Garam Tea Chat

“Oh, so it was true! You did make some little waves in the nursing school. Never mind how I knew it. Hey, Susie! My father’s family is no teeny-weeny weaseling bunch! Just say to anyone, you are from the Mavil Family, and they would fall on the ground and kiss your feet! My father Thomman knew everything that went on in the neighborhood. He owned half the property in our village!”

“So why did Your Highness marry the poor daughter of a municipal clerk? Just so you can migrate to America?”

Susie’s eyes began to glow like the glint of a wild fire at the mention of his father. The indignity of that comparison was too much to bear. All Karia owned was the small thatched house, his wife, and his nine children. He was always penniless except for the first five days of the month, when he would settle the accounts of the rice ration-shop, Ahmed’s grocery store, the milkman, the sweeper woman, the loan he took to re-thatch his house, the children’s school fees . . .

Her mother, Saramma, had worked forty-five years as an elementary school teacher to bring enough food to their table every night. Raising the nine children was her second job, although in passion and intensity, that was her main job.

Saramma’s life was spent in the midst of baptisms, first communions, confirmations, Sunday churches, Bible studies, church festivals. She had only one ambition, and that was to see her children grow up to be good Catholics. Her infallible belief was that a good Catholic meant a good human being. There was nothing more she needed to do, but raise good Catholics who performed their religious duties unfailingly, and treat each other with love.

She insisted on that principle every single day.

“Do what you want in your jobs, children. But, first, be a true Catholic. Everything else will fall into place.”

At the thought of her mother, Susie’s eyes would begin to soften. Embers of the wild fire would die in the outpouring of tears. “Oh, Mother!” Her sighs would reach Tommy, and he would walk away, leaving her alone at the dining table to do her sobbing or whatever.

Susie would look around in disgust, at the unwashed dishes in the sink, the greasy stovetop and the empty cartons of milk and juice lying all across the counter. She could never match her mother in the domestic department. Nor in the matters religious. She lacked the intensity of her mother’s faith, but drove to the church for the Sunday afternoon mass, hauling the children to the back seat, out of habit, sometimes burdened by guilt.

The early morning phone calls from Rachel often ended with Susie sitting immobile, her left palm supporting her chin, and her right hand fallen on her lap. The large, oak dining table lifelessly stretched out before her, and its far end where Tommy sat for dinner every night looked miles away that she wondered why she got such a large table at all. Its red and blue floral cover and the blue and orange silk flowers arranged in the crystal bowl in the center had begun to frazzle. The gigantic crystal chandelier hung above like a giant’s head, about to grab her with its gleaming tongues.

Susie hated the wake-up calls from the little medical school on the other side of the globe. Why did Rachel have to go so far? She hit her forehead with a self-blaming slap. But it was Tommy’s words that pierced deeper into her. After every call from Rachel, they ended up fighting, and after one whole year of arguing about it, Susie still didn’t know how to stop it.

“It was your idea to send her there to attend medical school!” Tommy would start.

“I know. If there is any kind of problem, isn’t it always my fault?” Susie would counter with all the energy she could summon at 3:00 in the morning.

“Why did we decide to send her there? I shouldn’t have listened to the arguments from you or that idiotic friend of yours. What is her name? Maria! Just because her daughter went to the South Indian medical school, and returned with an Indian Catholic boyfriend, we shouldn’t have done it. Yes, yes, she married the Indian Catholic doctor, but so what?”

“So what! Are you saying you would have let our only daughter marry a white American boy? Are you out of your mind?” Susie’s voice would rise uncontrollably.

With that Susie would collapse on the dining room chair, with her head in her hands. Tommy would watch with horror as she went through the usual “blah-blah-blah-an American boy-blah-blah-after two years-blah-blah-he gets tired-blah-blah-blah-walks out on her-blah-blah-our only daughter-blah-blah-blah-Mother Mary-blah-blah-blah-what would my family say- blah-blah-blah-you have no heart- blah-blah-blah—” Big blobs of tears would drip down to the table top.

Tommy knew the early morning phone ringing was a sore beginning. As usual, Tommy pulled his pillow over his head at the first ring, and turned the other way. Susie threw away her blanket and grabbed the phone, as the other hand drew the sign of a cross starting with the top of her forehead down to her chest, and crossing it from shoulder to shoulder.

“Oh, Mother Mary! What does she want?” She whispered. Then her voice cracked. “Hello!”

“Mom! Sorry, did I wake you up?” The agitated voice of Rachel on the far end.

“Oh, baby! How are you? Let me call you back. The phone connection is better from here.”

“No, it is ok, Mom! The instructor insulted me in class today, Mom!” Rachel sobbed.

“Why, baby? Why should he insult you? Didn’t you tell him you are not there to be insulted, but you paid top American money to enroll?” Susie’s voice rose. Her sleepy eyes opened to its widest. A slice of darkness peeped through the slit in the window curtain.

Tommy turned around, and pushed away the pillow. What the heck is going on there in his homeland he missed so much?

“Mom, I didn’t do well in his physiology class. He returned our exam papers today. He said, ‘what is wrong with our rich American girl? Can’t work hard like these poor native kids!’ Everybody in the class laughed!”

