Love in the time of kattiri veyyil

“Saapaadu romba sumaar,” (Food is mediocre) sniffed the ladies in silk saris as they wiped their wet hands on cotton handkerchiefs after the nuptial meal and dragged red plastic chairs to sit under swirling ceiling fans.

Stuffing supari in their mouth, the women went on to dissect the wedding, the caterers, the venue, flower arrangements and the bride’s complexion.

“Did you eat?” asked one of the aunties, when she spied mom sitting quietly on a chair, cradling her sleeping daughter in her lap.

“Poor child, she must still be jetlagged. What made you move in this awful heat?” the woman asked, fanning her face with her handkerchief. “I’m looking forward to my California trip next week, pa. I can’t stand this humidity.”

As she felt the beads of sweat pooling in her cleavage, mom was tempted to agree with the aunty. She exhaled deeply and was conscious of her wet blouse clinging to her back, outlining her brassiere. With a sleeping child in her lap, mom dare not stand up, lest her sari be undone, and her mouth ached from the artificial smiles directed at aunties and uncles she hadn’t seen in the last decade.

“I don’t see your husband,” remarked one of the ladies, scanning the crowd. “He’s here, isn’t he?”

“Actually, he’s not feeling well. I think he’s still jetlagged,” mumbled mom, cursing dad for making her cover for his absence.

“I’m not coming anywhere!” dad had promptly declared as soon as she had mentioned the wedding. “I don’t even know these people. You take the kids and go.”

Mom tried to reason with him. “Look, we have to be more social in India,” she said. “You can’t do anything here without contacts,” she explained to his receding back.

“I’m going back to the U.S. if you keep nagging me,” shouted dad from the other room, putting an end to further debate.

The children’s initial excitement over attending a wedding soon petered out as they found themselves repeating their name, class standards, and fielding “How are you liking India?” questions.

“Why isn’t the bride wearing white?” Kuki, the Disney princess addict, wanted to know. "Where's her tiara? ... Are they going to kiss in the end? ... Will they live happily ever after? ... How many babies are they going to have? ... Do I have to get married?”

Despite being told that public display of affection at the mandapam was highly unlikely, the little one willed herself to stay awake for a kiss that never took place, and fell asleep right after a rice-heavy meal served on a banana leaf.

The next morning, as soon as she awoke, the child rubbed her eyes and asked, “Remember the people who got married yesterday?"

"Yes," replied mom. "Did you enjoy the wedding?"

"Are those people going to have a baby today?”

My belly looks like a Brahmin's

Short of organizing a thread ceremony for me, I think my initiation into the Brahmin way of life is now complete.

I haven’t even caught a whiff of meat since I landed here. I’m surrounded by plant-eaters who would lynch any building resident who dare warm a kheema samosa in the microwave.

With so much variety in my diet – idlis dipped in yoghurt, rice and dal and steamed vegetables, daliya, boiled eggs rolled in rotis – I’m not complaining. I should’ve gone on hunger strike years ago and refused to eat the Purina garbage mom was feeding me.

The woman is now worried after global mentioned that mangoes are seasonal visitors like overseas desis who spend summer vacations in thatha-paati’s house. She scans the horizon looking for rain clouds and justifies her mango excess by saying, “This too shall pass.”

In a city bereft of sidewalks, mom and I have no place to walk off extra calories. Every time I step out of the house, the neighborhood dogs insist on broadcasting my presence to all and sundry, leaving me no privacy to pee in peace.

“You have to carry a stick to scare the strays off,” advised somebody.

Hmmm, maybe the same approach would work on some of the stray men who stand on street corners and outside homes and stare at mom until we pass by.

Relieving oneself on a tulsi plant is frowned upon

If mom thought twisting herself into a pretzel for 20 hours was uncomfortable, she should’ve spent the time with me in the cargo hold of an airplane without any drinking water for the last leg of the journey from Frankfurt to Chennai.

Lufthansa staff reassured mom that her dog was on board, but nobody bothered to check if the dog was hydrated enough for the journey. When mom stuck her fingers through my cage at the Chennai airport, I managed to weakly lick her, not wanting to believe that my ordeal had finally ended.

“He’s alive!” cried mom, pulling out a rock-hard bread roll she had saved from lunch. I gulped it down, along with a liter of sparkling water, and finally stopped trembling, happy to be on terra firma.

Grandpa had arranged for me to be cleared by Chennai Customs, and a nice man from grandpa’s old workplace arrived at the airport at midnight to make sure I breezed through the exit with no paperwork.

“Madam, you should have faxed me all the papers a few days ago,” said the man to mom. “The airport vet is supposed to be on duty, but he’s usually not here at night. They won’t release the dog without clearance from him. I’ll go to his clinic tomorrow to get his signature.”

“You mean the vet will sign the documents without even seeing the dog?” asked mom.

She now knows who not to pick for my veterinary care.

For all of her sweet talk about preparing me for life in Chennai, mom somehow neglected to mention the sweltering heat and the humidity that hits you when you step out of the airplane.

