Death and life were just adjacent verandas. ––Rushdie
Rushdie is right, except that in Sankapalli Death and Life were a bit further apart. About fifty meters to be precise. From the door of my again-dying grandfather we walked along the main dirt road, flanked by other houses with their own specters, and arrived at the modest home set slightly below road level. As a child, I played with someone who lived here, an older girl, a sister whom I foggily remembered. She was gone now.
A grandmother, her son and daughter-in-law greeted us warmly at the verandah. We were given seats below the lone fan. The hottest part of the day had passed but the muggy evening wasn’t cooling quickly enough. We sat sweating and had to refuse the well water because it would wreck our soft westernized stomachs. There was a water shortage in the village too; irrigation systems failed.
The daughter-in-law called in her daughter. A little girl promptly came out, went smoothly to my beckoning mother who smilingly squeezed her and told her she was adorable. Dressed in a light blue sleeveless top, a full length white and blue skirt that bellowed softly when she walked, her smooth confident features were highlighted by short boyish black hair. She sat down in a white plastic chair, slightly slouched, and prepared herself for the usual questions. Then I remembered her.
I had come to India eight years ago in 2001 and came to Sankapalli then too. The pilgrimage was done in the half dark because we arrived late in the evening and the power, the current, was out. In the last hour of light, I climbed to the roof of my grandparents’ house and stood there looking over the low rooftops. The monsoon air carried the smell of straw and cow, of dung and tropical moisture. I realized that this is where I felt most at home in the world, my life in America a distant complicated nightmare. I wished I could cry and shed the tears appropriate to such a realization. I didn’t cry.
We walked along the main dirt road to the house of a grandmother whose son had married a good woman a few years before. They had a daughter. She was one or two then and crying because she was sick. I couldn’t see her tears in the darkness but heard her clearly; everyone has an ear for distressed children. My brother, an avid photographer, took many pictures of her, a fact that her parents told her when we returned eight years later. I remembered her then.
She smiled to the strangers in front of her.
Telugu was flung back and forth in the room, only bits of which I caught or wanted to. When things were quiet again, I asked the little girl what her name was. I didn’t understand her reply and looked at my Mom for clarification.
“Rakshita,” she annunciated.
The summer holidays brought her back to Sankapalli, away from her school in Karimnagar where she lived in the hostel (dorm). Someone asked how she liked it there and, in standard Indian fashion, her parents answered for her. Rakshita got used to the place after a year but still hated the food. The studies, those sacred idols, were going well and that, after all, was what mattered most. She had friends there her parents said smiling, and she confirmed with firm nod of her head when my Mom asked if that was true. Rakshita’s mother announced that her daughter wanted to be a doctor, and my Mom again confirmed it with her. A smile sufficed.
My brother’s face was impressed and Mom simply said, “Good.” The room suddenly smelled of a courtship, the hopeful mentoring, guiding, inspiring of a child by others from the village who had achieved her goal. My family was no longer the “standard Indians” (smart doctors in America) that I teased them as, but real-life-fairytales who descended from their astral homes to again visit their home village. And everyone wanted to bless their house with these ethereal beings.
Mom was called away to yet another neighboring house and we stayed behind at Rakshita’s house. Her parents asked her to talk to us, to break her silence and perhaps practice her English. The obviousness of the situation made it awkward.
“Is your school English or Telugu medium?” I asked stumbling toward a conversation. That I asked in Telugu didn’t help matters.
“English,” Rakshita and her parents answered.
“So, you are already sure you want to be a doctor?” I aked, in English this time. Too fast. She didn’t understand and raised her chin very slightly to gesture her question. I tried to repeat myself, but failed again.
“You know Annaya is a doctor too,” I said, pointing to my older brother next to me. He was busy taking photos with a large white telephoto lens that allowed him to see closely form a distance, to capture intimacy without invading. Rakshita simply smiled in acknowledgement of my brother’s achievement. I wondered if we were recognizable, if she could see herself in our lives or were we simply too alien; can an hour-long visit make your dreams possible?
Her mother moved her closer to the fan so that she sat facing us, just a few feet apart now.
“So, do you want to stay in India or go to the US when you become a doctor?” I asked. Again, she couldn’t understand my mid-west American basha. “Way too fast dude,” my brother said to me quietly. I tried slowing down and repeating myself, but her calmness made me nervous and my words tumbled out and fell flatly on the floor. They didn’t reach her. I tried repeating my question in Telugu and, after some help from her mother and my brother, Rakshita understood.
“Yes, I want to go,” she announced in a trained English heavy with accent and desire.
My heart broke. Her words reverberated through my body creating a current of emotions that nearly leaked out of my eyes. I chided myself for being weak, for being a cliché, for indulging in pity for this girl whom it wouldn’t do a damn bit of good. But the thoughts rushed on.
What if what if no that’s an absurd idea what the fuck are you thinking you think you’re a god damn savior or something rescuing “rescuing” this girl and taking her with you to America do you know what kind of cliché fucking narrative fantasy logic bullshit that is here comes the first world saving the poor childish third world and caring for it are you fucking crazy my god I’m so lucky that Mom moved to America holy shit she’s me when I was young I was that age when I left too I don’t remember being that aware or poised I was a fucking mess and man oh man that transition was painful would you want to put her through that but I we could warn her of what’s coming and she could get a great education and become a doctor that could work anywhere even in India if she wanted what about her parents huh do you think they’d want to lose their daughter like that yea it would be like a choice from the movies or something Indecent Proposal well not for sex but a once in a lifetime choice for your entire future come to America with us and we will take care of you as you become a doctor and her parents would grievingly say ok because that is best for their daughter this is fucking sick are you serious you went through that nonsense and it wasn’t best for you so why the hell would you wish that on someone else but god she really believes in America she really wants to go that would be a hard realization too that America isn’t as great as she thinks that people will be mean to her wow that’s fucking crazy she really wants to go what if it were possible what about her does she have a choice or will she be so grateful for your fucking rescue would she want to go what if I told her that she would lose all sense of home that Sankapalli would no longer feel like home would feel like home once of twice more maybe but when you’re grown up you won’t have a home just houses and important placese but no place where you really relax because you’ll be a stranger everywhere does that shit even matter when you’re just trying to set up a better life do you even lose a home then or just get a bigger better house in the city or in America jesus is that really the choice doctor and homeless or what I don’t know whatever happens to you here bribing to get into schools unless you kick ass on crazy exams when you’re too young to know what your own body is doing let alone having to work on others’ bodies holy shit what if it were really possible to leave
And on and on the thoughts raced, circling furiously around her five English words.
My brother showed her how to take pictures with his camera. It was heavy in her hands as she turned it this way and that with her eye in the viewfinder. I hoped it was a preview for her, a hands on experience of a far away place. She took pictures of the house and her mother.
We decided to catch up with Mom and said good-bye to Rakshita and her family. My brother asked them, grandmother, her, her mother, to stand for a final-more-formal photo. He wished her well in her studies and said that he was older than her when he left for America, four years older actually. I said I was her age when I went to America.
“Good luck,” was all I could manage before turning my back and walking out of the verandah.
