American as Paneer Pie Read online

  They weren’t really rodent doo-doos. They just looked like them. And probably had a similar sulfuric stink. They were chewable ayurvedic herb tablets that helped you digest your food and cured stomachaches. “Delicious digestives,” as their commercial jingle went. We had run out of ours in summer and hadn’t had a chance to go to the Indian store in Detroit to restock our supply before Diwali at the temple. They had a strong, farty odor, yet strangely tasted delicious, but they were definitely not something you’d eat with your friends because, well, who wants to smell like farts? But I felt comfortable with Avantika, and figured if we both ate them, it wouldn’t matter who “smelt it.”

  With our meal finished, Avantika and I said good night to her parents and headed up to her room. My plaid, blue, flame-retardant-free, organic-cotton sleeping bag, purchased by Aai (of course) after months of searching, was already laid out on the floor, smooth and crisp. She had taken forever finding a sleeping bag that was free of toxins a few years back. I was so annoyed, thinking of all the sleepovers I was missing out on while she wasted time reading blog after blog about what could harm your sleeping child. But in the end, it came, and the only people who even got to use it were my little cousins from California, who took turns sleeping in it when they came to visit.

  I reached into the sleeping bag’s zippered pocket and pulled out my last Halloween candy bar. I made sure to hand it over before my hand heat-ray destroyed it.

  “What’s that?” Avantika asked.

  “A little bit of Halloween, since you missed out on it.”

  Avantika smiled, eating her chocolate bar as I flipped through some Archie Double Digests, the comics all my cousins in India had. I had some of my parents’ Archies from when they were kids back home in my bookcase. So much of what was in Avantika’s house reminded me of my house.

  When I brushed my teeth, I saw the familiar yellow cylindrical container of Vicco Tooth Powder, the dark brown herb powder that Aai would have me put on my teeth every now and then with my finger to strengthen my gums and teeth. Next to it was a little jar of sea salt just like the one we kept in our bathroom drawer. I rubbed it on my gums at home once a month, and after rinsing it out, always hoped to find a little grain of salt left to suck on. And in front of the salt was this ayurvedic eye medicine for when your eyes felt tired. If anyone else saw it, they’d think I was joking when I said you took the medicine, which looked like honey, and rubbed it on your lower eyelid, right where your lashes were, and then it burned like fire and you cried and could finally wash it out. Everything was familiar, even if it wasn’t the exact same. Instead of a framed, painted image of Ganpati on her walls like I had, she had a wooden Ganpati statue on her desk, next to her computer. Instead of Aamir Khan posters, she had Shah Rukh Khan posters.

  I looked out Avantika’s blinds at the houses down the street, and I couldn’t help but wonder what Noah was up to tonight. It felt strange being at a sleepover on our street and not hanging out with him, but he had made his sleepover-less bed. Now he had to lie in it.

  “So … I Googled sleepovers before you came,” said Avantika, sitting awkwardly at her desk. “And we’re supposed to watch movies … and do each other’s hair?”

  I laughed, flipping through all of Avantika’s beautiful Indian clothes hanging in her closet. “You Googled it?”

  Avantika fiddled with her computer screen. “Well, I’ve never hosted an American sleepover before.”

  “I’m sure it’s not that different from a sleepover in India,” I said, acting like a sleepover pro. “But let’s skip the doing each other’s hair thing. My hair’s not like yours. I actually have to put it in a bunch of braids each night or I wake up with a giant knot. And on the weekends I have to put coconut oil in the braids overnight before I wash it, or it gets all dried out.”

  Avantika turned toward me. “You can do that here. I don’t mind. I oil my hair every night.”

  I shook my head, my heavy bun swinging so hard, it weighed my neck down.

  “Why? You can only have that one hairstyle in public?”

  “If I don’t want to get called Dot at school, yes,” I replied, pulling the bobby pin out and swiping my frizzy curls off my forehead so my nosy neighbor could see the freckle above my eyebrows in the dead center of my forehead.

  “Wow. So lucky!”

  “Lucky?”

  “You have a natural bindi. A birthmark? It’s good luck.”

