a fight,” I had to tell him in case he misunderstood me. “They were lambasting the United States and I lost it . . . a little.”
My father gave a long sigh as if he understood it was going to be a long night.
“I got angry,” I continued. “And I said something about the States being different from India . . . in the sense . . . that there, no one is forced to have a baby to provide a male heir.” My mouth twisted sheepishly and I waited for my father to admonish me.
He shrugged. “You are right.”
“Really?” My eyes brightened.
“But you had no business telling that to him,” he said, thwarting my hopes of finding an ally in the family over this particular issue. “He is old and set in his ways. Leave him alone.”
“Leave whom alone?” A voice thundered from inside the house and both my father and I were startled like criminals caught in the act.
Thatha stepped outside in his white lungi and the thin ceremonial thread that ran across his chest as it did across every Brahmin man’s chest. Nanna, who was hardly religious, kept losing his thread. It always amused Nate and I how Nanna scrambled to find the thread whenever he had to visit Ammamma and Thatha .
“As long as I don’t take my shirt off, the nosey old bastard won’t make an issue out of it,” Nanna would say if he couldn’t find the thread.
Even though my father disliked Thatha, he was always polite, always respectful. I think that annoyed Thatha more because he could not really point to any of my father’s obvious flaws.
“Namaskaram,” Nanna said, and folded his hands in acknowledgment. “How are you doing?”
Thatha sat down beside me, his mouth twisted in a pout. “Sowmya has coffee for you inside, Ashwin.”
My father looked at me with his kind soft eyes that twinkled from beneath his steel-framed glasses. “Want to come and have coffee with your old man, Priya?” he asked in an effort to save me.
“Thanks,” I said gratefully, and smiled. “If you don’t mind, I’ll talk to this old man for a while,” I said, inclining my head toward Thatha.
“I don’t like being yelled at in my own house by my own granddaughter,” Thatha started without preamble as soon as my father went into the hall. “I feel the way I feel and I will continue to feel that way.”
I stared at the white cloth that was draped around his hips and wondered why south Indian men persisted to wear this garb in the twenty-first century. It was great during the summers, but still, a thin sheet of cloth wrapped around your legs was hardly protection. Added to that was how men did not wear any underwear beneath the lungi. One false, thoughtless move and all was open for public viewing. I had seen my share of penises because of the fascination south Indian men had for lungis.
“Are you listening to me?” Thatha demanded.
“I’m listening,” I said a little cockily. “But I was not raised to keep silent when people unjustly—”
“You were not raised to raise your voice in the presence of elders,” Thatha interrupted me.
“Well, everything that Ma and Nanna taught didn’t stick,” I said, and shrugged. “Come on, Thatha, what were you thinking? That I’m a little shy girl? I’m not. . . . You’ve always known that.”
Thatha took my hand in his and nodded. “No, you were always the one with the sharp temper. Not a good thing in a girl . . . even an American-returned one.”
“I’m sorry I raised my voice, but I’m not sorry about the male heir remark,” I said in compromise. If the old man was going to meet me halfway, I could manage the other half.
“I need a male heir and I thought this discussion was over,” he said.
“You brought it up again,” I sighed, and decided to make some amends for my bad behavior. “Thatha, sometimes I don’t like the way you think and sometimes I don’t like the way my entire family thinks. You know what, it doesn’t make a difference. I still love you all very much and I’ll always love you. But that doesn’t mean I have to nod my head when you say something wrong.”
That seemed to get to him. I think the “I love you” part did it. He patted my hand and rose from his chair. “It is okay. Come inside and have coffee.”