asked.
Ammamma swallowed the piece of mango and smacked her lips. “They will do,” she said and my mother raised an eyebrow. “They are not bad,” my grandmother added grudgingly. “Now let us cut these mangoes before lunch,” she ordered.
TO: PRIYA RAO
FROM: NICHOLAS COLLINS
SUBJECT: RE: RE: GOOD TRIP?
AT 11:05 PM, FRIDAY, PRIYA RAO WROTE:
>AT LEAST THEY HAVEN’T THROWN ANY “SUITABLE BOYS”
MY WAY . . . YET.
I HAVE NO IDEA WHY YOU CONTINUE TO CALL THEM “BOYS” WHEN THEY’RE ACTUALLY GROWN, ADULT, READY-TO-MARRY MEN. VERY PERPLEXING, I MUST SAY.
I’M GLAD YOUR PARENTS ARE NOT THROWING ELIGIBLE MEN YOUR WAY. I HAVE TO ADMIT A PART OF ME IS/WAS AFRAID THAT YOUR FAMILY WILL/WOULD CONVINCE YOU TO MARRY A NICE INDIAN BOY. RATIONALLY, I KNOW YOU’RE COMING HOME TO ME BUT THERE IS THIS IRRATIONAL PART OF MY BRAIN THAT’S CONVINCED YOUR FAMILY CAN MANIPULATE YOU.
I MISS YOU. THIS TRIP FEELS LONGER THAN YOUR NORMAL BUSINESS TRIPS. USUALLY, YOU’RE GONE TWO-THREE DAYS OR MAXIMUM A WEEK AND IT’S IN THE U.S. THIS FEELS DIFFERENT. I FEEL THAT I CAN’T REACH YOU.
NICK
Chopping Mangoes and Egos
Cutting mangoes for making pickle is a skill that is honed over years of practice, under the critical eye of one’s mother or mother-in-law, aunt, or some other anal older female relative. In the olden days when joint families were the norm and women didn’t work out of the home, wives and daughters were trained in cutting mangoes as they were in everything else that pertained to keeping order in the household.
There is a certain precision to cutting pickle mangoes, a certain methodology, and I was sorely lacking in both.
A sharp and rather heavy knife is used to cut mangoes so that the blade easily sinks into and then past the mango stone. Since the knife is sharp and heavy it’s not prudent to hold the mango in place with one hand—unless you are an expert—and slam the sharp object with the other; a small miscalculation and you may be missing a few fingers.
With this in mind, I stationed the mango on the wooden cutting board, a board on which generations of my mother’s family had chopped mangoes in the pickle season, and took aim. The mango flew and struck me on the forehead before falling into my lap.
My mother made a disgruntled sound and looked at the now half-squished mango lying unceremoniously on my yellow salwar kameez.
“You have to hold the mango, Priya, ” my mother said, and proceeded to demonstrate with expertise how a mango should be cut. I narrowed my eyes in frustration, but she didn’t seem to notice. She was busy cutting me into size along with the mango.
The first slash of the knife split the mango in two halves. Then Ma used a paring knife and removed the stone, but let its hard casing stay stuck to the flesh of the mango.
“Now you have to cut it again,” she told me and did so. Four pieces of the mango lay in front of her, their proportions hideously the same. They were mocking me, just as my mother had wanted them to. “If the mango is small”—she picked up an example—“then only one-half is enough.”
Lata snickered softly and muttered something about modern girls. My shoulders slumped. I didn’t want to get defensive, but I would like to see any of these women manipulate databases the way I could. So, they could cut some measly mangoes. So what?
Being competitive by nature and having the need to prove to the world around me that I was not only a good database programmer but also a good mango chopper, I wielded the knife one more time. This time I cut the mango, not in two clean halves but two squishy portions. After the fourth mango had gone to waste, my grandmother asked me to come and sit next to her and watch and learn. I didn’t want to watch and learn, but the writing was on Ammamma’s polished floor. It was pathetic to admit defeat to a lousy piece of fruit but I did it as gracefully as I could.
