The Hindi-Bindi Club by Monica Pradhan Page B

atop the wooden table to punctuate his conclusion: “No respect for elders and family.”
    I fold my hands in my lap. This isn’t a new topic. We’ve had this conversation for years. Though intervals between grow longer and viewpoints change with time and experience, it’s our lot to compare and contrast, assess and reassess. We were born to one of the world’s oldest civilizations—
five thousand
years old—and we emigrated to one of the youngest. Which values and customs are superior: those of our birthplace, or those of the land where we chose to settle? What to adopt? What to reject? What to preserve? What to discard?
    The answers aren’t as obvious as you may think. They’re riddles. Brainteasers. Puzzles. You think this piece fits, but wait, you look again and realize you jammed it into place. A virtue in one land is a vice in another. In India, deference signifies respect, showing strength of character, not weakness. And the American notion that all men are created equal? Not in India. There, people openly acknowledge innate differences, a hierarchy of power and respect, and for the most part believe that like a card game, one plays the hand one’s dealt. Rules of the game include: Seniors trump juniors. Males trump females. Priests trump nobles and warriors. Nobles and warriors trump merchants. Merchants trump laborers.
    I used to shake my head at Uma. Uma and her compromises. Concessions that permitted her daughter to run wild. Now look whose daughter married a rock star wannabe, and whose daughter married a Bill Gates wannabe. Look who among our friends circle is closest to her daughter. Not me. Not even Saroj. It’s Uma.
    And it was Uma to whom I turned more than any other friend this past year. Uma who helped me the most.
    Sometimes solutions are counterintuitive, I think, watching as Yash drains his
lassi
. The way you must turn your wheels in the direction you’re skidding. The way you inject a virus into your body in order to build immunity. The way certain bacteria and toxins prove helpful because they attack more harmful cells. The way you must sometimes
let go
in order to
retrieve
something.
Or someone
.
    “When will you come to the house?” I ask when Yash rises to clear the dishes.
    “After you tell Kiran.”
    “By myself?” I shake my head. “I want you to be there.”
    “You’ll want mother-daughter time.”
    “Later. After. I can’t tell her by myself. I need—”
    “Okay, okay,” he says. “I’ll be there.”
    “And you’ll try your best to get along with Kiran, for me? Please, Yash. I miss her so much. I miss…having family…at home…all together.”
    He slants his gaze at me and scowls like a little boy. I picture him at age six wearing the same expression. “Only for you, Meenu,” he says, making me wish—again—I didn’t learn my lessons about love so late.
             
    W hen Yash comes home, he tries to keep the mood light, easing into things with Kiran. She proceeds with the same caution. They are two porcupines in a fragile soap bubble, afraid to get too close. That evening at the dinner table, we three sit together for the first time in more than five years.
    “Mom? Dad?” Kiran speaks first. “Here’s a crazy idea…What would you think about me…potentially…”
    When she doesn’t finish, I glance up to see her pushing food around on her plate. From the corner of her eye, she watches her father, who’s occupied with his eggplant
bhaji
. Deftly, he mixes milk, rice, and eggplant with his agile surgeon’s fingertips.
    Kiran’s never been much for rice, preferring to eat
bhajis
and
daals
with
chappati,
pairing her bites just so. I prod her, “Potentially what?”
    “Um, moving…to this area…when my contract’s up?”
    I suspect this isn’t the question she originally intended, but I can’t contain my joy. “We’d love it! Wouldn’t we, Dad?”
    Yash just took a bite. He stops chewing, looks at me, then Kiran. With a casual nod, he