“My dad used to call Uncle Vivek’s death very Indian,” Anita said. “A third world way to go, that’s what he’d say. He had a lot of anger against India for things like that. His parents died in a terrible bus crash in Himachal Pradesh.” She shivered and continued.
The following months were brutal at the Joshis’。 Dhruv did not come home. He was waiting for his American residency to go through and claimed leaving the United States would boot him to the back of the queue. Lakshmi Joshi never forgave her firstborn. She was territorial about her grief, snapping at anyone who tried to join her weeping. “My child, my child,” she wailed. Anjali could not help thinking that her mother’s overwhelming woe was another sign that she, the daughter, was inadequate.
As the year went on, Anjali completed her exams, earning poor marks. All auspicious events, engagements included, were postponed in the wake of death, so she had some time. But soon, she would be noticed for what she was—a daughter who needed to be married off. And who could say to what type of man? It seemed a horrible fate to have to live your life with someone whose mind was smaller than your own. She wanted someone who was more than she was.
So, she had an idea. To take what she needed. A few weeks after her exams, she rode the bus to Powai with some of her classmates to attend Mood Indigo, the big music festival hosted each year by IIT Bombay. Vivek had played with his band on those stages. It was stomach-clenching to be back in his territory, but she’d arrived on a mission. She skirted the edge of the party, passing greasy-haired communists. One of them handed her a bright flyer reading ban rock show: american imperialist tradition before sighing, shoving the rest of his papers into a cloth messenger bag, and moseying back to his hostel, defeated that night by cultural globalization. A doomed student band from St. Xavier’s began to play George Michael’s “Careless Whisper,” and as the frank roar of boos followed, Anjali knew it was only a matter of time before someone began throwing rotten bananas and tomatoes onto the stage.
Then, at the fateful swell of a Police song, she found herself blinking at Pranesh Dayal. They had not seen each other since Vivek’s death. “I’m sorry,” he shouted through the noise.
Their recommenced walks along the lakeside in Powai were longer now. Lakshmi believed her daughter to be studying in town with her posh friends. Pranesh told her stiffly, as though he’d copped the line from a film, that she was the very picture of beauty. For his part, he had begun jogging and doing push-ups; he was, briefly, almost handsome.
When he graduated and told her he was moving to a place called Atlanta, where he had been accepted into Georgia Tech （he’d wanted Stanford）， she told him to write. His letters rolled in. There are no good rotis to be found. I hope you are learning your mother’s/chachi’s recipes etc because all of us students are homesick for proper food. She held on to them as her parents began to trot grooms through the living room, each one promising her a smaller life than the last. Finally, she announced the fact of Pranesh and his correspondence. A love match to a foreign-dwelling boy was a surprise, but acceptable. There was little to arrange between families, given that Pranesh was an orphan. He came to marry and collect her. As they circled the wedding fire, she watched smoke obscure the back of his head and imagined there was more inside him she did not know.
It turned out that behind Pranesh Dayal’s plump belly and thinning hair there was no secretly compassionate man. Anjali decided the remedy was a daughter. She learned to drive so she could take herself to the Hindu temple in Riverdale and make offerings of fruit and flowers. Kneeling before the stone Venkateshwara, she named Anita long before she was conceived. She would have had three, five more children if she could have—yes, she wanted a son, too, whom she imagined naming Vivek. But Pranesh got a vasectomy one summer when Anjali took Anita back to Bombay, telling her later that he did not plan on funneling his money to support a whole brood.
On the occasions Anjali considered her domestic situation, she developed a castor oil taste in her mouth. America: once metonymy for more. Here, was there more? She possessed a life of her own. Her husband left for California and she could breathe. It was something. She wanted more—infinitely more—for her daughter. She would do anything to give it to her.
* * *
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About a year before this reunion at the Sonora, Anjali’s father died. She and her brother Dhruv had, over the years, remitted enough money that their parents could shift to be near some better-off relatives in Navi Mumbai. But after Mr. Joshi’s death, the relatives whispered at how Lakshmi’s wealthy children neglected the old woman, whispering of the disloyalty America bred. Anjali and Dhruv discussed things. Dhruv’s wife did not want to take in Lakshmi. “You have much more than we do,” the sister-in-law told Anjali—which was true, because Pranesh had recently sold his company for, as Chidi said, a fuckload. （Anjali did not contribute financially; she’d never restarted her catering business out west and struggled to hold jobs. She was an unreliable employee, forgetful and scattered.）