Serving Crazy With Curry (12 page)

Is this what she wanted?

She had done it all perfectly. Married a financially viable man, had two beautiful children, and had seen one of them married, while the other … well, she saved her younger daughter's life.

Yes, she was where she wanted to be, but this was not how she'd expected to feel when she watched her family. She hadn't thought that seeing them all succeed would make her feel like a failure.

“Damn it, I have to go to work,” Shobha said, flinging her cell
phone on the leather couch next to Vasu. “Sorry, G'ma, it's just… those fucking idiots. I have to go.”

“It's late,
beta,
can't it wait until tomorrow morning?” Saroj asked.

“No, Mama, it can't,” Shobha muttered, not even looking at Saroj.

“Shobha, I know, but…”

Shobha looked up at Saroj in exasperation. “I'm a VP of a company. I have responsibilities. Since you know nothing about working in the real world maybe you should keep out of it.”

“Fine, leave,” Girish said lightly, as if Shobha hadn't been speaking in a loud voice, as if everything was business as usual, which unfortunately it was.

“How will you get home?” Shobha asked Girish as she opened the front door.

“I'll get home,” Girish said and went back to his newspaper.

Shobha said her good-byes hastily and left, slamming the large mahogany front door on her way out.

Saroj's heart sank. She had stood by her man while he worked insane hours to set up a company. He hadn't done it on his own. She'd helped, hadn't she? She'd kept his home life happy, kept him content, kept his children out of trouble. She knew what having a career was all about and she knew that sometimes work slid into the nighttime. She understood Shobha had to leave, she'd just hoped … She shook her head as the tears sprang up again. There was no point in crying. No one in her family respected her. She didn't have a job, had never worked, and they always reminded her ofthat.

She went back into the kitchen to finish cleaning up.

“I'm sorry about Shobha,” Girish said, following her in. He pulled out a glass from a cabinet and filled it with water from the fridge.

“You don't have to apologize,” Saroj said with a half smile. He'd never bothered to be so polite before. This was a first.

“I know… but she'll never apologize,” Girish said and shrugged. “She's busy. It's the end of the quarter … oh, what the hell, she's always busy and always rude and always angry. I guess
you're right, I shouldn't apologize for her because if I did, I'd have to quit my job and take up apologizing full time.”

Saroj bit her lip. She didn't know what to say. He was saying something bad about
her
daughter and a part of her wanted to jump to Shobha's defense. On the other hand, Girish was Shobha's husband and Saroj felt that a husband of all people had the right to bad-mouth his own wife.

“I'm planning to ask Devi to give me a ride home. The doctor thought it wouldn't hurt for her to spend a little time on her own. So Avi and I thought it wouldn't be a bad idea,” he told Saroj. “Maybe that'll… I don't know …”

“Is that okay, you think?” Saroj asked, concerned and nervous. “She hasn't driven since or been alone. It should… nothing will happen, will it?”

“No, no,” Girish said. “She seems to be pretty much back to normal, except for the talking and the cooking. And the doctor did say that those who cook are not very inclined to commit suicide.”

“Did she?” Saroj smiled. “Devi does cook so well. Thanks, Girish, for everything.”

“Good … well… I'll see what I can do,” Girish said and sauntered out of the kitchen with his glass of water.

Saroj went back to her cleaning, her heart feeling just a little light. Someone had noticed her, someone had paid attention, and for today, that was enough.

devi's recipe
cajun prawn
biriyani
Day 8 after coming home from the hospital

The classic recipes are goat, lamb, vegetable, and/or chicken
biriyani.
But when I was in New Orleans, at this restaurant, they served Louisiana barbecue shrimp, which was simply delicious. When I asked the waiter what was in the shrimp sauce, he rattled off a number of spices (rosemary, thyme, basil, Oregano, et cetera) and so, I went with memory.

