The Mango Season - By Amulya Malladi Page 0,23

and passionately argued our stance; even when I called him from the U.S., we’d get excited talking about something and our tempers would flare. I think he respected me because I was opinionated and not afraid to tell him how I felt and because I openly disagreed with him. Sometimes I felt that I argued a point just to earn his respect. He was important to me; his opinion mattered; he mattered.

The man was a bigot, a racist, a chauvinist, and generally too arrogant for anyone’s liking, yet I loved him. Family never came in neat little packages with warranty signs on them. Thatha was all that I disliked in people, but he was also a lot more—he had a backbone of steel and an iron will to make the best of a bad situation. When Thatha joined the State Bank of AP right after Independence, he was just a lowly bank teller. When he retired he had been a bank manager of the large Hyderabad branch. His never-say-die spirit was also mine. I was his blood; there was no denying it and when our tempers flared I knew that I was a lot more like him than I would like to admit.

“In several arranged marriages, couples don’t fall in love with each other, they merely tolerate each other,” I told him. “I know some women who are unhappy with the husband their parents chose . . . but they can’t do anything about it. Why condemn anyone to a lifetime of unhappiness?”

“Lifetime of unhappiness?” Thatha said loudly, mockingly. “Priya, you are talking like we marry our children off to rapists and murderers. Parents love their children and do what is best for them.”

I shook my head. “I think a lot of parents don’t know their children very well and if they don’t know their own child, how can they know what would be best for them?”

“You think you’re smarter than your parents?” Thatha asked pointedly.

“Sometimes.”

Thatha laughed, a big booming sound, reverberating from inside his chest. “This hair didn’t get white in the sun,” he said, patting his thick white hair, which refused to give way to baldness despite his age.

“You think you are very smart?” I asked.

Thatha just grinned.

“Well . . . what do you think about Lata being pregnant for all the wrong reasons?” I asked because it was nagging me.

“I said I was smart, not broad-minded.” Thatha arched his right eyebrow, in the way my mother could, I could. “But it also depends upon what your reasons are. I believe the family name has to be carried on.”

“At any cost?”

“Not at any cost ” Thatha said, and smiled.

“Neelima is pregnant, you know,” I informed him, and saw his eyes darken with anger. “What if she has a son?”

“Then she has a son,” he shrugged.

The calm way in which he declared a grandchild inconsequential to his plans angered me. “What if . . . Nanna was not a Brahmin? What if Ma and Nanna had fallen in love and had gotten married? Would you not be my Thatha?”

He stood up then and I knew I had crossed some imaginary line he had laid down. “We will never know,” he said coolly, and then he broke into a smile. “You are here for another few days,” he urged brightly. “I don’t want to argue over something that does not concern you.”

I was defeated but I knew I had to choose my battles. “Let’s go inside,” I suggested. “It’s time for lunch, maybe I can help cook.”

“Make some avial. You make the best avial, ” he ordered sweetly.

Avial was the only South Indian dish I cooked that tasted the way it should. Thatha loved my avial, even more than he liked Ma’s.

TO: PRIYA RAO

FROM: NICHOLAS COLLINS

SUBJECT: RE: RE: GOOD TRIP?

HAVEN’T HEARD FROM YOU. YOU MUST BE AT YOUR GRANDMA’S PLACE MAKING PICKLE. JUST WANTED TO TELL YOU THAT YOU ARE MISSED.

NICK

Part Two

Oil and Spices

Avial (South Indian)

1 cup sour curds (for yogurt)

150 grams of yam or yellow pumpkin

2 raw bananas

2 drumsticks (an Indian vegetable available fresh or

canned)

1 potato

½ cup shelled peas

½ teaspoon turmeric powder

¼ cup coconut oil

a few curry leaves

salt to taste

For Paste

½ coconut

6 to 7 green chiles

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

Grind together the coconut, green chiles, and cumin seeds to make a fine paste, adding very little water while grinding. Mix the curd with the ground paste and keep aside. Peel and chop all the vegetables and cook separately with a little water. Mix all the cooked vegetables and