The Taste of Ginger(49)

Her place smelled of mustard seeds, cumin, and lentils—homemade dal. It was familiar and comforting. My mother had taught her how to cook. The two had been as close as sisters while growing up in Ahmedabad, but my mother managed to do everything a step ahead of her, including marriage. Before Monali Auntie’s wedding, she came to our house in Illinois and learned to cook and do laundry, chores that servants in India had done for her until that point. I imagined it was challenging for my mother to watch her best friend’s family rise financially, while it seemed no matter how hard my parents tried, they could not get ahead.

Monali Auntie handed me two shallow Corelle bowls to set on the dining table. The scent of the fresh lemon she had squeezed onto the dal permeated the air as she carried over a trivet and pot, both items she had brought over from America.

“You know I am always happy to have you,” she said, “but I suspect you are here for a reason, no?”

She passed me a steaming bowl of dal dhokli. I blew on a spoonful. When the steam dissipated, I took a bite. The tender pieces of dough melted in my mouth, complemented by the fiery broth.

I sank onto the dining chair, glad Uncle was at a carom game with his friends so Auntie and I had this time alone.

“I found this photo, and Indira Mami wouldn’t tell me who this was. Do you know?” I asked, handing the photo to her.

She held it up closer to her face. “Where did you get this?”

“I found it at Lakshmi.”

She remained quiet, an unusual occurrence for her. Finally, she said more to herself than to me, “I’m surprised they kept any of these.”

“Why? Who is he?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer.

“You should ask your mother,” she said, resigned.

“It seems pretty clear that this is an engagement photo and the guy in it isn’t Dad. It is, isn’t it?”

Since I’d first seen the photo, I’d suspected that was the case, but seeing the confirmation on her face felt like whiplash. It was not every day I learned my mother had some secret life before my father. Such things were far from common in this arranged marriage society. I recalled Hari saying how Laila’s reputation would have been ruined if they had spent any time alone together outside the presence of their parents. Surely something like a broken engagement was far worse than a young couple trying to date, and on top of it, this would have been over thirty-five years ago. I had never heard my parents speak of anyone from their generation dating someone, let alone being engaged to someone other than their spouse.

“Beta, some things are between you and her,” Monali Auntie said, sinking into a chair across from me.

She’d always been so candid with me, and I couldn’t believe she had picked now to be discreet.

“She doesn’t talk to me like that,” I said.

“I know the past few months have been difficult for you, but she has a lot of pressure too. Do you know how hard it is for an Indian mother to not speak to her daughter for four months? I call my boys every one to two days, and she was doing the same with you and Neel. On top of that, with everything now, she is the only mother Dipti has. Meanwhile, there is no one left to comfort Varsha.”

I twirled my spoon in the soup, letting steam escape. “But when I tried to talk to her this week, she shut me down. What am I supposed to do now?”

“Oh, beta!” She threw up her hands. “I had this same conversation with your mother after her trip to LA, and I’m going to tell you the same thing I told her then. Bandar kya jaane adrak ka swaad.”

She crossed her arms, satisfied. The words were familiar enough that I knew she was speaking Hindi, but I could no longer understand them. “What does that mean?”

“Let me think of how to say it in English.” She cocked her head for several seconds. “A monkey does not know the taste of ginger.” She grinned, proud of her translation.

“Meaning what?”

She thought about it more. “You cannot appreciate that which you do not know.”

“So give the monkey some ginger,” I said. “Problem solved.”

She raised her hand, as if she were going to reach across the table and playfully slap me. “Such an American answer.”

“I know, I know. Sorry, it was too easy.”

“It would be good if you both stopped being such stubborn monkeys. One thing is certain: you don’t understand her life, and she doesn’t understand yours. Until you both start trying the ginger, you never will.”

I pondered her words. She had a point, but how could I build a bridge between two different worlds that was strong enough to support us both, and was it too late to try?

She took a deep breath. “I should not be telling you this, but part of why losing Uma is so hard for her is because she felt it could be her second chance. She knows she made some mistakes with you, but she is too proud to ever admit them.”

Her words shocked me. My mother wasn’t the type to own mistakes, certainly not when it came to me. I wondered what she would have done differently. How would I have reacted in response? Maybe we could have ended up confiding in each other like friends rather than always filtering the substance from our conversations and only speaking about what we had to eat for dinner or how work was going.

She reached for my nearly empty bowl and refilled it. “You must understand your mother and I didn’t grow up expecting love. It wasn’t something we looked for when choosing a husband. I was lucky. I didn’t know anything about Kamal when I married him, but our relationship grew into one of love over the years.” She gestured toward the family photo on the window ledge. “But we didn’t face the same challenges your parents did. In an arranged marriage, when the money stops flowing, then so does the love.”