Culture Wrappings: An Excerpt from “The Mourners”
‘Part 3: In which there are tears, whiskey, and Shanti Shanti’
Like any respectable Indian family, the Shantis didn’t use the house kitchen, they cooked in their garage.
The children had friends whose parents’ kitchens were avenues of granite countertops and chic wooden cabinets with latticed or glass fronts and inside lighting. But, they also had permanent rings from olive oil bottles and neverending trails of toast crumbs.
The Shantis had spent a considerable amount of money on their kitchen remodel in an effort to make it look like nobody actually cooked there. It was a way of life which mystified their westernized children the older they got.
Offspring: Why can’t we just cook in the kitchen?
Parents: Because it’s a nice kitchen and it has to stay that way!
Offspring: It’s a kitchen!
Parents: And when it gets dirty or catches on fire? Should we go and shake the money tree again?
Gradually Mr. Shanti and Young Mrs. Shanti were persuaded to use the kitchen for small things like toast and birthday cakes from a box mix. But the toaster had to be shaken over the sink to prevent the counters getting crumby, and the cake mix had to be mixed in the garage in case of splatters.
The garage kitchen was the true heart of the home. True it didn’t look as nice as the house kitchen but that meant it was fine when tomatoes spluttered out of their pot or hot oil, dyed bright orange from turmeric landed on the cheap laminate countertops.
When there were pujas or other big family functions, relatives brought their portable cooking rings and propane tanks. The floor to ceiling cabinets were stocked with oversized pots and bowls, big enough to use as splash pools. There were also stacks of extra cutting boards and a drawer full of mismatched knives.
Foldout chairs and banquet tables were set out the night before so every aunty had a comfortable place to prep, cook, and socialize and the small children could weave their way through the room safely in order to find a mother to cling to whine at.
This morning however, Shanti Shanti stood in the middle of the garage kitchen alone, the epicenter of a puddle of lukewarm tea. A Ronamaat was a very private ceremony in the family sphere which meant that some things could not be accomplished with the usual family labor. Therefore it fell largely to Shanti to cook for the seventy plus people who would descend on the Shanti home this evening.
Shanti Shanti, the Shanti’s only daughter, and Arun Shanti’s younger sister. Every day of the first day of school started the same. The teachers squinted, and squished their noses. Some even turned the class list upside down while the other students chortled in the background. Shanti wanted to crawl into a hole and die every time.
When Shanti was in middle school, a girl named Jasmine drew a crude pencil comic of a woman in a hospital bed. In it, the woman had just given birth to a pea-sized baby with disproportionately ping pong ball eyes. With the hand not cradling the pea baby, the woman clutched a wonkily drawn bottle of wine with two X’s from which she guzzled, while doctors and nurses watched in horror. Under the picture was written:
“Was YoUr MoM DRUNK when she hAd Yoooooo??!!”
To soften the embarrassment, her friends nicknamed her S Squared, which never caught on. In university, her name became something exotic and mystical. Even though it helped her make great strides in socializing and having sex, it was hard not to be annoyed any time someone adopted a botched yoga pose upon learning her name, or bowing with both hands pressed together.
After she became a teacher, her colleagues of course knew the truth and respected Shanti’s wishes to keep this a secret. Still, she was often jolted awake in the middle of the night caught in the grip of one of her nightmares. Students, howling with their evil, teenage laughter as they graffitied her cursed double name all over the school walls and squirted ketchup tikkas onto their foreheads before forcing her to attend Burning Man.
For two wonderful years, Shanti had made plans to change her name. One of the great women from the ancient texts like Savitri or Subhadra or Kaikeyi. Then her father had to tell her the story of her name thereby harpooning her plans and leaving her with a lot of guilt.
There was a storm the night she was born. Although to hear Mr. Shanti tell it, it was more like a mighty tempest with slashes of blinding white tearing into an evil sky that boiled black and purple.
As thunder boomed outside the hospital, an exhausted Mr. Shanti was advised to rest and eat something. Meanwhile, Young Mrs. Shanti was still struggling through thirty six hours of labor.
At precisely 5:00pm Shanti came sliding into the world, smooth, perfectly formed, and with hardly a cry. In that same moment, the storm halted, causing even the nurses and doctor to look up in surprise.
Newborn Shanti’s eyes were the rich, golden color of cognac, and they gazed at everyone with the surprise of Alice having just slid through the keyhole and into Wonderland.
Though never a great believer in signs, Young Mrs. Shanti regarded the moment of her daughter’s birth to be an immense blessing. This was no ordinary girl. Not when her mere presence had tamed a powerful force of nature. There could be no other name for her than Shanti.
“Ma! That’s already her name!” Nine year old Arun had pointed out.
“It might look strange on a passport,” Mr. Shanti added as he lifted the baby into his arms.
“Ooh,” he cooed, gazing into his daughter’s lovely, liquid eyes.
Young Mrs. Shanti watched her husband’s resolve melt and knew she was right. With this name, their daughter would bestow light and peace to all who would have the privilege of knowing her.
