Total pages in book: 184
Estimated words: 186756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 934(@200wpm)___ 747(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 934(@200wpm)___ 747(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
Every. Time.
Every single time I watch this movie—and I’ve seen it thirty-seven times including today and all with my biji—I think it won’t happen. I think they won’t get their happy ending, that she’ll miss the train and the love of her life will be gone forever. And then she’ll have to marry the guy her father wants her to and she’ll spend her life heartbroken and pining for the guy she’s in love with.
But thank God, it’s a movie.
A Bollywood movie at that, where happy endings are almost guaranteed.
Not in real life, though, is it?
In real life, the guy you love turns out to be a big jerk and you end up regretting the day you ever met him. You end up regretting all the things you’ve done in his name and all the hearts you’ve broken.
In real life, you have to face the consequences.
Which is why as I watch the credits rolling on the TV, I blurt out to my biji, “I’m doing it.”
We’re sitting side by side on the bed with a large pink-colored margarita glass between us that we’re sharing and two straws coming out of it. I’m in my heart-print bikini and so is my biji; although hers is a one-piece. We both have pink-colored, heart-shaped glasses on, and we both are sporting blood-red lipstick. We are absolutely twinning in her old age home room and pretending to get tans because in reality, it’s fucking snowing out there and we’re trapped.
At my announcement, she looks at me.
Even though I can’t see her eyes behind her glasses, I know she’s studying me shrewdly. She’s in her eighties, but my biji is a very sharp woman. She just knows things without me having to tell her. And her knowledge about human emotions and life’s curveballs is unparalleled.
I love her to pieces.
She’s been with me almost all my life. She moved to America after Dada ji, my grandfather, died when I was about three or so. And since my mother never liked her, she always made sure that Biji stayed in a different house than us and always supervised our visits. And then when the time came, my mother sent her to live at an old age home. Just like she sent me away to live in Bardstown.
Although since my biji’s home is in Bardstown too, I don’t mind it all that much. I hate that she has to live here, though. I wish she could stay with me, but my mother would never ever agree to that. She already thinks I’m the way I am because of my biji.
The only consolation that my biji lives with strangers is that these strangers love her too. Well, I mean she has not one but two boyfriends—one younger than her by five years and from Nebraska, and the other older by two and from London. They both adore her equally and know that my biji is a firecracker who doesn’t believe in commitments, not after her being married to the love of her life. There’s another resident here with his eyes on my biji, but she isn’t interested in him all that much. He’s from India and she says she’s already dated, loved, married an Indian and so she needs variety now.
Anyway, back to her and her scrutinizing eyes.
“Doing what?” she asks.
I take an innocent—not—sip of my margarita before mumbling, “Saying yes.”
I keep my eyes trained on the rolling credits on purpose and thank God for my shades. Because I don’t want to look into her eyes directly. I know what I’ll find: disappointment and displeasure. And while I can deal with my mother’s disappointment—it hurts like hell but still—I can’t deal with the same from Biji.
“Tell me you’re joking,” she says.
“Well, I would”—I take another sip and still keep watching the TV—“if I could.”
“Look at me,” she commands.
“No, thank you.”
I can feel her staring very severely at me. “Isadora.”
“Biji.” I employ the same tone.
“Look at me,” she says again.
“I think I’m fine.”
She sighs sharply. “Isadora, meri bacchi, aakhein idhar kar.”
So that was Hindi.
I don’t understand Hindi all that much or Punjabi, predominantly spoken in the northern part of India where my biji and my mom are from, that my biji also speaks in sometimes.
This I understand, however.
Meri bacchi means my girl, spoken affectionately most of the time. And the other part, even though I don’t understand quite literally, I can deduce from the context. She’s probably asking me the same thing—to look at her—like before.
“You know, Biji, this is really not fair.” I squirm in my seat a little, still stalling. “You know I don’t understand Hindi all that much and it makes me feel very stupid when you—”
“Haye Rabba, iss ladki ke natak,” she mutters. When I go to tell her that I don’t understand that either, she doesn’t let me. “It means stop being a drama queen because I know you understood what I said before. You’re not an idiot. Unfortunately, neither am I. So can we get to the point?”