I marinated the raw prawns in mashed garlic, rosemary, basil, Oregano, thyme, sage, paprika, black pepper, white pepper, cayenne, and onion powder, along with a dash of Worcestershire sauce.

I decided to cook the rice in the pressure cooker, always quick and easy. I heated some
ghee
in the pressure cooker, added crushed cloves, cardamom, and cinnamon, and a bay leaf for a minute or so. Then I added some onions and fried until the onions became golden brown. Then went in the rice, and enough water, and I closed the pressure cooker. The rice was ready in ten minutes. In a separate pan, I sauteed the marinated prawns in butter, along with extra chopped garlic and the marinade, and added them to the cooked rice. I garnished it with chopped fresh coriander and
voilä,
Cajun prawn
biriyani.
I served it with some regular cucumber
raita.

Mama had been so sure that Daddy would hate prawns but I saw him clean out each one on his plate and even get a second helping. Sometimes we forget why we don't like some things and then when we try them again, we realize that we had been wrong.

Giving Serious Thought to Adultery

Girish was a classical music buff and in the beginning of their marriage, Shobha joined him for a few musical events and lectures. Once he dragged her to a basic violin seminar in the hope that she would start appreciating the string instrument (his favorite) as he did.

It had been six months after they returned from their honeymoon in Hawaii, where they spent most of their time separately. Girish went scuba diving and hiking around the Na Pali Coast, while Shobha drank colored drinks with umbrellas in them and read a good book about advanced databases and a bad one about a schizophrenic woman, a paperback she picked up at the hotel's gift shop.

“Music is life, Shobha. There is music in everything. Don't you agree?” Girish asked on their way to the seminar at Stanford. Shobha gave him a smile and nodded, trying to infuse as much enthusiasm into her demeanor as she could. After all, technically, they were still newlyweds.

The man giving the seminar was a frail old gentleman with a deep London accent who kept waving his hands as he spoke. His brown pants hung loosely on his hips and Shobha was sure that one more vigorous gesticulation with his hands and the pants would
drop. Needless to say, she didn't pay much attention to the lecture. But something did catch her wandering mind. Apparently a violin has four strings designed for the notes: A, D, E, G. You can get other notes, too, by using fingers to shorten the effective length of these strings.

The old man in his accented voice told the audience, “To get the F out, you will need to actively finger the G-string.”

First, Shobha just stared at the man and then looked around to see how everyone was reacting; everyone seemed serious and intent on what the man would say next, some were even taking notes. But when the old man repeated how one could get the F out, Shobha started to laugh softly.

“What the hell is so funny?” Girish asked in a tight whisper.

“Didn't you hear him?” Shobha asked, tears brimming in her eyes as she tried to stop laughter from spilling out of her.

“What?” Girish demanded impatiently.

“You have to finger the G to get the F out,” Shobha whispered loudly, cracking up yet again.

Girish didn't get it, but then again he never got it. The joke remained as elusive to Girish as did Shobha's G-spot.

As Shobha drove the Audi on 101 to get to her office in Cupertino, her mind whizzed with the possibilities. It was almost ten at night. At the office, it was just going to be Vladimir, Pavan, who was the product manager, and herself. There was some problem with the product that was to be released soon and Shobha wanted to brief herself on how long it would take to fix the bug so that she could present the case in front of the executive committee the next day.

She hoped the product launch would not be delayed; if it was, this would be the second time in two quarters, and Shobha knew that she'd need to start looking for a new job and soon.

Success was not as firmly lodged in her pocket as everyone assumed. She'd climbed to the position of vice president, but she still managed to fuck things up. She should've been worried about her job, about the product launch, about the end of the quarter,
but all Shobha could think of was Vladimir's callused hands and thick fingers. Oh, he'd be able to find her G-spot. She was sure of that.

To die … to die without ever having an orgasm during sex, damn it, she wanted more out of life. Devi, now, Devi probably had had several thousand orgasms thanks to her hundreds of disreputable boyfriends. If Shobha killed herself today, there would be nothing to say.
She never had an O-moment,
that's what they would say. Worse, they'd think that she'd lived the perfect, happy life and now … ah, she was dead, what a waste.

