what appeared to be a stifling relationship, while baby number three was on the way. I wondered whose decision it had been to have another baby, Jayant’s or Lata’s. Who had given in to the pressure I am sure Thatha had firmly put on the couple?
“How are Apoorva and Shalini doing?” I changed the topic to her children as I cut through the large yellow pumpkin.
“Very well,” she said with pride. “Shalini started Bharatnatyam classes and she dances with so much grace, and Apoorva is learning how to play the veena. I always say it is important for girls to know some classical dance or music.”
“How do they feel about getting a little brother or a sister?”
She raised her eyebrows holding a piece of bottle gourd in midair. She slid it on the blade and put two pieces of the gourd in the steel bowl by her side. “Who told you? Neelima?”
“Not Neelima,” I lied, as I started parting the peel of the pumpkin from its flesh.
Lata picked up the pieces of peeled pumpkin and sliced them on the blade jutting out of the wooden board and dropped them in another steel bowl.
“They made me,” she said. “First, it was just Mava and then it was Atha and then Jayant started. What could I say? I have some duty toward my husband’s family.”
“What if you have another daughter?” I asked what was probably the most taboo question.
“I won’t,” she told me with fervor, as if even thinking about it would make it happen. “I know I could, but I hope I won’t. All this for nothing, then.”
“What will you do if it’s a girl?” I persisted.
Lata smiled softly and met my eyes without flinching. “I love my children. I don’t care if they are girls or boys. And I will love this baby, too. I only want it to be a boy so that your Thatha will be happy.”
I didn’t believe her.
“We will find out next week whether the baby is a boy or girl,” she added. “They can tell in the sixteenth week itself these days with that amnio test.”
“And then?”
“Then we will know.”
I didn’t care to ask her if she would have an abortion at that point; somehow, I didn’t want to know the answer.
All this for nothing, then, she had said, and her words echoed in my brain for a long time.
Lunch was served at the large dining table that filled the entire dining area next to the kitchen. Steel plates clinked on the Formica table and steel glasses tried to find a foothold. The table was in disharmony with its surroundings. The Formica clashed with the red and yellow window frame against which the table leaned; it took up too much space and didn’t really match with the cane dining chairs that Thatha had bought years before he had the table.
The Formica itself was lumpy, marred by errors of placing a hot pot directly on it or spilling water that seeped in between the thin vinyl layer and cheap wood.
The new dining table had replaced a sturdy old wooden table, which was just a few feet high and required us to sit cross-legged on straw mats to eat. But that table had to be put away in storage when Ammamma’s arthritis demanded something that would be easy on her knees. Thatha bought the table at a small furniture store in Abids that specialized in gaudy TV stands and sold other assorted items of the same low quality as the dining table.
Thatha had liked the size of the table and the shining top had appealed to him as well. It had taken only six months for the shining top to become dull and lumpy, but by then the small furniture store had closed down and Thatha got stuck with the table, lumps and all.
A mound of hot rice settled in the center of the table and around it dark bobbing heads joined steel utensils filled with avial, bottle gourd pappu, potato curry, and cold yogurt.
Two jugs of ice-cold water were emptied in little time and the ceiling fan rattled endlessly, providing little surcease from the interminable heat. But I was getting used to it.
“Have you been to Noo Yark?” my grandmother asked as she attacked her food, her mouth open as she chewed.
“Yes,” I said, and dropped my eyes to my plate where my fingers danced with the rice and the creamy bottle gourd pappu. How easy it was to eat with my fingers again. I had