Part 9 (1/2)

*Yes it is, Preeti. Please eat, Dad,' Rahul says. He pushes the palak towards me and pours dal over the rice on my plate.

Last night, in what was clearly not a private complaint, I overheard Preeti say: *I slave in the kitchen every day to make Indian food, not for us, but for him, because I know he doesn't eat anything else. And yet he pushes the food around in his plate, wasting most of it.'

*Old people eat less, Preeti,' I heard Rahul reason back.

*Yes, they do. But he doesn't eat at all. All my hard work goes to waste.'

I know they're both watching me, so I shove a spoonful of rice and dal into my mouth and swallow, wondering how so much will go down my throat.

After a while Jay's voice chimes in. *Daddy, see. I beat Grandpa again. Ate so much more than him.'

*That doesn't count,' Karan rebuts. *Grandpa has had only one bite. I saw.'

Preeti drops a tablespoon noisily on her plate and leaves the table.

The next morning, after walking Jay and Karan to Campbell Elementary School, I take a further twentyminute walk to Menlo Park Mall where I meet my group of friends. All of us live in Edison, New Jersey, in the US, and spend our weekdays hanging around the seating area outside the department store Macy's.

I met this group by chance. Five years ago, after Karen's death, I found that I had no one to talk to. Rahul worked long hours at his dental clinic in Trenton. Preeti was busy at her market research firm in Manhattan. I spent my days shuffling Jay and Karan to and from their school, but was otherwise alone at home.

One Monday, after dropping Jay and Karan to school, I decided that instead of going home I'd get a cup of coffee at the nearby mall. It had been months since I'd bought anything for myself. As I was coming out of Rainforest Cafe I noticed a group of five elderly Indians sitting outside Macy's. They were playing cards and chatting. It was rare to see Indians my age gathered in a group like this; I was unable to look away. I went back the next day to see if they were there-they were-but I didn't approach them, unsure if I'd be welcome in their group. For three more days I did this, and looking at them made me realize how much I missed having someone to talk to.

I hatched a plan. The next week, after school, I took my grandsons to Cold Stone Creamery. Since the ice cream parlour was conveniently located next to Macy's, I told them to sit on a bench opposite the group. It was Dave Pat-shortened from Devinder Patel-who came up to me and struck up a conversation. *We all noticed you last week. Why don't you join us, yaar?'

So I sat with this group, which called itself the *Mall Rats', and sometimes, as I later found out, *House Rats'. Like me, they were Indian immigrants and lived with their children. Basking in the simple joy of being heard, I started going to the mall every weekday during the children's school time.

The others are already at our usual spot when I reach. Amid the familiar noises of the cash register ringing at H&M and the hairdryer warming up at the unis.e.x salon, there's an occasional baby's cry or the guffaw of a rowdy teenager from the light crowd that potters around.

We're chatting amongst each other when Mrs Patel says, *Ah! Finally, we can have tea. Divya is here.'

I pat my head as if it still has hair on it-a habit from the past.

Each week one person from the group brings tea for everyone. This week it's Mrs Gupta's turn, which causes a minor inconvenience since she comes only by eleven-later than us all-after dropping her granddaughter to kindergarten.

*h.e.l.loji! h.e.l.loji!' she says, hurling three bags on the seat next to me. She's moved here from Nas.h.i.+k only ten months ago. *Sorry I be late. Had to walk all the way to Kish.o.r.e Mart to buy adrak and roads here walk faster than me. Without adrak chai, k.u.marji would not enjoy, no?'

She smiles at me through her dentures. A line of sweat has gathered above her upper lip, probably from the hot sun outside. She isn't wearing an ounce of makeup, and her thin mouth looks pale, her light brown eyes vulnerable. The only hint of colour on her is her patchily dyed grey-black hair, knotted at the nape of her neck.

I clear my throat before replying, *I always enjoy your tea, Mrs Gupta.'

*Arre, call me Divya, ji.'

*Yes, Mrs Gupta.'

Everyone smiles.

We take out our Styrofoam cups as Mrs Gupta rummages through her bags and pulls out two thermos flasks.

*This is one with sugar,' she says, handing me a flask. *And this without sugar, Patelji.' She gives the second flask to Dave.

Dave takes a long sip of the steaming tea and says, *Divya, your tea reminds me of my mother's. She used to make the best tea in the world.' His baritone voice emphasizes the words *best' and *mother'.

His wife, Mrs Patel, looks up from her knitting. Her sari, draped a little short around her portly frame, edges higher, and it is only thanks to the long cotton socks she wears-out of modesty, I conclude-that the skin on her legs remains hidden from view. She says, *His diabetes has gone to his head. He never compliments anyone without mentioning his mother first.'