She parked in the outside parking lot, scared of going into the basement at this hour of the night. A heady feeling inundated her as she raced up the stairs and slipped her key card into the designated slot. There was a bleeping sound and the security light next to the door changed from red to green.

Vladimir and Pavan were sitting in the server room, their faces glued to a computer screen.

“Okay, what's the problem?” Shobha asked without preamble as she stepped inside the room and the glass door squeaked shut behind her.

“Looks like we might have found it…,” Pavan began sheepishly in his heavy south Indian accent and then shrugged. “Still, it will take at least a week.”

“Right,” Shobha said, breathless. Vladimir was smiling at her. His cotton shirt was unbuttoned almost to midchest and the jeans were still as snug as ever.

“Okay, one of you give me the rundown and let's see what we can do,” Shobha said and sat down at a desk. She opened the drawer at the desk, pulled out a writing pad, and rummaged for a pen in her purse.

“All right, let's start.” She was scribbling on the writing pad even before Vladimir opened his mouth to tell her what was wrong and how they were planning to fix it.

It was almost eleven by the time they were done. They had come up with a plan of action and how to present the scenario to the executive committee the next day.

“I could eat a pizza and have a cold beer,” Pavan said with a sigh. “But I have to go home and eat
dal
and
sabzi.”

Pavan had gone to India three months ago and like many of his Indian friends had come back to the United States with a wife. The marriage was arranged by his parents; he only saw his wife's picture and spoke with her on the phone before the wedding.

“Well, then maybe you and I can go and get a beer,” Vladimir suggested to Shobha after Pavan left. “I don't have a little wife waiting for me at home.”

“No, I should go home,” Shobha said, her reluctance obvious.

“Come with me,” Vladimir said playfully. It could be just a friendly gesture, not a come-on. Shobha wasn't sure.

An O-moment was not worth a professional nightmare, Shobha thought, and shook her head. And then there was the chance that Vladimir was a real duffer in bed and that accent was just a pickup line and nothing more.

“My husband is waiting for me,” Shobha lied easily. “I'll see you tomorrow.”

She didn't start hyperventilating until she got inside the car. What the fuck was going on? Shobha thought angrily. It was Devi who'd tried to kill herself, so why the hell did she feel she had to make up for lost time?

Shobha had never thought she'd have an arranged marriage. She'd assumed, like everyone else, that one day she would meet the right man, fall in love, marry him, and have a couple of kids. She'd never doubted her ability to find a husband or have children. Devi and she usually complained about arranged marriage, said that it was for people who were incapable of finding their life partners, losers who were looking for other losers.

Saroj would first try to convince them that arranged marriage was the best way to marry and then would plead that they only fall in love with good boys from the right caste and from good Indian families. Neither Devi nor Shobha thought she'd end up with an Indian in the first place so the matter of caste and family was moot.

Shobha had been at Cal, going through the grind of Berkeley under-grad,
when she met him. He was doing his MBA and they met through a friend of a friend. He was not Indian, not from a good family (his mother had two ex-husbands, his father had four ex-wives, and someone, a brother or an uncle, had spent some time in prison for armed robbery), and definitely not what Saroj wanted. He was working for Intel and doing his MBA part time. He was an engineer on the management fast track.

His name was Dave Anderson. He was white, as white as they came, with blond hair, and very blue eyes. He was different from the men Shobha had previously been interested in.

No one at home knew about him. Shobha was living in the dorm and didn't think it was anyone's business that she was seriously dating an American. She'd dated before, had had boyfriends, but that had been innocuous, almost platonic really.

Dave was the first man she had sex with and Shobha admitted that the earth didn't rock and the bells didn't ring. After Dave came Girish, and that didn't turn out to be much of an improvement. But at least she'd been madly in love with Dave.

