“And I thought of all the bad luck
And the troubles we’ve been through
And how I lost me and you lost you.”
- Don Henley, “The Heart of the Matter”

I always knew that things were not what they seemed in my house, even early as a child.

Ever since I can remember, I remember tension. I remember wanting my family to be anywhere else but at home together because when we were at home, that’s when bad things happened. The fighting, the yelling, the screaming and the endless tears made my heart beat so fast in my tiny chest that I thought I would burst.

I recall being 4 years old and begging for my parents to invite family or friends over, thinking that perhaps they could diffuse that tension. Sometimes it would work and the levity that family and friends would bring to the house would allow everyone to breathe.

When my aunties and uncles would leave the house, I would hold on to their legs kicking and screaming, knowing what would come. Sometimes my tears were so convincing that they would decide to stay an extra day, just to appease me. They were most likely flattered at the inordinate amount of love I felt towards them.

Which I did.

But I also couldn’t stand to see them leave. I would wrap myself in the warmth of my auntie’s saris and breathe a sigh of relief for the reprieve that might come.

For at least a day.

Sometimes even company couldn’t stop the fighting. While I was embarrassed to see this at times, I was always more sad that another weekend was gone, ruined. Though in my mind, it was my mother who seemed more angry, I recall wishing that the weekend would end so my father would go back to work and my mother could not spend so much time yelling.

My heart hurt. But so did my ears.

There is a funny story that my family will retell. I was 4 1/2 years old and my parents bought me a swing set. It was one of those big clunky metal ones that gets all rusty – but when I got it, I was in Heaven. My father told me that he and my brother, Sudhu Bhaiya would assemble the swing set that Monday.

As the story goes, unbeknownst to my parents and family, I decided to announce a party. For a Monday night. I went and found my parents maroon phone book and called a few of my favorite aunts and uncles for a “Swing Party.”

PLEASE NOTE: I said SWING party, not SWINGER party. I was only 4 for crying out loud. So anyway one who was going there, kindly please remove head from gutter now. Thanks.

My parents came from work the next day wondering why there were so many cars in front of the house. There was no food, no drinks prepared. Just me running around like a moron screaming, “It’s my swing set party! Yay!”

My elder sister, Munni and my brother, Sudhu just kind of rolled with it. As most Indian people can roll when needed, the aunties took inventory of the situation and started helping my mother prepare dinner while the uncles got the swing set up, happy to help as they drank some cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon on that humid Jersey summer night.

The story was later told with humor. And it is funny – achingly so. I invited those family friends to the house because I was scared.

I am glad they came.

(Why nobody questioned a dinner party invitation on a Monday night from a 4 1/2 year old is beyond me, but I am guessing they thought it was cute. And like I said, most Indian people will just roll with it).

And it WAS an awesome day. People should have “swing set” parties, NOT “swinger” parties, more often.

*******************************************

“I’m learning to live without you now,
But I miss you baby.
And the more I know, the less I understand.
All the things I thought I knew, I have to learn again.”

I am the youngest of five children. My eldest sister is 15 years older than me and my youngest sibling (excluding me) is ten years older than me. There was a large age difference between us, and while I was very close to them, I was sort of living on my own island.

You might say it was like I was an only child at times. As a matter of fact, I am fairly certain that many people who knew our family actually would say this.

Not understanding the wounds they would open. How much we all hated the implication.

When I was 1 year old, my mother, father, eldest sister and eldest brother took a trip to India.

Two of us did not return on the Air India Flight back to the United States.

The year was 1977. My sister, Kanchan Didi would not set foot back on American soil until 1992. My brother, Himanshu, came back a little earlier.

1990. 13 whole years.

My sister was married to a man she had not met. She stayed in India with her new family in a northern village close to where much of my family lives. She did not have running water or electricity.

She didn’t have a lot of things, even though she gained some. I love my brother in law, there is no question about that. However, when I chose to get married almost 28 years later, in America, to an American and by my own volition, the situations seemed to beg for comparison. Which many did, although twenty eight years had passed in which my parents, circumstances, and assimilation into the culture had also changed a great deal.

But there is only so much that can be justified.

She was 16 years old.

My brother, Munna, was left in India. He did not know this was going to happen before the trip. It was once they reached India that he was given they news, not having adequately saying goodbye to his younger sister, Munni. He would not see her for another 4 years. He would not see his younger brother and best friend, Sudhu for another 12.

He had started acting up at school, as many teenagers do. He smoked (ooooh!), talked back (what?! to the gallows!) and even had a girlfriend, meaning my dad caught him kiss a girl.

He did not like it.

My father made the decision by sending Munna Bhaiya to India he would receive the right kind of discipline and education.

The rationale behind it is still a bit fuzzy, but it is what happened.

He was 14 years old. I met him for the first time when I was 5.

God, this is hard to write.

So things were kind of a blur, but going back, I always knew that it was strange that I had two brothers and sisters who were continents away from us. I guess some would call me a genius. Or just very, VERY slow.

Genius or severely blind to the truth, the intuition was apparently right.
*****************************************

One day, my mother and my sister, Moon, got into a fight. I was probably 7 years old. My mom left angry and my sister was crying. Which meant that I was crying because we had a fairly symbiotic relationship. (Also, when she cries, she does this really cute thing where her nose crinkles up a lot. The more it crinkles, the sadder she is). I, on the other hand, just ended up with a lot of boogers on my face.

She was really, REALLY sad that day.

It was 1983. I was 7 years old. Munni Didi was 19 and had been married in India the previous year at the age of 18. I went to comfort my sister and patted her on the shoulder and tried to hug her. She shrugged off my hand, which was unlike her.

“Don’t worry, Didi,” I said. (Didi means older sister in Hindi) trying to speak in a soft cooing voice the way she so often did when she would comfort me. “Don’t be sad. It’s just a fight. Ma still loves you.”

She was crying so hard that her shoulders were shaking. I almost didn’t understand her when she replied.

“No she doesn’t,” she said.

“Of course she does,” I said, trying again to consolingly rub her back this time. Though I could feel her stiffness, she didn’t shrug off my arm this time. “She has to. She’s your mother.”

“No, she’s NOT.”

And though the world started to make a little more sense to me, that’s when my walls started to crumble. They never quite rebuilt on the same foundation. Not that there was much of one to begin with.

All I knew was that I wasn’t crazy. It wasn’t JUST in my head.

If you’ll bear with me it’s getting late. If you have stayed this long, thank you. It’s just too long of a story for just one post or even for just a few.

This is my family’s life.

I am not looking to place blame or even understand. There are no villains. In many ways, the circumstances everyone was plunged into were far from traditional and there were no self-help books to walk you through the situation we were in. But writing this is not about looking for fault – it is about creating some kind of closure – for me, and maybe some of my family.

There comes a point where real like doesn’t play out like the movies. It took me a while to understand that there was no good guy. No bad guy.

And all that really matters is where you go from here.

“I’ve been trying to get down to the heart of the matter
Because the flesh will get weak
And the thoughts seem to scatter
So I’m thinking about, forgiveness.
Forgiveness.
Even if, even if you don’t love me anymore.”

Continue on this journey with me. I could use some friends getting through this bumpy ride.

Kiran