The next afternoon, she had hired a rickshaw to take her to the famed St. Aloysius College Chapel on Lighthouse Hill because that was the only touristy place that came to her mind. She sat in the pew along with a group of Hindi-speaking tourists, and spent time studying the beautiful frescoes that covered every inch of its walls and ceiling. A large sign outside said the chapel had been painted by the world-renowned Italian Jesuit, Antonio Moscheni between 1899 and 1901. She had forgotten Father Moscheni’s name, and his works of art looked impressive, as if a part of Vatican City had been ensconced in Mangalore; and she wondered why this stunning edifice of local history had never blown her away before. A zealous warden came in and started asking her questions.
“Where are you from?”
“I am local,” she mumbled.
“I’ve never seen you before.”
“I don’t live here anymore.”
“Your husband didn’t come with you?”
She shuffled out of the chapel without responding to the warden’s last question. She walked to Hampanakatta, the commercial center of the city. Her throat was parched, and on a whim, she made her way to Ideal Ice Cream Parlor. She ordered gadbad, their famous signature ice-cream sundae, and was glad when the server brought it to her table. It was awkward to just sit when people were turning around to look at her. She wasn’t dressed any differently, a white handloom kurta over blue jeans. It was probably the fact that she was sitting alone in a place that was teeming with people. In a culture where personal space was still an alien concept, you were never alone except when you died. Or if your parents abandoned you in a crumbling old house with a schizophrenic uncle and elderly grandparents. She wondered why she felt such a deep disconnect with her hometown, like a tourist exploring a new place. Was it because she had left her heart behind in Atlanta?
She savored the ice cream, the creamy strawberry and vanilla flavors, the jelly mingling on her tongue. This was a taste her palette remembered. Cyrus loved gadbad ice cream, too. Like most Mangaloreans, they had found it a topic worthy of discussion. She closed her eyes. It was four days since she had left, and she was halfway around the world eating ice cream alone. She imagined his dispassionate face at the airport. She imagined him driving back to Munmun, and Munmun enveloping him in her arms. She felt the jelly and fruity flavors of the sundae rush back into her throat, tasting sour this time. She gulped down cold water, paid the bill in a hurry, and scurried out of the tiny ice cream parlor.
On day four, because she could not think of a place to visit, she decided to explore her old neighborhood. She set out early in the evening, walking down the hill to the T-junction. Where the roads met, she made a left turn and kept walking, trailing her shadow, the way she used to follow Uncle Anand. The neighborhood had changed so much in eight years. More people on the road, more apartment buildings, a brand-new dental school in a four-story, white structure. Where the Beary store once stood was Hasan’s Supermarket, with glass doors that were fogged up from the air-conditioning inside and the humidity outside. She turned back at the end of the road and made her way home. Tomorrow, she would return with her wallet to do a bit of grocery shopping at Hasan’s Supermarket. She was curious to see what it looked like from the inside.
Halfway between the T-junction and Shanti Nilaya, she heard rapping, knuckles on glass, and then her name being called. She looked up to her left, in the direction of the sound. A bright face in hijab smiled down at her from behind the grilles of a third-floor window.
“Me, Zeenat,” the face said in English, loudly enough that she could hear. “Remember me?”
The tiny but modern kitchen was stuffy and smelled of warm roasted chickpea flour, ghee, and cardamom. The counter was overflowing with pots and pans. An aluminum rack above the counter was stacked with stainless steel plates, glasses, and bowls. Zeenat was cutting a giant-sized aluminum pan of freshly set Mysore pak into rectangles. She picked two rectangles from the edge of the pan and put them in a stainless steel bowl. She put the bowl in front of Tara, who sat at a brown-and-white, floral-patterned, Formica-topped dining table that was pushed toward the wall to save space.
“Eat. Very tasty,” she said in English.
The fairy of Tara’s childhood now had an ample middle-age spread that showed through the thin cotton fabric of her kameez. The moon face was fleshier but had lost its symmetry; her mouth twisted to one side, the result of a brain surgery to remove a benign tumor when she was eighteen. The disfigurement had cost her her chances of winning a prince, because her face and fair skin were supposed to have been her lottery ticket. She had married a local Beary, a grocery store owner who had died only months into their marriage. Her older sisters had tried to help her out, inviting her to stay with them, but she didn’t get along with them. Zeenat had returned to her father’s house and continued living there even after his death in 1998. A few years ago, a builder had approached the Beary compound with an offer that nobody could refuse. Now, she had two apartments in the building; one she lived in and the other she rented out. Tara knew most of Zeenat’s tragic backstory. The last bit about the two apartments she had learned from Amma during her visit to Atlanta.
The Mysore pak was warm and melted in Tara’s mouth. “This is very good,” she said in Kannada, licking the rich ghee off her fingers. Zeenat’s lopsided smile lit her eyes. “All for catering business,” she said in English.
“You run a catering business?”
Zeenat switched to Kannada; she had exhausted her stock of English words. Her voice had an operatic quality to it, changing pitch often. She said the catering business she ran out of her kitchen was in its fifth year. She had started off cooking for families she knew in the neighborhood, but her business had grown through word of mouth. The Mysore pak was part of a contract from a wedding party at Second Bridge that included halwa and banana chips also.
“My halwa is better than Taj Mahal Bakery halwa. Come back in the morning. I’ll let you taste it,” she said.
Tara returned in the morning, drawn as much by Zeenat’s face—bright, sparkly, happy—as by the promise of authentic Mangalorean halwa.
Zeenat was just getting started in the kitchen, which was now cooler and brighter, with the sunlight glinting on the pots and pans. Tara watched, enchanted, as the fairy sifted the flour into a large plastic pan, boiled sugar to a one-thread consistency in a thick-bottomed cast-iron wok, slowly stirred the flour, and later the ghee, into the bubbling syrup. She watched as Zeenat’s face turned from deep concentration to joy the fifth time she tested, between her thumb and forefinger, a small blob of the thickened, golden-brown mixture that she had plopped on a stainless steel plate. “Done,” she said, triumphantly, as she proceeded to add ghee-fried cashew nuts and powdered cardamom to the mix.
Tara tasted a square of halwa after it had cooled and complimented Zeenat on its authentic taste.
“When I cook, I forget everything else,” Zeenat said, a little grandly, laughing.
Chapter 28
Zeenat paid her a visit the next afternoon, dressed in a simple cotton salwar kameez, the dupatta loosely covering her head and wrapped around her upper body, carrying a stainless steel bowl with two golden mithai laddoos. She watched, mirth in her eyes, face resting on her cupped hand, as Tara ate them both and licked her fingers. The laddoos were a bribe, she said, to hear about life in America. What kind of food do Americans eat? Why do Americans love guns so much? Do all women drive cars? Do they have the freedom to live as they wish?