  “Not in Oakridge.”

  “Why do you cover up everything that makes you you? So what if people know you like samosas or Bollywood? Or if they know you’re Indian?”

  “I’m American,” I said, quickly pinning my hair back in place. “Anyway, you don’t know what it’s like growing up here. Feeling different.”

  Avantika shrugged, removing her seashell clip so her silky hair fell like rippling ocean waves by her face. “I’m pretty different and I don’t feel embarrassed. I heard someone laughing in math about my hair clip, but I don’t care. It reminds me of the sea. It reminds me of home. So who cares?”

  “I would. I can’t even handle looks from Indian people at the temple when I’m in some hideous old outfit,” I responded, thinking about how confident Avantika was compared to me.

  “Your salwar-kurta was beautiful. Now how about we start the movie? It’s really full of hideous old outfits, but I think you’re going to like it anyway, Manju.” She smiled, turning the large monitor on her desk so it faced her bed.

  Aai would never let me have a computer in my room. She was worried about radiation. I was the only kid who had to keep my tablet on my desk instead of on my lap at school, like a baby being protected from everything. And I was one of the handful who didn’t have a cell phone. I supposed it was for the best, given how many times Aai lectured Dad when she caught him coming home from work with his cell phone in his pocket instead of in his work bag.

  I got into my sleeping bag and Avantika got under her covers as ChaalBaaz began to play on the screen, and we watched Sridevi dance in her peak 1989 fashion. I happily munched on the microwaved popcorn Avantika’s dad had made us, enjoying the nuked kernels. Aai only let us eat popcorn made in a giant pot on the stove in slow motion, using our microwave as a giant clock instead of something to cook with.

  We cracked up at Manju’s, the rebellious twin’s, antics. We rolled our eyes at Anju, the scaredy-cat twin. And we cheered when they switched places and totally confused their friends and family members.

  “I think you need to find your inner Manju,” said Avantika from the bed, putting face cream on as she watched Manju beat up the bad guys. “Want some?” She tossed me the tube.

  “This is Fair & Dainty,” I said, looking at the light-skinned model on the tube. There was no way I was going to use it. “It bleaches your skin. Doesn’t it burn? I remember my aunt made me use it once in India, and my whole face turned red and it burned. And then Aai found out and they got into a huge fight and didn’t speak for the rest of our trip.”

  Avantika looked down. “My mom wants me to use it. We both use it every night.”

  “Why?” I asked, even though I knew the answer. So many Indians were obsessed with light skin. They thought you were beautiful only if you were fair. Like it made you a better person or something. My aunt got the cream for me because she thought she was helping me, since I was the darkest person in my family. And the last time I was in an Indian store in Detroit, I was shocked to see tons more skin-lightening creams from American companies there, too, which they would never sell at an American store.

  “You don’t know what it’s like, feeling different because of the color of your skin.”

  Was she serious? Did she have any clue just how white Oakridge was? And how not white I was? And wasn’t she supposed to be the confident one out of the two of us?

  “There are ads all the time in India about being fair. In the paper. On TV. It’s the first thing my relatives comment on when they see me after a long time.”

  “I’ve seen the a
ds. And they are so unbelievable, they’re hilarious. Have you seen the one where the girl wants to break barriers and become a cricket announcer? But she’s dark so she doesn’t get the job? And then she puts the cream on and lightens up and suddenly they want her on TV?”

  Avantika nodded.

  “That one was playing in every commercial break the last time I was in India.”

  “It’s not just Fair & Dainty. There’s also Fair & Macho. It’s for men.”

  I laughed, trying to force a popcorn kernel out from between my back teeth with my tongue. “Come on. You have to hear how funny this all sounds.”

  Avantika smiled. “There was a light bulb ad once where a girl kept getting passed on for arranged marriages because the grooms’ families thought she was dark. But then they got the new light bulbs and everything was bright and she was actually fair skinned under that light, and a family seeing her immediately said yes.”

  “Okay. So then you have to toss that cream. Save yourself some burning face.”

  Avantika hesitantly took the tube from me.

  “Come on. Chuck it.”

