is a cue for everyone else to go home for lunch: being frugal, we never eat at the mall. My house is a forty-minute walk from the mall so I skip lunch altogether.

After the group leaves, I go to the food court.

Mrs Gupta is sitting on the edge of a chair, opening a steel tiffin carrier stacked with four boxes-a contraption I haven't seen in half a century. People carrying food trays choose to sit away from her table.

*Thank you, Mrs Gupta. You really didn't have to do all this,' I say as I approach her.

*Please, no formal,' she says. Her face is flushed; this is only the second time that we're alone. She adds, *I didn't got chance to say thank you. You so very kindly listen to me last time. It is difficult, no, to talk openly in front of so much people?'

She takes out the boxes one by one.

*This is food from your region in India. You from Charuri village, no, in Himachal? I have friend of friend's sister, from s.h.i.+mla, who give me recipe on phone.'

She opens a box containing madra, yogurt-doused kidney beans.

*I hope this reminding you of your Mummyji's cooking. Maybe, if I am so lucky, your wifeji's cooking. Never I see you eat, so I think this dishes make you feel good hunger.'

This time I identify the sweet-and-sour smell before she opens the next box. It used to be my favourite dish, kaale chane ka khatta; my Biji slow-cooked it every Sunday especially for me, laughing as I hovered around the stove, impatient for it to be ready.

Mrs Gupta then takes out the dessert box that holds mitha, sweet rice mixed with raisins, pistachios and saffron. The smell and sight of this food transfixes me, taking me slowly back to my past, to my village in Kangra, above my two-hectare farmland, to my mud hut where my Baba is watching me bent over a kerosene lamp, solving a math problem.

*It took much time. Each dish have twenty spices, but I think it taste okay,' Mrs Gupta is saying.

There is a rumble of sounds in the food court, yet one by one each sound becomes distinct. A baby cries in the distance. Someone orders a chicken burrito. A cash register clangs.