Between the
Ammamma swallowed the piece of mango and smacked her lips. “They will do,” she said and my mother raised an eyebrow. “They are not bad,” my grandmother added grudgingly. “Now let us cut these mangoes before lunch,” she ordered.
TO: PRIYA RAO
FROM: NICHOLAS COLLINS
SUBJECT: RE: RE: GOOD TRIP?
AT 11:05 PM, FRIDAY, PRIYA RAO WROTE:
>AT LEAST THEY HAVEN’T THROWN ANY “SUITABLE BOYS”
MY WAY . . . YET.
I HAVE NO IDEA WHY YOU CONTINUE TO CALL THEM “BOYS” WHEN THEY’RE ACTUALLY GROWN, ADULT, READY-TO-MARRY MEN. VERY PERPLEXING, I MUST SAY.
I’M GLAD YOUR PARENTS ARE NOT THROWING ELIGIBLE MEN YOUR WAY. I HAVE TO ADMIT A PART OF ME IS/WAS AFRAID THAT YOUR FAMILY WILL/WOULD CONVINCE YOU TO MARRY A NICE INDIAN BOY. RATIONALLY, I KNOW YOU’RE COMING HOME TO ME BUT THERE IS THIS IRRATIONAL PART OF MY BRAIN THAT’S CONVINCED YOUR FAMILY CAN MANIPULATE YOU.
I MISS YOU. THIS TRIP FEELS LONGER THAN YOUR NORMAL BUSINESS TRIPS. USUALLY, YOU’RE GONE TWO-THREE DAYS OR MAXIMUM A WEEK AND IT’S IN THE U.S. THIS FEELS DIFFERENT. I FEEL THAT I CAN’T REACH YOU.
NICK
Chopping Mangoes and Egos
Cutting mangoes for making pickle is a skill that is honed over years of practice, under the critical eye of one’s mother or mother-in-law, aunt, or some other anal older female relative. In the olden days when joint families were the norm and women didn’t work out of the home, wives and daughters were trained in cutting mangoes as they were in everything else that pertained to keeping order in the household.
There is a certain precision to cutting pickle mangoes, a certain methodology, and I was sorely lacking in both.
A sharp and rather heavy knife is used to cut mangoes so that the blade easily sinks into and then past the mango stone. Since the knife is sharp and heavy it’s not prudent to hold the mango in place with one hand—unless you are an expert—and slam the sharp object with the other; a small miscalculation and you may be missing a few fingers.
With this in mind, I stationed the mango on the wooden cutting board, a board on which generations of my mother’s family had chopped mangoes in the pickle season, and took aim. The mango flew and struck me on the forehead before falling into my lap.
My mother made a disgruntled sound and looked at the now half-squished mango lying unceremoniously on my yellow salwar kameez.
“You have to hold the mango, Priya, ” my mother said, and proceeded to demonstrate with expertise how a mango should be cut. I narrowed my eyes in frustration, but she didn’t seem to notice. She was busy cutting me into size along with the mango.
The first slash of the knife split the mango in two halves. Then Ma used a paring knife and removed the stone, but let its hard casing stay stuck to the flesh of the mango.
“Now you have to cut it again,” she told me and did so. Four pieces of the mango lay in front of her, their proportions hideously the same. They were mocking me, just as my mother had wanted them to. “If the mango is small”—she picked up an example—“then only one-half is enough.”
Lata snickered softly and muttered something about modern girls. My shoulders slumped. I didn’t want to get defensive, but I would like to see any of these women manipulate databases the way I could. So, they could cut some measly mangoes. So what?
Being competitive by nature and having the need to prove to the world around me that I was not only a good database programmer but also a good mango chopper, I wielded the knife one more time. This time I cut the mango, not in two clean halves but two squishy portions. After the fourth mango had gone to waste, my grandmother asked me to come and sit next to her and watch and learn. I didn’t want to watch and learn, but the writing was on Ammamma’s polished floor. It was pathetic to admit defeat to a lousy piece of fruit but I did it as gracefully as I could.
Between the
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