Dave unfortunately was interested only in sleeping with Shobha and after the first pathetic night of sex, Dave was gone. All of a sudden there were no messages on the answering machine, no phone calls, no nothing. Shobha, at the age of twenty-two, experienced firsthand what it meant to be dumped. She could hardly believe it. Other people got themselves into situations like this, not Shobha Veturi. She mourned for a while and then swore she would never ever get into this relationship business again. Dave made her feel cheap and used and thanks to him Shobha developed a healthy, if racist, attitude toward the alleged loose morals of the American white male.

When Saroj started talking about arranged marriage a few years later, Shobha said, “Yes, go find me a boy and I'll marry him.”

Her father tried to dissuade her.

“You're so young, Shobha, you'll meet someone. What's the rush?” Avi said, but Shobha wouldn't budge. It was time to be married (after all, she was twenty-seven and by all Indian standards past ready for marriage) and since falling in love was out of the question, there was only one alternative left: arranged marriage.

Girish was also not the type to walk into an arranged marriage and his parents weren't the type to force the matter, but it happened all the same. Girish's paternal grandmother was adamant that the girl be a Telugu Brahmin and that the marriage be arranged. The woman was dying of cancer and Girish, who'd never had more than a few short-term relationships with women, thought there would be no harm in getting married the arranged way. After all, they had been doing it for years in India, and it seemed to be working well for all parties involved.

Saroj met Girish's grandmother at the
seemantham
of the pregnant daughter of a common friend. Between piling fruit in the lap of the girl in her seventh month of pregnancy and eating sweet
payasam,
Saroj and Maha Lakshmi got talking about their respective daughters and grandsons. Shobha and Girish seemed like a pair made in heaven, and when their horoscopes were matched discreetly, both Maha Lakshmi and Saroj were convinced that as matches went, this one was near perfect.

For two independent, well-educated, non-Indian-raised people, Shobha and Girish walked into arranged marriage with blind-eyed optimism. It could've worked, Shobha was sure, if only they had children.

Sex, which had never been the cornerstone of their marriage, was now a rare event that occurred only when they felt that they had to do something about their marriage. Sometimes it was Shobha who felt guilty and instigated their insipid physical relationship. Sometimes, it was Girish. In neither case were the unions satisfying for either of them.

They never talked about their current situation or discussed if it could be remedied. They both let things slide into normalcy and soon neither was upset or worried that they had no marriage and no real future together.

Then one day the unthinkable entered Shobha's mind, and it wouldn't leave. It started as a cliche: how many times had she seen a movie where the wife found an earring in her husband's car/coat/office/person that belonged to the
other woman?

It wasn't like she ever got into Girish's car alone. She didn't have
reason to when he wasn't there, but that day had been different all around. Shobha drove out of the driveway only to be hit by a kid in a beat-up Toyota (what impertinence). Though no one was hurt, Shobha's Audi looked like it had been in a small brawl and needed AAA assistance. Shobha was in a rush, and Girish didn't have to be at the university until later in the afternoon.

“I'll call the garage, you take my car,” he suggested, dangling his car keys in front of her. “I can always walk to work or get a cab.”

Shobha didn't have to be asked twice. She dumped her laptop and leather bag behind the driver's seat and drove away after saying a hasty thank-you to Girish. Nothing happened all day. She got through her meetings, did her work, everything was normal. Normal until she went back home.

Papers from a file she'd brought from work spilled out from the passenger's seat. Shobha bent down to grab them from under the seat and that was when she saw it.

A small, round, pearl earring encased in gold.

It belonged to an Indian, no doubt about that. The gold encasing the pearl was twenty-two karat, not fourteen or eighteen, and only an Indian would go around wearing twenty-two-karat extra-shiny gold. She didn't even think that the earring could be a colleague's, a friend's, a stranger's whom Girish gave a ride to. She simply knew that it belonged to the
other woman,
the one who was having the good sex with her husband.