Border Less by Namrata Poddar

Author:Namrata Poddar
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: 7.13 Books
Published: 2022-01-29T04:52:36+00:00

nature, nurture

Dia, my daughter-in-law-to-be, don’t care to work. Mostly, she paint mandalas on tiles, write all kinds of message on it, and have exhibition four times a year to sell her art to Laguna Beach goras. She then decorate the exhibition hall with fancy drapes and add a dance performance where she ask dancers from Orange County to join her: kathak, hip hop, salsa, Zumba, what not. All this is her job, she tell me often, which is okay, I don’t mind her constant job speech as if none of us had to do real work to survive in California, except that we have a Diwali party at our house tonight and everyone want to taste the new daughter-in-law’s cooking. She couldn’t make samosas even if someone placed a gun to her head, she tell me more than once, shamelessly.

“Let’s do a takeout, Mom. That ways, ladies can relax with the guests, just like the boys,” she say today, surprise surprise. Then she rub my shoulder as if I’m a baby mourning a lost toy. “My treat.”

I exhale loud. Why don’t this woman get it? We’re not living Bollywood life here. We have a real family to deal with, I want to tell her, but I stop myself. Not her fault if her father died when she young, her mother live alone in Mumbai, and then, Dia left her to live around the world alone for, you heard me, all kinds of jobs. What I mean is, not living with family, she don’t have strong Indian values like we do. What she do have is a fine skinny butt!

“Rude to serve guests outside food,” I say.

“If the food is good, no one’s going to care.” Dia fidget with a bonsai on the kitchen table. “Trust me,” she say, plucking a few leaves attentively. She’s like that, Dia. A little tinkering here with bonsai leaves, a little tinkering with music system and curtains in the living room, and life is good. She got no idea what the real world is like. Believe all world to be one big art show.

“It’s about Indian culture and hospitality,” I say, mixing chickpea flour with red chili powder, cumin seeds, and dice onions. “We’re not goras here serving pizza and coke and calling it a party.”

“Then the boys should help us in the kitchen too?” Her chin point to the couch in the living room where they watching Laker game: my retired husband and my two sons, Dev and Neel.

“Dev and Neel work all week. They deserve a break.”

“We work too and deserve a break, right bhabhi?” She look at Savitri, my older daughter-in-law, but Savi wave her hand backward, putting another tray of samosas in the oven. “I’m staying out of this, you two,” she say.

“Neel operate for hours bending over a patient’s body. Think about his back, that poor boy.” Neel and Dia engaged for a year now, but it’s like, I’ve to always remind her that her fiancé is a surgeon. She don’t get it.

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