  Avantika went over to the trash can under her computer and tossed the tube in. But before I could even give her a “yay,” she quickly fished it out.

  “I’ll just keep it in a drawer. In case my mom wants it back.”

  I nodded as Avantika turned the volume louder on the screen and we watched the twins work together to save the day. I snuck a glance over at Avantika, who was absentmindedly rubbing at her cheeks, which were most probably stinging from the racist cream. I guessed I wasn’t the only one who needed an inner Manju.

  chapter FIFTEEN

  Thanksgiving at Maya’s house was chaotic. But we were used to it. Since most of the people we knew in Detroit had family in other states and India, Desi Thanksgiving usually meant dinner with family friends. Tons of family friends. With a dozen families crammed into Maya’s home, there was lots of noise, but lots of fun, too.

  I sat at a small folding table in the sprawling walk-out basement with Maya and Tanvi, pulling my legs out of the way whenever a little kid went running by, zipping around the tables that separated people by age. The parents were in the middle, at the tables lining the wooden dance floor. Tiny kids and teenagers had their own areas. And there was one round table where Maya’s grandparents, a bunch of their friends, and a couple of frail old grandmothers visiting from India sat.

  We feasted on the traditional Thanksgiving meal of aamti, bhaat, poli, and lots of bhajis for the grown-ups, and salad, garlic bread, and vegetable lasagna stuffed with kidney beans for the kids. The only thing close to what Noah ate on Thanksgiving was the organic cranberries in a large bowl near the Indian food. I had heaped them on my plate, but they didn’t go with my food. It was Aai’s cranberry lonche, made by pickling the sliced cranberries with oil and mango pickle spices.

  I guess we really were American-Born Confused Desis.

  While Hindi music played over the speakers behind me, I looked at the huge framed pictures of Maya and her brother on the walls. The one closest to us was a picture of Maya doing raas at a national folk-dance competition in New York. She was an awesome dancer and could even do a twelve-step version of the raas. I finished my last bite of lasagna, thinking how Noah would have loved learning that raas from Maya.

  “When are we playing charades?” asked Tanvi, swatting her hands together to get the garlic bread crumbs off.

  “My brother is writing clues down,” answered Maya. She stopped picking at her lasagna to gesture toward the back of the basement, where the teenagers were giggling as they scribbled down embarrassing things for us to act out on little slips of paper.

  Maya’s ajoba passed us as he went to throw his plate in the trash. Maya wasn’t exactly like me. Her parents were born here.

  “Enjoying Thanksgiving?” he asked, his gray eyes getting more and more creases around them as he gave us a small smile.

  “Yeah, Ajoba,” I answered. I was always a little jealous of Maya for still having her grandfather, since both of mine had died before I even got to meet them. Maya’s ajoba had immigrated to Missouri years ago for grad school before moving here to work at Ford, like lots of older Desis in Detroit.

  “Lucky kids,” he said, sitting next to us. “You know, when I first came here in 1967, I arrived on Thanksgiving, with just a suitcase, on my college campus. I didn’t even have a place to stay.”

  I thought of Avantika. I wondered what her first day in Oakridge was like, before we met Halloween night, as Maya’s grandfather continued.

  “So, I knocked on the first door I saw. You know what the man said to me?”

  “We know, Ajoba,” said Maya. “No Indians … ,” she started, and then looked down.

  “No Indians, no Chinese, no dogs,” Maya’s grandfather finished. “And he slammed the door in my face.”

  I scratched my plastic fork against my paper plate, uncomfortably drawing lines into it as he continued. This must have been how Noah felt whenever I made a comment about skin color.

  “I’ll never forget that Thanksgiving. It was one of the hardest days of my life. I wanted to give up everything I had worked for. I wanted to forget about getting a PhD. I wanted to go home. But then, with each Thanksgiving that came, I got to see our families grow. And I got to see all of you. And I’m so glad I stayed and didn’t give up. Because now this is home.” He laughed. “When I go to India, it’s so hot and uncomfortable for me now.”

