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birbal
July 20th, 2004, 10:43 PM
In the morning, after I bathe with two buckets, my father
asks, "You are
getting used to?" He asks if I can extend my two-week stay (I say
no) and later
says he can get me a job in India. To that, I say nothing. When he
asks if I
can still speak Hindi and I say no, he looks down. "It will come
back," he says.

In the afternoon, as my father and I sit outside on a cot, there's
so much
I want to say to him, but I'm overwhelmed. I can feel our not
looking at each
other. At one point, he picks up the Aquafina bottle on the table
before him.

"How much would this cost in U.S.?" he asks.

I tell him a buck or so.

In India, it costs about a quarter, he says, adding that a person
can get
by on $100 a month and save the rest. My father probably makes $500
a month.

Clearing my throat and grinding my palms into my thighs, I tell my
father
that in the past 19 years I would have appreciated something from
him, if not
money, then a birthday card. "I mean, do you love me?" I
ask. "Because I don't
think you do."

He shakes his head nervously. "I do not know about such words. All
I know
is I had responsibility, and I did it. Didn't I support you till age
of 9?"

He rattles off excuses for why he's been absent: He didn't know
where we
lived; people move around a lot in the United States; he couldn't
convert rupees
to dollars. His explanation does little to ease my anger, which is
already
heightened by what he told me yesterday: I now have a half brother,
a 5-year-old
boy he had with his first wife, Anita's mother, Chandra.

"Well, you know, I'm not here on a joy ride," I say. "I mean, you
don't
just swallow 50 pills because you're looking for a little attention.
I've just
tried to kill myself."

"I know," he says quickly, "I was very disturbed to read that."

Thinking I've said too much -- this is only day two in India -- I
say I'm
sorry.

No, it's good to talk, he says, that's why we're going to the
village.

Why we have to wait until then to really talk, I don't know. Nor
am I in
any hurry to bring it up, but I decide that that's when I'll ask him
about why
he took us from our mother.

WE STOP IN A TOWN, where Anita and her two small children join us on
the
drive. Along the way, we pass yellow fields of mustard -- a cash
crop in the area
-- as green parrots land in the trees. Soon we reach the edge of my
father's
village. Sri Amarpura is its name. I'm told it means "the man who
never dies."
As we pull up to my father's gated house in this century-old, 700-
acre
community, children surround the car. To the right is a tree I
remember: That's the
neem tree my grandfather planted the year my father was born. I used
to tear
off branches and clean my teeth with them. These days, my father
eats its leaves
to control the diabetes he recently learned he has.

Nearby stands the old stone house, now abandoned and crumbling. A
new home
my father designed and started to build three years after Joanna and
I left
India now rises opposite it, made of stone and covered in plaster.
Maybe that's
why he wanted the architecture books years ago.

A small boy stands inside the house's foyer and smiles. That's my
half
brother. He instantly clutches my hand. A woman in a checkered
white, orange and
red sari, like the one my grandmother always wore, approaches. She
smiles. This
is my father's first wife, Chandra. She's now bent over, also like
my
grandmother was.

I climb some stairs to my father's bedroom, where he says I can
sleep. When
he opens the door, I see on the wall yellowing printouts of photos
of my
mother, Joanna and me. He soon shows me around and says that the
home has three
guest rooms, one for each of his daughters.

"Uh, I don't think Joanna's interested," I say. He smiles and pats
the air:
"One day she will come, too."

That night, my father sits before an open fire, on a wooden stool.
There,
he cradles Anita's 5-year-old daughter, Sheetal, who has deep brown
eyes and
cropped hair. As my father sings to her, she tries to snatch his
nose. "Lisa!"
he calls out to her. He shakes his head and tries again. "Joanna!"
Wrong again.
"Sheetal!" Over the next week, my father slips several times,
calling Sheetal
by my name.

Sitting there, we end up talking about his days as a student. So
my father
could study in the States, his father mortgaged his land, all 70
acres, but
the money was only enough for one semester. Those first weeks in
America, my
father couldn't sleep; he was worried he would cause his father to
lose the
family farm. But within two weeks, he got a job grading math papers,
and the extra
$100 a month helped him support himself. Within three months, he met
my mother.

