would always want to touch the women who were sitting out. I didn’t know what “sitting out” meant and I would try to get away with touching the women. Once it was my grandmother and I ended up being doused with a bucketful of water from the well to cleanse me. Needless to say, after that I never had the desire to touch any woman who sat out.
When the women sit out, the men have to cook, and that was how my grandfather and most Brahmin men learned how to cook.
Now, when Sowmya has her period, my mother comes and cooks or Lata does it. After all, it was not right for the man of the house to spend any time in the kitchen when he had grown daughters.
I wondered if Ammamma knew how to cook—she must, I rationalized. Her parents would never have permitted her not to learn. I wondered why Ma never encouraged me to cook. She was always trying to get me out of the kitchen: “You will mess everything up and then I will have to clean it. Just stay out of here and let me deal with my headache. . . . I don’t need any help.”
I learned to cook a few dishes but all in all there was no way I could cook a meal for several people the way Sowmya or Ma could.
When I used to complain to Nanna that Ma would not let me cook, he would say that I was going to be a “career woman” and didn’t need to learn how to cook. “You will make lots of money and you can just hire a cook. No chopping and dicing for my little princess.”
To Ma cleanliness was next to godliness and there was no way in this big wide earth that she would let anyone besides herself cook in her kitchen. After a while my enthusiasm also waned and I just never got around to learning the most important art of all for a woman, cooking.
I heard the rumble of the metal gate being opened and I twisted my head to look out the kitchen window.
“That must be Neelima,” Sowmya said, as she loaded the cups on a tray. “You take this out and I will make sure they don’t kill her with the mango knives.”
Neelima looked exactly like the kind of person I thought Anand would marry. She was tiny, five feet no inches, and she was very pretty and perky with her shoulder-length hair swishing around her face whenever she talked. She smiled sweetly and looked like a doll in her beautiful red sari.
She was genuinely pleased with my gift. I had seen a picture of her in which her hair had been tied in a French knot, so I got her ivory combs.
Lata immediately leaned over to look carefully at the combs and I could hear the calculator hum inside her head. She was probably thinking how the shawl, even though expensive, was probably not as expensive as the combs . . . or was it? My mother was torn between anger and pride. She was upset that I had spent all this money and she was also pleased that I was giving away such expensive-looking gifts. My giving expensive gifts guaranteed that when the situation arose (like my wedding), I would get expensive gifts in return.
“You are late,” was all my grandmother said to Neelima once the introductions were made and the gift given.
“I had to stop by at the doctor’s clinic,” Neelima said shyly. “I am ten weeks pregnant,” she announced.
Sowmya and I hugged her and rambled on about little babies and how wonderful it was. The contrast was painful. Ammamma asked us to spread the mangoes, Ma just glowered, while Lata started talking about how the first trimester was the time when most miscarriages took place. I was appalled. Who were these people? And why were they behaving like women from a B-grade Telugu movie?
I dropped a basket of mangoes between Neelima and me and sat down cross-legged. “Here.” I handed her a large knife and put a cutting board in front of her as I did in front of me as well.
“Wait,” my grandmother said. “Don’t mix the mangoes.” She pointed to the ones between Neelima and me. “Those are ours. Sowmya, you take care of them. Let us chop our own mangoes. That way the good and bad mangoes won’t get mixed.”
There were different piles of mangoes in the hall. The mangoes