  Maya grinned as fast Bollywood music began to play from the built-in speakers above us. “Yeah. We remember. You went from complaining about how the cold made your knees hurt here to complaining about the sun the last time we were in India. I’m pretty sure you complained the whole trip.”

  “Well, where do you think you get your complaining genes from?” Maya’s grandfather pointed to the kidney beans she had picked out of the lasagna. “Let me guess, too dry? Too brown?”

  “Too rajma,” Maya replied, using the Hindi word for kidney beans.

  Maya, her ajoba, and Tanvi all laughed. I smiled but was unable to shake the sad feeling I was getting after Ajoba’s story. I couldn’t help but wonder what Noah or Avantika would have said if they had been here to hear it. Actually, I knew what Noah would have said. He would have said it was a racist injustice and Ajoba should have written letters to the newspaper about it or tipped off a reporter so they’d cover the story.

  Ajoba patted us all on the head and headed to the dessert table, which was covered with all sorts of pies and a casserole dish full of gaajar halwa, shredded carrots cooked in milk, sugar, and spices.

  “Ooh, my song is on!” exclaimed Maya, pointing to the speaker. “Come on, I’ll teach you my dance,” she said.

  “It’s easy. She taught me right before you got here,” added Tanvi, grabbing our plates and tossing them in the trash.

  “Your dance for what?” I asked, standing up, dreading having to clumsily dance next to Maya and Tanvi for everyone to see.

  “For their IASA show. It was yesterday,” added Tanvi. “You’re so lucky, Maya. Our middle school only has, like, forty Indian kids, so no IASA.”

  “What’s an IASA?” I asked, following my friends around the tables full of people.

  “Indian American Student Association,” Maya replied, twisting her hand high above her as she began to gracefully shake her hips to the beat. “We just have thirty Indian kids in sixth grade, but there are about a hundred twenty in our IASA, with seventh and eighth grades and all the non-Desi kids, too.”

  I stopped just shy of the wooden floor, digging my socks into the thick, fluffy carpet surrounding it. I couldn’t believe it. Maya’s life must have been so different. Did she take Indian food to school for lunch, and did people actually ask what smelled good instead of what stank? Did people ask where her bindi was because they wanted to wear one too? Were the questions I got every day totally different from the ones Maya, or even Tanvi, heard?

  It wasn’t fair that my mid
dle school experience was so different. That I was treated like an outsider. That Tanvi was bummed her school had “only” thirty-nine other kids who knew what she was going through, who knew her holidays, who knew her traditions. I frowned, tugging at my sweater sleeve, but Maya pulled me onto the dance floor. “Hop to the side here and follow us, okay?”

  I clumsily stepped over my friends’ feet and slid forward onto the wooden floor, watching as Tanvi followed Maya’s lead, easily hopping to the dance she had just learned, alternating feet so quickly, I couldn’t tell what she was doing. I laughed nervously and stepped side to side like a graceless, uncoordinated version of my friends.

  Maya and Tanvi bent forward near me, pulsing their hands to the floor and up, spinning and crouching, coiling their arms.

  “Come on,” Tanvi said, lifting my arms as I just stood there.

  Tanvi’s mom let out the loud whistle she was known for at all dancing events. Aai clapped at her table. Maya’s dad had his cell phone out to record us. The teenagers were cheering. And I was sweating.

  “You can do it, Lekha,” said Maya as she and Tanvi twirled around me.

  But I was frozen in place, a crooked, awkward smile on my face. I wanted to tell Maya I wasn’t comfortable dancing in front of everyone. That I couldn’t dance like her. That it made me feel really bad about myself. I wanted to ask Tanvi to stop moving my limbs like I was her puppet. That it was making me look even worse than I felt. I opened my mouth to speak, but the music was so thunderous, I heard the drums beating in my chest louder than any voice I could muster.

  “Did you say something?” Maya asked, huffing as the song got faster.

  I wish. There was so much I wanted to say to spare myself this humiliation and stop it from happening again. But instead, I just shook my head and changed the subject. “I have to go to the bathroom. I’ll be back.” I retreated off the dance floor, gave our audience an embarrassed wave, and rushed through the maze of tables, around the stairwell, to the safety of the bathroom.