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Grandma's mug
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There was some residual hate I harboured for the British... I could not stand to see their simple blue embossment on the glass that I treasured so much... so I painted over it and had my afternoon and evening tea in it from the day it was painted, onwards. I came to peace with the events of partition... the British, the religious factions... my cup was full of liquid peace twice a day. I drank tea like the Brits, in a cup decorated with my father's blood and ethnic designs. And children, you must realize that the British are not evil. Every man is told to do something. If I told Lajjo, the servant to bring me some cookies, then he will do it because it is his job. Papa worked for the British because he had to support his family too. Just like that, the British were only taking orders from superiors with self interests involved. War is to blame, not the human. War brings out the animal in the human.
If she hadn't added the last part, Tina would have probably hated British people for most of her younger years, but her grandmother explained the message to her in words she could understand. Sipping from the famous cup made Tina feel cemented to her heritage. She felt more a part of her family that she saw once every few years. Every time she visited, there would be new cousins whose names she could never remember. Tina was the foreign cousin... an American... her family would tease her and ask her... Will Tina marry a white boy or a nice Indian from India?... Tina used to think about that... there were little to no Indians where she was from in Michigan. Every time she encountered one, she would stare at him/her in curiosity. Did they eat rice or pasta for dinner? Did they speak in Hindi or English with their parents?
Well the answer was clear enough now. Eric was her fiance. She had been with him for two years now. They met at a bar; of course she told her Indian friends and family that it was a coffee- shop. He was ordering himself a drink when a red beaded purse slid across the floor and knocked into his brown shoes. He picked it up impatiently, dying to take a few shots really quickly. When he turned around to give it to his owner he was staring into a set of huge, brown, deep-set eyes. She was in a red-sequinned dress that clung onto her voluptuous body, emphasizing her curves. Her skin was half a step lighter than chocolate brown and her lips full and pouty. He was silent, just staring, for a few seconds until he handed her the purse. She thanked him and sat down next to him.
"So where are you......"
She cut him off, "Where am I from?.. ugh I get that a LoT around these parts...why don't you guess," she flirtaciously gestured.
"Hmm, I'd say.. mixed.. half Latina and African American?"
"No."
" One of those Islander Jamaican, Trinidadian types.?"
"Sort of Closer"... considering that people from those parts had a lot of mixed Indian blood.'
"Hmm.. this one's tough.... Hawaii?"
"Umm. No. Okay, I'm from India. See it wasn't that hard."
"Well, hey that was going to be my next guess... My name's Eric.. and yours?", he asked extending his hand to hers.
"Tina", she answered with a coy smile.
"That's not a foreign-sounding name. I can pronounce that one easily," added Eric.
He was a dirty blonde with green eyes. He was a stockbroker with a medium- high paying salary. He was 28. He loved mashed potatoes and gravy...almost as much as he loved his "mama's meatloaf". His apartment was plain: white walls, simple furniture... the bare basics, and a beanbag. He had pet fish named Herman and Hermit. He was Eric Smithson... You get the picture.
She was petite and curvaceous. She was black- haired with brown eyes...dark skinned. She was a graduate student with a job at the university library. She was 24. She loved spicy curries or perfectly-cooked steaks (despite her religious family's objection to beef)... and she had to have her mandatory two cups of tea a day at noon and after dinner. Her apartment was bright and vivacious, decorated with Indian cultural decor as theme. She was Tina Rajendra... get the picture?
Well, to say the most with the least amount of words, the closest thing they had in common was their beef favourite food picks; one meatloaf and the other steak...close enough.
She moved in after 6 months. She loved how he had nothing to do with the dramatic, tiny Indian circle, they had in their town. He was the perfect excuse for her to back away from the Indians. She dated a few of them who maligned her after their relationship ended to be a "dark slut". Well, hey, she didn't want a part with the greasy double standards most of those retarded South- Asian guys held anyways. If they could sleep around, why couldn't she without being called a slut? That phenomenon was much more watered-down in the circle of friends she entered when she became serious with Eric. Amy and Brian, in particular, friends of his from work, were so nice. Amy always commented on how she wished she had Tina's chocolate skin and dark hair, especially during the summer months when Amy's attempts at tanning left her red, peeling, burning, and patchy. "If there's a reincarnation, I would love to be tan in my next life," she would tell Tina.
Tina loved how they admired her skin color rather than scorn her for it. She felt pretty and exotic, rather than ugly and haggard ike she did at family parties. She was always given hell from her parents and relatives in India for being too dark-skinned... "How will we ever find you a husband?" Well, hey, that problem was easy to solve,.. Marry a white person who loves me for being dark. Even Indians raised in her town felt that she was too dark-skinned to be attractive. how petty.. they all look the same anyways. At least I have my own look. Eric loved every inch of her brown skin. It was such a contrast to his pale white and pink body. "We are like Ying and Yang," she would tell Eric.
There were a few problems, mostly stemming from her Indian food cravings. One night, she decided to cook an Indian shrimp dish with Jasmine rice for dinner. She was excited for him to taste the exquisite and foreign spices. She had called her mother up for the recipe. It was delicious. He noticed when he came in... "What's that awful smell... Holy Shit, what died in here?" She told him laughing, that it was an Indian dish. At dinner, he picked and prodded it, sniffing at it, as if to see if there was poison in it, before tasting it. "Not bad," he replied... "I could deal with it." Then his nose and eyes started running... his face turned bright red. Tina watched, laughing... she remembered the first time she accidentally bit into a green chilli pepper. But he hadn't even bitten a pepper and he was still outspiced! Oh no... but Tina loved spicy food! That was okay... she compromised... if she had an intense curry-craving, she went home to her mother's house, ordered take-out (non-spicy) from a nearby Indian restaurant that served awful food, or cooked a small, bland, spice-less portion at home to share with Eric. He preferred mashed potatoes and "mama's meatloaf". She got the recipe from his Mama the first time she went to meet his parents.
It was a nice dinner... green beans, mashed potatoes, and meat-loaf of course. Eric's parents were friendly and genuinely interested in her culture, more so than Eric had ever been. They asked about Tina's religion, Hinduism, reincarnation.... She told them laughingly to consult a textbook because she wasn't really a practicing Hindu. They asked about what kind of food she ate... yea it was a little strange to her... She jokingly said, "We eat stewed grass and spare cow organs." There was a silence over the table... "Oh interesting, his mother commented... is there any special way you prepare it... any unique spices or whatnot?"...
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