Later that evening, my father and I sit outside, on a cot, with
our feet
touching the sand.

My mind races as I contemplate how quickly my time in India is
running out.

"Do you have any words for my nephew?" I ask, thinking of
Mordechai.

"Tell him he is always welcome to India, to learn about his
roots," he
says, swaying slightly. "I won't keep him."

My visit is halfway over, and I have yet to ask my father what's
been on my
mind since I stepped off the plane: Why did he take Joanna and me?
Now he has
just given me my cue. Turning to him, I squint to hold back tears
and start
the question as best I can. "You said we'd only be gone two weeks."

He looks at me. "What?"

"Twenty years ago, you said we'd only be gone two weeks."

"I do not remember two weeks," he says, looking away. "It was
supposed to
be temporary."

"You're telling me it was supposed to be temporary," I say.

Yes, he says. I had return tickets and everything. Your mother
knew about
it. The next thing I hear I am charged with abduction. I lost my
job. My
belongings were put on street. I could not go back.

"Why India? Why Calcutta?" I ask.

"I wanted you to meet my mother. She was sick. I did not know how
long she
would live."

For the first time, I'm struck with this thought: Maybe he isn't a
wretched
person. All this time, I saw his taking us as an attempt to spite
our mother.
I never considered that he took us to India for his mother.

He says that it had been nine years since he last saw her. She was
paralyzed on one side, and he thought there was a doctor in Calcutta
who could help
her. In the end, she declined, not wanting to take the three-day
train ride.

"I hated Calcutta," I say.

"I did not like it, either," he says. "I never went back."

I think of all the questions I want to ask him. Abruptly shifting
gears, I
ask if he's ever cried, if he cried when his father died.

He frowns, shakes his head no.

His mother?

Again, no.

When his son was born?

No.

"I have cried maybe three times in my life," he says. And one, he
says, was
when my mother converted to Mormonism. "I was in bed three days," he
says.

"What else?" I ask, wanting to know the others.

"If I tell you, it will upset you," he says, looking at me
apologetically.

"Tell me."

"When I got that e-mail from you . . ."

I mutter, "About the suicide attempt?"

He presses his hand to his quivering chin. His eyes well up.

Seeing him like that, I say, "I won't do that again." But he
doesn't seem
to hear me. After a moment's silence, he gets up and walks away,
retreating to
the back of his house. The weight of his emotion catches me off
guard, and I
don't follow him.

Instead, I go to the barn and play with Sheetal. After several
minutes, I
notice that my father has taken a seat on the cot near the foyer. He
reclines
there, smoking.

I walk over to him, carrying Sheetal, and take a seat on the cot
while
Sheetal rests by his side. He seems calmer, so I ask about his life
now, about
Chandra.

"My first wife and I do not get along," he says. She lives in a
room
downstairs, because, as he told me earlier, "it would not be fair to
put her on
street." Why, I ask, did he decide to have another child with her?
He says that
he's had enough ex-wives and didn't want another, so he turned to
Chandra.
(Anita's husband later tells me my father wanted a son to inherit
the farm.)

When I ask why he introduced himself at the airport with his full
name, he
says he was surprised that I only extended my hand.

"Truthfully," he says, looking at me, "I was expecting a hug."

His thoughts turn to my mother. "She changed a lot," he says,
adding that
in their first days, she'd quote the biblical book of Ruth: Your
people are my
people, wherever you go, I'll go. He talks about her conversion to
Mormonism
and rolls his eyes at her "spiritual journey" that, he says, upset
our lives in
Florida.

He recalls those Florida days, how he taught me to swim. Standing
in the
pool, he'd throw me headfirst into the water. "You were my brave
girl," he says
and looks at Sheetal, squeezing her cheeks between his fingers. "Now
I know
you still are."

DAYS LATER, Anita's husband drives us to Karni Mata, a Hindu temple
swarming
with rats that people come from all over to worship. As I walk
shoeless on the
grounds, my father extends his arm and, for the first time since
I've arrived
in India, I lean on him. Later, as we drive back, I look at him
sleeping in
the front. I think of the lost years, of his smoking and a letter I
wrote him
19 years ago, after India, asking him to give up cigarettes. I think
of his
cough, which sounds deep and painful, and his diabetes. I know there
are no
graves for Hindus, and I ask myself where I will go to mourn him
when he dies.

