“You have to move fast in the Bay Area,” said Mr. Kapoor, agreeing with someone that it was a good idea for Prachi and Avi to snap up the Redwood City house.
“Everything one big race here,” Mrs. Kapoor supplied, with the even breathing of someone who has not been running it herself.
My father sniffed his red—it was the first time I’d seen my parents not scorn alcohol outright, because we were in the company of wealthy Punjabis who took drink seriously. Mr. Kapoor swirled his whiskey. The dinner conversation swarmed with swapped gossip. One can fill in the rest of the clanging of glasses and clacking of silverware and pass-the-paneer-phulka-tacos, how’s-your-cholesterol exchanges that formed the backdrop to the evening’s entertainment:
MY MOTHER: . . . So, see, first Indian I ever heard of coming to America, this family sent him off to college here when he was maybe sixteen.
SANDHYA: So young!
PRACHI: Too young.
MY MOTHER [head shaking]: Much, much too young, yes, anyway! So he’s sixteen and in college, somewhere, say, Maine, maybe Nebraska, I don’t know. And he has no friends. Until these Christian fellows come catch hold of him.
MRS. KAPOOR: They do that.
MY MOTHER: Yaa, yaa. So they say Jesus saves Jesus saves, whatever they say, and then he goes along and becomes one devout Christian. His poor Brahmin mother, so confused when he came home shaking crucifixes and whatnot! Strict vegetarian, she was! And now he’s eating chicken-schmicken. So they took him out of college. And now they decide ki he needs some job. Off he goes to work in the Gulf.
MY FATHER [with affable recognition of the pattern of my mother’s stories]: Ayyo, Ramya.
MY MOTHER: But then guess what happens! These Muslims he’s working with, they catch hold of him and give him beef and all and abhi? He’s one devout Muslim.
[A chorus of laughter. Affectionate eye rolls. Prachi and Avi catching each other’s gazes with stifled giggles. Sufficiently a part of this, sufficiently apart from it.]
MR. KAPOOR: Now, think, such a fellow would not even get into these American colleges.
AVI: What do you mean, Dad?
MRS. KAPOOR: Avinash, he’s just saying, these colleges have it out for our kind now. Very hard for Pratyusha’s children; you can only get into Berkeley as some other minority.
AVI: What do you think, Neil? You TA for all these Berkeley kids, don’t you? Prachi says you’re always writing them letters of recommendation and stuff.
PRACHI [glowing]: My brother is a very popular teacher.
NEIL: I don’t think there’s a shortage of high-achieving Asians at Berkeley, Auntie. Honestly, I wonder if someone told them, “Stop racing, there are too many of you,” if they’d wind up having to do something more interesting with themselves.
SANDHYA: Pinky, I teach, too, you know, eleventh grade, and Neil, they want it for themselves. You tell them they can’t do it, their eyes pop out of their heads.
MRS. KAPOOR: You’re in Fremont, isn’t it? Say, what about these robberies and all?
MR. KAPOOR: Neil, this is a story for you. You must write this. Get him a notebook, Pinky.
PRACHI: He’s not a journalist, Uncle.
MRS. KAPOOR: Why not try it? We could say we know this Pulitzer fellow Neil Narayan!
NEIL: I’ve considered it.
MY FATHER [concerned]: Journalism?
NEIL: A Pulitzer.
MR. KAPOOR: Point is, Neil, nobody’s telling our stories. I have a colleague, he is a Jew—
AVI: Dad, say Jewish, not a Jew.
MR. KAPOOR: Jewish-Jewish yes, anyway, he is a Jewish. They have their own proper magazines, we have just India Abroad bullshit—excuse me, Pinky, but that is what it is. Neil, why don’t you start up some publication for desis! It’s a good a time for starting up!
MY FATHER: Well, as Prachi is saying, Neil writes history—
MR. KAPOOR: What is history but an explanation for the present!
NEIL: I wouldn’t put it like that.
MY MOTHER: Pinky, you’re talking about gold robberies? This happened in Atlanta, too!
NEIL: In Atlanta? When?
MRS. KAPOOR: See, it’s these Colombian gangster fellows. They come and hold Indians up inside their own homes at gunpoint and they make off with all the gold.
PRACHI: How do they know which houses belong to Indians?
GOPI: Stakeout, must be.
MY MOTHER: No, no, see, I have one other theory. From when it happened all over Atlanta.
MY FATHER: No proof for this theory!
MY MOTHER: You agreed just the other day, Raghu.
MY FATHER [genially]: Did I? [to Mr. Kapoor] Sometimes you have to!
MRS. KAPOOR: What was your theory, Ramya?