Naming Maya by Uma Krishnaswami Read Free Book Online

“we came here and I went in the water with my chappals on.” She points to her flip-flops with the worn-out soles so I’ll know what she means.
    â€œI know chappals,” I tell her. “What do you think I am?”
    â€œSome kind of American, that’s what!” she teases.
    I shiver.
    â€œWhat’s wrong?” says Sumati.
    â€œIt’s funny,” I say. “I’m American here, but in America, I’m Indian.”
    â€œIs that bad?”
    â€œI don’t know. Years ago we were going to a friend’s house for a party. It was Divali …” The Hindu festival of lights was always an occasion to dress up, me in a long silk skirt, with my hair braided and a sticky bindi on my forehead.
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œOh, it was nothing, really. A bunch of teenagers drove by and shouted at us. They called us dirty dot-heads.”

    Sumati’s jaw drops. “That’s terrible. That’s—why, that’s racist!”
    â€œWell, yeah. Of course. But you know, I was only five years old.”
    â€œWhat did you do?”
    â€œI took a really deep breath and gave them the best and biggest raspberry I could manage. I don’t know if they saw it, but it made me feel better.” She looks puzzled at “raspberry,” so I stick out my tongue and show her.
    Sumati laughs. “You are something. You know that?”
    She pours a trickle of sand onto her feet and watches them disappear. “Go on about your chappals,” I tell her.
    â€œOh, it wasn’t all that exciting. A big wave came and knocked me over. And when my parents pulled me out, my chappals had washed away. I could see them floating off on the water like little boats. My father said they’d go all the way to Singapore, or maybe even Australia.”
    We laugh about those flip-flops from Sumati’s younger, smaller feet, traveling around the world with all its people, some of them with good hearts and some filled with hate. “I cried and cried,” she says, and smiles, the way you can smile at your younger self because, after all, what did you know back then? She adds, “They were purple.”

    I dig my hands into the sand, finding small shells, round ones and little cone-shaped ones, mostly broken, but some whole. There is one little double shell, its two halves still joined at the hinge. It seems too perfect to disturb, so I put it back gently and cover it with sand again.
    Sumati slides around till she is lying flat on the ridge of sand. She stretches out and sighs, closing her eyes.
    â€œSay ‘pizza,’” I tell her, and get my camera ready.
    She opens one eye and makes a funny face. I laugh and click. She sticks out her tongue, and I click again.
    â€œMy turn. I’ll take your picture. Can I?”
    After that we sit for a while, looking at the ocean. From this high up it is like a painting. Soon Ashwin comes yelling for us. “Come see me fly my paper aeroplanes!”
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    All that evening we help Ashwin flutter his paper planes back and forth across the beach. The next day we walk along the beach and watch a man do his morning yoga. Ashwin tries to stand on his head and the man, distracted, frowns at him.
    The day goes by in a warm glow of sunlight on water. We get in the car and drive to a place where ancient temples have been sculpted out of solid rock. The
carvings are intricate, each telling a story. A cluster of small temples is strewn on the seashore, each designed to look like a chariot. A larger one, farther away, sends two spires towering up into the sky. “Look,” says a man who has appointed himself our guide. “Single rock carved into temples. Seventh century. Pallava dynasty. UNESCO has declared this as a World Heritage Site.”
    He shows us a panel with an image of the goddess Ganga descending to earth, tumbling down into the great god Shiva’s matted locks of hair because if she fell directly the earth