The shades of green

Everything was bathed in an orange heat. There was nothing to shield the road from the sun’s fury – just a few large single storied buildings, and a vast expanse of emptiness. She checked her rear view mirror and saw two cars and another SUV.

Parvati turned on the radio. She found a country music station. She hated country music. She punched the seek button furiously - hip hop, classical, country music again, eighties love songs, some woman selling mattresses, country music again, some man selling Jesus. Static. Country music. After a few minutes, she gave up in frustration.

The signboard for the strip mall where the grocery store was located loomed up in front of her. “Shopper’s Delight. Best prices guaranteed” The parking lot was almost deserted. It was three in the afternoon. And in a town where nothing much happened in any case, three pm was a particularly uneventful time of day. A heavy stillness descended on the entire place. It seemed like a struggle to move. Sometimes Parvati felt that it was hard to even breathe.

There were a few stray shoppers there. A white old lady entered the store with her. She had poofy blonde hair that was carefully arranged to hide the baldness within. The aisles were a vision of plenty. Shelves and shelves filled with cartons and cans of all colors, shapes and sizes. A cornucopia of consumption.

She walked through the aisles – looking but unable to focus. She pulled out her grocery list from her purse. She needed to buy some things for the party on the weekend. Every month, one Indian family would host a party where other Indians in Edmund were invited. When she came here twelve years ago from Detroit, there were twenty Indian families and she knew all of them. Now there were more than a hundred, and she didn’t even know all the Telugu families even though she knew of them. Edmund even had its own Indian store now with avakkai pickles, dals, spices, and new Telugu and Hindi DVDS. For her husband, Charvarti, the Indian store had made life in Edmund, Oklahoma very livable. He desired nothing more than his pessaruttu and podi. After more than twenty years in America, he still had not developed a taste for pizza and pasta. He insisted on Indian food everyday. Even matar paneer was too exotic for his taste buds. And for this weekend’s party, she would be putting on an Indian spread. It would be completely vegetarian, and completely tried and tested. As a young bride, she had experimented with her cooking – wanting to impress her new husband. But she soon realized that her husband preferred the old and familiar. So for the last twelve years in Edmund, they had had the same friends, had the same meals, and had the same conversations. Conversations about which college their kids were going to, conversation about the cheapest fares to India, conversations about cricket and politics back home, conversations about property prices, and conversations about saris that women displayed as treasured conquests after their annual holiday to India.

Parvati picked up a bottle of canola oil, and as she was pulling her hand back – there was a loud crash. Six glass jars of olives splintered on to the floor. Shards of glass. Pieces of green bounced and skipped. Spiraling like those other green pieces from a long time ago.

***********************

She could still remember that summer afternoon. It was perhaps three in the afternoon as well. A quite time of day in Amalapuram. The dogs stopped barking, the birds stopped chirping. The men took a break from their fields and lay down under the shade of a tree. The women having woken up at four took a break from cooking, fetching water, feeding babies, milking cows and dozed in their courtyards. It was too hot for anyone to attempt to do anything – the afternoon sun was so brutal and scathing. For seventeen year old Parvati, this was her favorite time of day. There was a strange beauty and grace about it – a sense of tranquility and peace. Everyone would lower their guard and let themselves be lulled into the stillness.

For Parvati, this was also the perfect time to sneak out of the house. The youngest daughter of a prosperous land owner, she was always held back from the outside world. She was the family jewel . The village beauty. The bearer of the family’s honor. Her father , her grandmother, her uncles, aunts and assorted servants ensured that she was not allowed to step outside the house alone. When she finished high school her father refused to let her continue on to college. He didn’t think that a college education was going to be much use for young girl who was destined to marry rich. Offers had already starting pouring in for her.

So Parvati made the most of the two hours before dusk. She would quietly pry open the door, and run through the paddy fields pulling up her petticoat in her hands. She would jump across the narrow canal, climb over the fences of the mango orchard, and then run some more. She was breathless by the time she reached the other end of the orchard. And no matter what, he was always there waiting for her.

She had first met Babu – a shy teenage boy- when he had accompanied his father to her house. He had stood by quietly as his father pleaded with her father for some credit. She stood behind the pillar of the courtyard and watched him. Even while his father was groveling, he stood there with the demeanor of a warrior. Humble but not humiliated.

She had known from the very beginning that he was not right. She also knew from the very beginning that he would not fight for her or rescue her from her father’s fortress. They both knew that their ways would part, and they both knew that what they shared was just a moment in time. They would lie on the grass and look up at the leaves of the trees. She was always amazed at how many different shades of green they were. She would talk incessantly. And as she lay there talking, she could feel his fingers on her skin. She never did anything. She would just look at the leaves and the skies but she would let him touch her.

So far her afternoon trips had occurred without incident. Parvati had a faint suspicion that her mother knew but for some reason chose not to confront her about it. The only times she had to change her plans was when it rained because being soaking wet was a dead give away.

That afternoon as she tiptoed across the courtyard towards the door, there was a loud crash. Six glass jars of pickled mangoes splintered across the floor. Shards of glass. And pieces of green bounced and spiraled…

First the servants, then her aunts and then her grandmother – the matriarch of the house – were jolted out of their sleep. Her grandmother promptly decreed that Parvati be married within the next month. Several suitable boys were considered, but a twenty five year old engineer – the son of a rich landlord – who lived in America was seen as the most eligible. In 1978, living in America was still a relatively rare and sought after qualification for Andhra grooms.

Parvati unpacked the groceries and started putting things away in the refrigerator. She had bought a lot more than she needed. But her daughter, Shravani, was going to come home from college for the July fourth weekend, and she wanted the freezer to be well stocked. Though she was an only child – she had not shared a very close bond with her daughter. She had done what every responsible mother is supposed to do, and Sharvani was doing what responsible daughters are supposed to do. She wasn’t a troublesome child. She had got good grades at school, and had much to her father’s delight opted to go to med school.

Sometimes she wondered if behind the façade of a good daughter, Sharvani was sneaking out secretly to meet someone. But Parvati found it hard to picture such a scenario. There were no paddy fields, no mango orchards here. And there were no over protective aunts and grandmothers. Sharvani could hop into her car and drive up to Chuky Cheese to meet some boy anytime she wanted. No, Sharvani was a good girl. She studied a lot, and whenever she came home, all she really did was eat and sleep.

After she finished putting the groceries away, Parvati took out the bag of tondli she had bought at the Indian store. This was her husband’s favorite vegetable. She chopped them into thin circular slices and smeared some turmeric on them. And when the oil heated up in the pan, she threw in the tondli. The small pieces spluttered. And within minutes the shades changed – from a deep green to a dry yellow. Even now, she was mystified by how many different shades of green there were.