“It’s hot!” is an understatement in a city where you can sweat buckets doing nothing more stressful that batting your eyelids. If one could lose weight just through sweat, my human would be in paradise.

You know, mom, before you reach for another succulent mango or a spoonful of ghee-dripping halwa, I think you should go easy on the food. Remember, there is a tomorrow since you’re not going back anytime soon.

Madras Mottai

I haven’t crossed the Atlantic yet, but in anticipation of my yaatra, mom decided that it’s never too early to start the purification process to convert me into a good Brahmin boy.

A few days ago I was dispatched to the local pet store where a fine young lady divested me of my thick winter coat. I hear I won’t need it for the rest of my life.

“You look like a country dog, Terri,” said mom, kissing me on the tip of my nose. My stubble reminds her of her grandfather's 5 p.m. shadow, and mom wonders for a moment if her thatha came back to her as a cherished pet.

I sigh deeply as she runs her hand over the golf ball-sized fat tumors in my body (a byproduct of aging). Mom hopes against hope the tumors will quietly dissolve without the need of medical intervention.

“You should think about starting Terri on arthritis medication,” advised the vet last week as she felt my stiff joints and noticed my limp.

For now, mom’s immediate worry is that I make it to India safe and sound. In between working and chauffeuring the family around in one car, she’s been trying to get my paperwork ready. A pet relocation company offered to help my humans for $5,900, but mom would rather kill herself driving from pillar to post in 100 degree weather than part with a sum higher than the entire family’s plane tickets.

“I hope you’ll be happy over there, Terr,” she whispers in my ear, thankful that India’s lax laws do not require imported pets to be quarantined. I softly lick her hand and want to let her know that there’s only one way to find out. Right?

See you all from the other side of the pond.

Mera Kuch Saamaan

I never thought I’d say this, but for once I'm glad dad’s not the kind of man to write love letters and give mom mushy, just-because cards from Hallmark.

As it is, the movers took a good eight hours to pack my humans’ possessions. If dad had written mom lengthy epistles over the years, she would’ve felt obliged to save every bit of paper he had given her, adding to the weight, volume, and more importantly, expense of their international shipment.

Such a farsighted person my mom married! Really, I wonder how other women cope with spouses who wear their heart on their sleeve.

“Make sure you supervise the packers carefully,” instructed grandma over the phone. “Tell them to wrap all fragile items in cloth so nothing breaks on the way.”

“Ma’am, I’ve been doing this for 41 years,” grunted the heavy-set man as mom watched him loosely wrap her kitchen items in white paper and stack them in a cardboard box. “You got insurance, right?” he asked, chewing on a toothpick.

As the three burly movers moved furniture around, long lost items were discovered under the sofas and behind consoles. Tufts of dog hair danced in circles on the floor, happy to be released from their dark corners. Hair clips, pens, marbles and coins fell out of the sectional, and a macaroni necklace caked in dust emerged from behind the television stand.

“Do you wrap the items in plastic?” asked mom, as she surveyed her precious belongings held together with brown paper and duct tape.

“Not for international moves,” explained one of the men. “Because of mildew.”

“But what if water seeps through?” asked mom, worried about her wedding saris that haven’t seen the light of day in a long time.

“The metal container’s waterproof, ma’am,” he said. “However, if your shipment falls into the ocean …” he trailed off, lifting his shoulders and rolling his eyes heavenward. “You got insurance, right?”

Later that night, dad walked into the house and carefully picked his way through the shapeless objects casting giant shadows on the bare walls.

“We’ve got too much stuff,” he frowned, surveying the cartons on the floor.

“Do we really need all this?” he wondered, conveniently overlooking the fact that 20 of the 25 boxes contained his college textbooks, back issues of National Geographic that he refuses to throw away and other random purchases he makes on amazon.com.

Whatever material objects the humans amassed in the last 12 years were loaded into a trailer the next morning, and mom watched the truck leave with a heavy heart.

“What am I doing?” she thought, not for the first time, as she turned back to an empty house, each room now large enough to conduct Bharatanatyam classes if she were a trained classical dancer.

See that empty corner over there? That’s where her reading chair used to be, the one she curled up in a few nights ago when the house was dark and the dishwasher hummed in the background.

That closet door was where her son had hung his basketball posters, right across from his bed; a bed that mom had hauled from the mall and spent an entire evening assembling.

Over there stood the carrot-colored sectional (she could never make up her mind if it was a red or an orange), and above it hung black and white prints of her children - mementoes all the more special because of the person behind the lens.

How many times had mom stubbed her toe on that wooden console that graced the corridor? Right here is where she had tripped over a Lego block when she was pregnant for the second time.

“When will we see our stuff again?” ask the children plaintively. Raised differently from their parents, they are unused to spending time without a television or a video console.

“You can play with your toys as soon as we find a home,” says mom reassuringly.

In the meantime, the bare walls echo her footsteps as she wanders through the house like Rekha in the last scene of Umrao Jaan - tears welling in her eyes and a thousand memories rising unbidden to her heart.