Unfortunately the double name seemed to cancel out his effects. Quizzes and tests sent her stomach into violent, cramping spasms. But because school anxiety always made her study harder, her parents could hardly complain.
The problem was that Shanti was also in danger of going to pieces everywhere else. If she had to order for herself in a restaurant it took a lot of sit up straight and speak up! from her parents before she could manage anything above a whisper.
Whenever she had to greet a group of relatives, her body shrank and she was pushed forward. Shanti’s parents collectively seethed with embarrassment as she was passed around for hugs and kisses and pinches all the while remaining as passive and emotionless as a doll. Especially when other kids bounced so confidently through a crowd.
To toughen her up, Shanti’s parents sent her to Taekwondo lessons. It worked, initially. There was new confidence that came with her first three belts. It all went sour however during her green belt test. Just before the sparring portion, Shanti fainted onto the mat with an undignified smack. She had to watch the rest of her class complete the test while she leaned against a wall holding an ice pack to the back of her neck.
That night, her parents decided that if extracurricular activities couldn’t fix her, then it was back to hitting the books and hitting them hard. Anyway, fun activities were the death of academic success. Something Shanti couldn’t afford since she didn’t seem to have much else going for her.
So, Shanti traded in her uniform and belts for after-school science camps, summer math labs, Spanish and Japanese lessons, and extra tutoring sessions at the library. Because she didn’t appear to self-destruct in university, or attempt to drop out, (not that they would have let that happen) her parents concluded they had fixed her.
During her first summer holiday, the three of them attended a family wedding. As a child, Shanti usually stationed herself in a corner with a cup of punch or hid in the bathroom until a cousin was sent to look for her.
To everyone’s shock, Shanti was now weaving her way through the tables, hugging and greeting relatives on her own.
“I had no idea she could dance that well,”Mr. Shanti exclaimed that night in bed. “Clearly she’s thriving at school.”
“Yes, but let’s make sure she’s not dancing away her education,” replied Young Mrs. Shanti. Though her voice too, quivered with pride.
Actually she was thriving, but academics were only the half of it. She had established a few cozy friendships, but the campus also offered plenty of places to escape when being around people became too much.
Her second major discovery was whiskey. The stress of her first ever exams had been wreaking havoc on her stomach and her nails seemed permanently fastened to her arms. Shanti had set herself under so much pressure that all of the good habits she had built up like taking long afternoon walks and finding a different sunny bench every week, went out the window.
As a response to the stress, the residents in Shanti’s hall threw a weeknight night full moon party. A biochemistry student at the end of the hall had procured two plastic bottles of whiskey of the finest quality. He was visiting every room to distribute what he called shots to study your nerves! The more of his own nerve tonic he consumed, the more hilarious he found his pun.
When it was Shanti’s turn, she had no shot glass, nor could she be sure that her parents had no way of finding out. Her protest was quelled when her benefactor poured an unceremonious amount into her tea mug, mixing it with the cold dregs of orange pekoe tea.
Although the whiskey burned all the way to her nose hairs, the bit of tea helped to mask its taste of furniture polish. Amazed by her own daring, Shanti passed the rest of the night ensconced in making flashcards as she sipped the revolting beverage.
Since then, Shanti found that a glass of whiskey, nursed slowly could soothe some of the most stressful situations. Not getting carried away of course. She just enjoyed the warmth of it settling in her stomach, grounding her and masking the usual jumpiness.
Of course her family would have been horrified if they found out. There would probably be tears. Therefore, even though her uncles had been doing this for years and all anyone did was cluck their tongues before refilling their glasses, it seemed best to keep this occasional habit quiet.
At this moment however, years away from those calming days on her college campus, Shanti would have required half the inventory of a good distillery to settle her frayed nerves.
Her mind sped through everything still needing to be peeled, chopped, roasted, boiled and fried, then looped back somewhere at the beginning again. Not only that, but everything had to be ready to hand off to a trusted aunty so she would have time to shower and get herself ready.
Panic had blurred her focus on the outer world, kept her rooted to the spot and she stood in the middle of her upset tray of tea cups, trembling with anxiety.
“Everything ok?” Arun’s voice in the doorway startled her out of her fog.
Shanti peeled off her wet socks just as Arun tossed a wet rag in her direction. It landed in the puddle, splashing her with tea. She glared at him.
“Sorry,” he grinned. “Shouldn’t you be prepping dinner?”
“Yes, but now I have to drop everything to organize their fucking tea break!”
“Tell one of them to take care of it.”
“You want me to walk into a room full of aunties, uncles, and everything in between and tell them they should do something themselves?” Shanti threw the sodden rag at him.
“Wipe. Please,” she commanded moodily.
While Arun made minimal progress on the puddle, he watched the bunched muscles in Shanti’s upper back at the sink as she rinsed the tea tray.
“I’m sorry you have so much to do.”
“It’s how I win back some of ‘the good child’ points from you.”
Arun ignored this implication, though it soured in his empty stomach a little. “Can I do anything to help?”
“Make more tea.”
“Oh, ok. ”
He hadn’t expected her to say yes. Actually he had been hoping to get something to eat.