As night falls, we stop at an outdoor restaurant. There, seated
next to my
father on a glider, I ask him what I should tell myself if I start
thinking
again that my life is a mistake.

"Nature would not have created you if you were mistake," he
says. "As soon as
you are no longer useful, nature will destroy you."

"Me?"

"Everyone," he says.

In the days ahead, he grows increasingly distant. He's already
told me that
I'm not the strong girl he remembers, the kid who would raise her
hands and
shout, "I am the leader!" And he dismisses any responsibility for
the abduction
charges by saying, "Americans are very reactionary people." I, in
turn, lash
out, telling him that I was an idiot for coming to see him, to which
he says
nothing.

Noting the growing silence between my father and me, Anita's
husband tries
to create "sweet memories" by driving us to Agra's Taj Mahal. The
next
morning, in Agra, my father doesn't say hello to me, and the rest of
the day I wonder
how I'll cope if he doesn't say goodbye when it's time.

That evening, when my father and I reach the airport with Anita
and her
family, I snap at him and say that unless I take the initiative he
probably won't
say goodbye. "That is not true," he snaps back. When that final
moment
arrives -- only passengers are allowed inside -- all of us stand
near the door. My
father sighs, then turns and faces me with that frown. It's that
look of
disappointment I have come to hate, of his seeing the person I've
become. I want him
to know that I won't ever again expect anything from him. But before
he can
say anything, I spit on him, hitting him on the right side of his
jacket.

He looks down, then up at me, startled, and raises his hand as if
to hit
me. I turn my back and walk toward the airport door. Suddenly, I
hear Anita
call, "Sheetal!" My niece must be following me. I haven't said
goodbye to her or
anyone. It's too late.

Inside the airport, I'm overcome. Shocked. I can't turn back to go
see him,
since he has surely left by now. And even if I do run after him, he
won't
want anything to do with me. I've destroyed any good that could have
come of this
return.

AFTER THREE WEEKS, I write an e-mail to my father, asking his
forgiveness. I
thank him for caring enough to make sure that Joanna and I learned
about our
roots, both Jewish and Indian, and for giving us the chance to meet
his mother
before she died. "You could have left America alone, but you chose
to take us,
and I think that on some level that showed love. Now that I've
returned from
India, I cannot find myself entirely regretting my days there as a
kid."

Days pass without a reply. Maybe my father has had enough; those
years
after we left India were no joy for him, either. During that time,
my mother
wouldn't drop charges. And for nearly 10 years -- every month, he
told me -- he had
to travel to a district court in India, a trip that he said took the
whole
day, to defend himself. Finally, the court gave him an "honorable
acquittal," as
he sneeringly called it, but not before the judge told him he wanted
an
explanation: Why did he do it?

"Your honor," my father recalls saying, "they were my children."
As he left
the judge's chamber, my father added, "May it rain on your city." My
father
says that by the time he got to the bus stop, it started to rain.

A week goes by. Then another. Eventually, I receive a letter. I
wait hours
before I open it.

"Dear Lisa," it says, "Hope things are well with you. We are all
in very
difficult positions and are doing the best that can be done under
the
circumstances. To err is human but it takes a lot to recognize it
and have courage to
correct it. I know you are intelligent and very decisive
person . . . Things are
not working the way they should. May be there is some divine message
in all
this. Let nature work its way and let it show you path. Relax and
give it a
chance . . . you are good. Dont look to past . . . let future guide
you."

A few weeks later, on my birthday, I check my e-mail. There's no
birthday
wish from him. Just as I stare at an empty mailbox, my phone
rings. "Lisa,"
says the voice, "it's Papa . . . Happy birthday." And within days, I
get an
e-mail from him.

For the first time, he delivers the following promise. "We are in
touch and
some day we will get same feelings we had one time," he
writes. "Like I said
I still cling to Lisa that was and find it hard to make transition
to Lisa
that is. I am trying and will succeed one day, just need patience
and time . . .
Papa."

Lisa Singh is a writer based in Richmond.