Meet the Family

9.4.07

Today Jay took us to try one of his favorite street foods- potato sandwiches. He pushed us through the large crowd until we were inside the rickety stall. The cook sliced chunks of butter into an oversized metal wok and added different spices to the sizzling fat until he had a thick, ochre paste. He then mopped up the butter-concoction with what looked like small hamburger buns and added deep-fried potatoes. Yum?

Next we accepted an invitation to meet Jay’s family. He took us to his home in the Satellite, one of the safest districts in Ahmedabad. Jay’s house is in an Indian-version of a cul-de-sac with several small apartment complexes lining three sides of a grassy lot. He lives on the second floor with his mother, father, and until recently, his sister Meena. Although Meena moved to Pune when she married three months ago, she had returned for Janmastami- a festival that celebrates Krishna’s birthday.

Also present was Jay’s girlfriend of twenty years, Rita. When Jay was in kindergarten, he wrote “J loves R” on his hand and received a slap from the teacher. He went on to pursue Rita for more than a decade until he asked for her hand in marriage at the age of sixteen. Although she accepted, her parents refuse to let the couple marry until Jay has a steady, respectable job or a visa to the USA, another reason he wants to come to America.

Jay’s home was sparkling with love. A large, colorful portrait of the elephant-headed god Ganesh had been hand painted directly on the white stucco walls. Two swords were conspicuously mounted in the entryway- symbols of the family’s membership in the Kshatriya (warrior) caste.

Alexander and I were greeted with smiles. Jay led us into his mother’s room where we sat in a circle on her bed (A typical Indian mattress is thin and firm, and thus a bed can comfortably sit a group of cross-legged people). His mother served homemade crackers. She told Jay he looked South Indian in contrast to our white skin. “So white,” she said again looking at us. At one point during our conversation she went over to a mirror and applied talcum powder to her face in an attempt to appear whiter.

We talked about our stay in Ahmedabad. I mentioned some of our many acquaintances and adventures. I made a joke about Jay and everybody laughed. “They’re just like us,” Meena exclaimed to her brother, seemingly surprised that we shared a sense of humor.

Meena told us about her new life in Pune. Living with her in-laws was difficult and she missed her family. Before leaving three months ago she had never been away from home. She showed us several wedding pictures and one of the twenty-five saris given to her as a gift. When she opened her mother’s closet to show us a piece of traditional Indian apparel I was awed by the contents. A rainbow of thirty glittering saris hung neatly folded over hangers. It was beautiful. A bit of emerald silk bordered with scarlet thread was draped next to a thick bolt of yellow, studded with gold embroidery. A splash of royal mauve stitched with silver was suspended next to a translucent blue. It was the most stunning closet I have ever seen.

We stopped for a midnight dinner of roadside Chinese food on our way back to the NID campus. A stocky man on a motorcycle pulled up alongside our small table and started talking to Jay in Gujarati. Within minutes he invited Alexander and me to his November wedding and joined us for our vegetarian meal. “You are Americans. Good. But you have stolen my friend away from me,” he teased. “I don’t see Jay anymore because he is always with you!”