Dave retorts, *Another spontaneous combustion,' and we all laugh. They're the only couple left among us and their outbursts remind us of our own spouses, dead and gone.

*Is that smell of curry coming from your bag, Divya?' Raj Sharma simpers. He tightens the brown m.u.f.fler around his spindly neck and zips up his black woollen jacket, even though the mall's air conditioner is set to high today.

I sniff the air too and catch a familiar smell that I'm unable to place.

*These are just smell of readymade curry I buy earlier for my son,' Mrs Gupta says, s.h.i.+fting in her seat, giving me a sidelong glance. That's when I realize that Mrs Gupta's big bag contains our little secret. I smile at her conspiratorially.

Two days ago, in an excited voice, Mrs Gupta had told me that she would be making a special lunch for me today. She'd added, *Please not to tell others. It will be difficult no, to make lunch for so much people?' I guess that Mrs Gupta wants to spend time alone with me-as I do with her-but is probably afraid that our group will gossip, not realizing that friends.h.i.+p is deliberate and measured at our age: its interferences and judgements only fool the young.

*s.h.i.+ney used to love curry, especially shrimp curry,' says Dave quietly, adjusting the cus.h.i.+on he is sitting on. On his right is a Victorian walking stick with a gilded spire, a gift from the Mall Rats for his rheumatoid arthritis.

Last month, a former group member-s.h.i.+ney-whom I'd never met, succ.u.mbed to a stroke. He was Dave's neighbour and for fifteen years did nothing but look after his grandchildren. Once they grew up, he was told to move out; his son wanted *s.p.a.ce'. An old-age home, which we a.s.sociated with a sterilized walk to the guillotine, was not an option, so s.h.i.+ney rented a small studio apartment and lived there alone. He slept there alone and he ate there alone. Soon he stopped talking and came to the mall irregularly; then his visits ceased completely.

Still, as they all shut their eyes and mutter a little prayer for s.h.i.+ney, I feel nothing. Death has become so predictable that I have neither the youthful reverence of it nor the middle-age fear.

Though my eyes are too jaded to perform, I notice Raj's eyes fill up. He unlocks a Ziploc bag containing pink, white and brown tablets. After watching his wife die slowly from cancer, Raj treats his body with dizzying alertness, like a first-time parent with his newborn.

Death does this to people: it makes cowards, preachers and mourners of the living; makes the dead-ign.o.ble or not-objects of respect for what they achieve before the rest of us.

Dave, his breath heavy, says, *I told s.h.i.+ney: ”Even in Rome, do as the Americans do.” Develop interests aside from your children. Look at Steve and Karen, my American neighbours. They didn't revolve their life and money around their children. Now in their old age, they are living in style, riding their Harley on Monday afternoons. I wish s.h.i.+ney had listened. I know it wasn't the stroke that killed him; it was the silence.'

Dave's eyes become wet. Mrs Patel wipes his fogged gla.s.ses and puts them back on him.

We're all startled by a flash. We turn around to see four teenagers. One of them has a cellphone with which he's taken a photo of us.

*Don't stare. It will only encourage them,' Mrs Patel hisses to Mrs Gupta. She has a point. Sitting in the mall day after day, like mannequins on public display, we have become objects of ridicule, especially in the easy black-or-white judgement of the young. We have to stay as invisible here as we do in our homes.

Mrs Gupta keeps staring at them. It's difficult-I know-for her to let go of her Indian ways. We'd been alone once-when everyone else had left early-and she'd cried to me about the silence in her life. With little respect and no rights, her life in India as a widow had become difficult, so she quickly accepted her son's invitation to move to the US. *Here no one is home, no one come home. My ear it want to hear knock of neighbour or sabziwallah. I want to gossip nicely with my friend. But I am completely alone whole of day,' she had said softly.

I feel for Mrs Gupta, I really do. It is not easy being part of the immigrant story, and filling the empty s.p.a.ce of shapes that used to be there.

When I first landed in the US, fifty years ago, I'd skittishly hailed a taxi to the Illinois University campus, a ride that would cost my family half our monthly income. Outside the dorm, I pulled out my bags hurriedly, hoping the meter wasn't still running, and, as the taxi exited the driveway, realized that I'd left a bag behind. There was only one thing to do: lodge a complaint with the campus police.

*I put my bags in the d.i.c.ky and left one of them in there,' I said to them, my voice high-pitched and vowels truncated-my first conversation with white people.

*You left one of your bags in the what, sir?'

*In the d.i.c.ky.'

*In the what, sir?'

*In the back of the taxi, sir. Where you put your bags,' I said resolutely, not believing their idiocy.