“Don’t worry, baby! Teacher’s scolding means nothing in India. Over there they scold you for everything. Just forget it, Rachel. He didn’t mean to insult you. He is just scolding, that is all. He means well, he wants you to improve.”

Rachel couldn’t stop crying. She went on about the greasy food in the women’s dorm, moving on to how the matron in the dorm kept tally on every student, who went where, when, why and with whom. Rachel couldn’t stand the questioning at the end of the day, usually after supper, when the matron would go around the rooms and question all the girls about their day. Worse, she asked the girls about their friends’ activities, like who was Saroja with in the evening, did Seema have a boyfriend, and so on.

“Mom, I am already 18, and I can do what I please, right? Why should I report to this nosy woman?” Rachel’s tearful voice turned solid.

Susie froze for a moment. What could she tell her? Turning 18, thus becoming an adult, as if by clockwork, was the very thing she wanted Rachel to miss, when she decided to send her to the one country she would trust. She knew, deep in her heart, that America might be good for the grown-ups, but detrimental to the growing-up. Children fooled around too early with dangerous notions like independence and romantic love.

She knew, ‘eighteen’ was no magic emblem pinned to your lapel, which would give you special wisdom. She often remembered her own eighteenth year, filled with confusion and pain, her love for a Hindu classmate, named Dinesh, her father’s slap on her left cheek for forgetting her role as the oldest daughter, having eight younger siblings she had to care for then. She saw that she had choices before her—falling in love with a Hindu boy was not one of them. How could she set such a bad example for them? If Dinesh were a Catholic boy from a rich family, father might not have slapped her so hard. But still, one thing she learned during the turbulent eighteenth year was to do everything she could to get away from her father’s wrath.

Her mother cried all night when Susie told her of her decision to leave home to study nursing. Susie’s neighbor Thresia had received good job offers from the Persian Gulf countries when she finished her nursing degree in Bangalore. Thresia left for Dubai, and when she came back, after three years, she had suitcases full of gorgeous silk saris for her sisters, shirts for her brothers, soft, feather-like blankets for her parents, and even a couple of gold necklaces and a dozen gold bangles. Within a month, two of her younger sisters got married to upper class Catholic boys, on the same day, with respectable dowry and all. The whole neighborhood participated in the feast.

Nursing school was the ultimate escape those days. Susie only needed her high school diploma to qualify for admission. Going away to the distant city of Bangalore would sooth her burning heart. What a change it was from the remote interior village of Poonkavu, bordering the Arabian Sea in Kerala. The city lights hypnotized her. Nursing school grabbed her. Gradually, in a year or so, Dinesh disappeared from her memory completely. The best way to spend your eighteenth year would be to engross in your books, she had told herself a thousand times.

“Study, study, study, Rachel!” Susie found herself talking on the phone again. “Do nothing but study. Find your peace in the books. They are sent to you by your guardian angels, baby! Close your ears and study.”

“Mom, why did you send me to this God-forsaken place? There is nothing here, except a saree store or two, and a movie theater showing boring Bollywood sleazebags. I could have gone to a community college in California easily, and finished my general requirements in two years. I could have been home, and spent time with you Mom! What am I doing here?” Rachel’s words came in a fast tumble. Susie detected a certain I-am-eighteen-I-know-what-I-am-talking-about mettle in her voice.

Could she be hinting she wanted to come back? Susie felt a tightening in the depth of her stomach. Oh, Mother Mary! She thought of the green checkbook peacefully lying in the bedroom desk-drawer, empty. She knew the exact date the check was written for the sum of $75,000—a second mortgage on the house. The same day, the check was mailed to the college along with Rachel’s admission papers. It was the largest check she had ever signed in her life.

“Ok, Mom will think it over. Ok, honey? Now, go back to your books,” Susie said. She needed more time, a lot more time, to make such an about-turn from her previous decision. How would she allow her daughter to return home, after all the fights she fought to send her to a guaranteed seat in the Indian medical school, and a sure way to see her in the physician’s garb—and perhaps, by the Grace of Mary, to see her married to a decent, Indian Catholic boy?

“Bring our daughter back,” Tommy said. He was now fully awake, and pacing.

“No, we don’t! She is my daughter, and I won’t let her!” Susie stood up.

“It is my duty to see my daughter is safe from the ogling eyes of dirty lab attendants!”

“But it is my duty to see her finish medical school, ogling or not!” Susie stomped out to the kitchen. The kitchen clock’s red eyes blinked once, showing a tired 3:45 AM.

Tommy crept under the blanket. He heard a soft mumble from the kitchen. Another ordinary morning, he said to himself. But he couldn’t go back to sleep.

When he got up and walked to the kitchen, Susie was sitting at the dining table, her fingers wrapped around a hot cup of coffee, her eyes swollen. Tommy grabbed a cup and poured some coffee. He sat near his wife, as though he wanted to pacify her.

“You know,” She said. “My parents fought every morning, like us, after I left for Bangalore. The difference was, I wanted to stay, but our Rachel wants to come back!”

“But I take it that there were no Indian Catholic men in Bangalore then.” Tommy said, smiling.

“Stop it, Tommy!” Susie growled.

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