Honor: A Novel(23)

“Maybe,” Mohan replied. He lowered the volume on the radio. “Mostly by our mothers. Not like those poor American children. Forced to leave their homes at eighteen so that their parents can enjoy being—what’s that term you Americans use?—empty nesters. As if human beings are birds.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’ve read about it. How you must leave your home the instant you turn eighteen. Whereas here in India, my God. Parents would kill themselves before they would force their child to leave.”

“First of all, nobody is forced to leave. Most teenagers are dying to strike out on their own. And secondly, didn’t you leave your parents’ home?”

He gave her a quick look. “True, true. But that was for my schooling.”

“And now?”

“Now?” He sighed. “What to do, yaar? Now, I’m in love with this mad city. Once you’ve had a taste of Mumbai, you can’t live anywhere else.”

For a moment, Smita hated Mohan for his smugness. “And yet, millions of people do,” she murmured.

“Right you are.” Mohan swerved to avoid a pothole. “So why did your family leave?”

She was instantly on guard. “My papa got a job in America,” she said shortly.

“What does he do?”

She turned her head to see what movie was playing at Regal Cinema as they passed it. “He’s a professor. He teaches at a university in Ohio.”

“Wow.” He opened his mouth to ask another question, but Smita beat him to it.

“You’ve never thought of settling overseas?” she asked.

“Me? He considered for a moment. “Yah, maybe when I was younger. But life is too hard abroad. Here we have every convenience.”

Smita took in the bumper-to-bumper traffic, the blare of the horns, the plumes of smog from the truck in front of them. “Life is too hard abroad?” she repeated, her tone incredulous.

“Of course. Here, I have the dhobi come to the house on Sunday to pick up my laundry. The cleaner washes my car each morning. For lunch, Zarine Auntie sends a hot tiffin to my workplace. The peons at my office go to the post office or the bank or run any errand I ask them to. When I get home in the evening, the servant has swept and cleaned my room. Tell me, who does all this for you in America?”

“I do. But I like doing it. It makes me feel independent. Competent. See what I mean?”

Mohan nodded. He lowered the window for a moment, letting in a blast of midmorning heat, then rolled it back up. “You must be mad, yaar,” he said. “What’s so bloody great about being ‘independent’?”

With his Ray-Bans and in his blue jeans and sneakers, Mohan looked like a modern guy. But really, Smita thought, he was like all the other pampered Indian men she had known in America.

“Bolo?” he said, and she realized he was waiting for her reply.

“I . . . I don’t even know how to answer that. I mean, being self-sufficient is its own reward. I think it’s just one of the most valuable traits a person can . . .”

“Valuable to whom, yaar?” he drawled. “Does it help my dhobi if I wash my own clothes? How will he feed his children? And what about Shilpi, who cleans my room every day? How does she survive? Besides, you’re dependent, too. You’re just dependent on machines. Whereas I’m dependent on people who depend on me to pay them. It’s better this way, no? Can you imagine what the unemployment rate would be like if Indians became . . . independent?”

“Your argument would make more sense if these people were paid a fair wage,” Smita said, remembering how upset her former neighbors used to get every time Mummy gave their servants a raise, accusing her of raising the bar for the rest of them.

“I do my best to pay well,” Mohan said. “I have had the same people work for me for years. They seem happy.”

Mohan fell silent and Smita glanced at him, afraid that she had hurt his feelings. We all have our cultural blind spots, she reminded herself. “I guess independence is in the eye of the beholder, right?” she said. “For instance, the freedom I feel in America as a woman? You can’t even imagine . . .”

“Agreed,” Mohan said at once. “We Indians are in the Dark Ages when it comes to the treatment of women.”

“Look at this poor woman we’re going to go see. What they did to her, it’s barbaric.” Smita shuddered.

“Yes. And I hope they give those bastards the death penalty.”

“You believe in the death penalty?”

“Of course. What else can you do with such animals?”

“Well. You can lock them up, for one thing. Although . . .”

“And that’s better, this locking them up?” Mohan asked.

“Well, you’re not taking a human life,” Smita said.

“But you’re taking away human freedom.”

“Obviously. But what do you propose . . . ?”

“Have you ever been locked up, Smita?”

“No,” she said carefully.

“I didn’t think so.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning . . .” He slowed down as a woman crossed the street in front of them, dragging her three children behind her. “Meaning, when I was seven, I was very sick. For the longest time, the doctor couldn’t understand what was wrong with me. But every evening I would get extremely high fevers. I was confined to the house for four months. No school, no playing cricket, no going to movies, nothing. In those days, our family doctor used to make house calls, so I didn’t even have to leave the house to go to his clinic.” His voice was low, faraway. “I have a small experience of what it’s like to be locked up.”