Serving Crazy With Curry by Amulya Malladi Read Free Book Online Page B

they even spoke to each other after all these years. Part of the reason they still continued to see each other was Avi, who kept the family together, especially after his parents died in a car accident in Delhi.
    “You're the only grandparent Devi and Shobha have,” he always said to Vasu when she worried about staying three months a year in his house. “You're welcome to stay forever.”
    It warmed Vasu that Avi said so, though she never took him up on the offer. It was one thing to visit, but to live in the United States? No, that just wouldn't do. She had friends back home in India. She had a home in India. Here, everything was too foreign, almost un-livable at times.
    Maybe she should take Devi away with her for a while, just until she got better. A few months by the beach in Visakhapatnam would do the girl some good. They could even take a trip to Goa or go see the Ajanta-Ellora caves, the temples in Mahabalipuram.
    Vasu dozed off as she started planning her Indian adventure with Devi.
    Devi's eyes flickered open, her hands moved noisily against the sheets, and Vasu sprang out of her drowsiness. “Devi,
beta,
how are you feeling?”
    Her eyes were like deep wells, filled with something intangible, and Vasu couldn't see past the brownness of her eyeballs. Devi could swallow herself whole into that vacuum, Vasu realized, and felt the pinch of fear that she may have lost her granddaughter even though she was physically alive.
    Devi didn't say anything, didn't even look at Vasu, just turned her head away.
    “Come on, Devi, you have to say something, anything,” Vasu persisted when there was no response.
    But Devi didn't nod or even move, just closed her eyes and drifted into oblivion again. Vasu wanted to shake her awake, kiss her noisily, jerk her out of this silent madness, but she did nothing, she sat down beside her granddaughter and held her hand as she had for the past hours.
    “When will she wake up, Mummy?” Saroj asked later, perilously close to tears.
    Vasu shrugged irritably. Saroj had the disgusting habit of crying every time there was any kind of stress. She probably even believed that crying could solve problems. How could she have given birth to a girl who was such a water tap?
    Vasu never claimed to be a great mother. She knew her shortcomings, and maternal, she was not. She realized now that she was one of those women who should never have had children. But now her child was grown and she even had grandchildren. Lives took their own course and she couldn't regret the part she played in creating her own little world. If she'd never had a child, wouldn't she have been lonely now? There would be no Devi, no Shobha, no Avi, no trips to the United States every summer. Life would be barren.
    “Why did she do this?” Saroj asked, sniffling, tears rolling down her cheeks.
    Vasu wanted to lay into Saroj and bring out every instance when Saroj had made Devi feel useless, but it was a pointless exercise. Saroj was convinced that she was the perfect mother, the perfect wife, and the perfect daughter. Saroj couldn't imagine being anything else. If her relationships with her daughters, her husband, and her mother were not working out, it was because something was wrong with them, not her.
    “We'll know when she wakes up,” Vasu said quietly but couldn't find it in her heart to take her daughter into her arms and offer comfort. It was so easy for Vasu to hug Devi, cajole her friends, be playfulwith others. With everyone she was easygoing, but with Saroj, she was serious, unbending, critical.
    “Avi thinks it's my fault,” Saroj said bitterly.
    “Did he say so?” Vasu asked.
    Saroj shook her head. “But I can feel it. I can feel him accusing me every time he looks at me, even when he doesn't look at me. I saved her, Mummy, and he doesn't even mention it.”
    Vasu wanted to say something about guilty conscience but Saroj was doing such a good job of beating herself up, it didn't seem right to kick her some