The main character is modeled after a real person, who was one of my contributors during my interview sessions in the summer of 2000. This was by far the hardest story to write. There is definitely some truth to the statement that a writer can usually write about something more effectively if he/she has experienced it. As a result, the first two stories were easier to write because they were either about my age group or someone close to my age group. The third story, however, was a challenge because I have not even had half the life experience an Indian woman has had who is in her early fifties. I have not had any children, been divorced, or developed a solid career. I really had to look for other subtle points to relate to, such as being ostracized by the Indian community, by listening to her voice on tape over and over again. The final point I want to make about the third story is that each phase in the principal character's life has a symbolic heading. The first phase is called "Green Maya." Green in Hinduism symbolizes peace and happiness. Maya means illusion. The second phase in her life is "Are we in some kind of American village?" which is self-explanatory. The third phase in her life is called "Got any advice, Saraswati?" Saraswati is the Hindu goddess of knowledge and wisdom. And the final and present stage in her life is titled "Saffron Queen in a Blue Room." Saffron symbolizes fire in Hindu theology, which wipes out impurities and re-establishes purity. Blue symbolizes a calm and stable mind. I don't want to explain the headings any further because the reader should, after all, interpret part of the story.
As far as Raksha was concerned she felt like Audrey Hepburn who was ready to take her "Roman Holiday" but in America, filled with glamour, fun and challenge. She knew that she and Rajesh were only going to stay here for one or two years, so he could get some outside work experience and then they would most likely go back to India.
As Raksha stepped into the Taxi, she started imagining what the town might look like that Rajesh and she were going to live in. It was called Carlton, Indiana and at this point she hoped that it would be a bustling little town filled with interesting restaurants, hopefully an Indian grocery store, good places for dancing and good job opportunities for women. Ever since Raksha had seen Mata Devi, a former Indian female politician, succeed in the Indian male dominated political world and get elected multiple times, she knew of the power women could exert and realized that she would never be the type of woman to stay at home, but one who was going to be an activist no matter what.
It had started with the banking executive job, Raksha's parents had not been too happy about it, and would have preferred to have gotten her married off at that time, but her rebellious spirit prevailed. Coming to America was like the next step to fulfilling some type of liberation. Raksha was not sure what type of liberation it was going to be, but she could certainly feel it looming in the air.
As she stepped into the Taxi with her husband (strange to think that they had only been married about two months), she felt a bit of anxiety over how they were going to settle in this new country and how their relationship was going to develop. Raksha had tried to put off marriage as long as she could. Her parents had already started to pressure her when she was eighteen. The bank job certainly helped her to delay marriage for at least another year. However, the fatal twenty-first birthday arrived and it was hard to stall any longer. Raksha's parents had already given her more liberties than most Indian girls got or perhaps wanted. It was time to fulfill the desired family obligations. And everything hadn't turned out too badly, because here she was in America, continuing her passion to travel. Granted she now had a husband to take care of and be a "wife," whatever that meant (she still had to figure it out), but hopefully she and Rajesh would learn to love each other. All of her friends who had arranged marriages told her that the best way to approach the relationship was to have no expectations, and then she would not be disappointed. They also tried to remind her that Hindustani girls do not love the person they are going to marry at first, but they learn to love them. Raksha was focusing on "getting to know" Rajesh, but it was difficult because he never talked much and the only time he ever seemed happy with her during the first two months was when she did whatever he wanted, such as cooking, cleaning, etc...
Raksha's thoughts were going off on a tangent, but she sprung back into reality when the Taxi driver suddenly braked and announced to her and Rajesh that they had arrived at the Residence Inn. This was where Raksha and Rajesh were going to stay till they had found a house. The Residence Inn area seemed nice, but a bit desolate. There were lots of beautiful trees around the area, a swimming pool in the compound and a basketball court. The apartment Raksha and Rajesh were living in was quite nice, there was even a mini kichenette where Raksha could prepare food. She did not want to complain on the first day, but there were no restaurants near by, she had no idea where to get proper groceries in order to make some nice Indian khanna, and frankly all she wanted to do after resting was to go dancing somewhere and have some fun!!!
One of the hardest situations to get used to was substituting Indian ingredients with American ones. For the first three months Raksha had bought sour cream at the grocery store thinking it was plain yoghurt, until one of her American friends finally laughed at her and showed her the yoghurt section. Raksha had changed more in these three short years than she would have ever imagined. She was only twenty-four, but she felt much older. Light, silvery hair was starting to show up among her black hair. Most of her friends in Carlton were already in their mid thirties, with three or four kids. Some of her friends, like her neighbors, had never even heard about India, but were now fascinated by the culture. None of them went dancing, that was for sure. Raksha did not want to criticize them, they were all nice people, but the only topic the women ever talked about was their kids. It was hard sometimes, because it would have been nice to have an Indian friend with whom you could speak in Hindi with once in a while, or not have to explain to why you were playing Hindi music in the house.
Raksha also never imagined that child raising would be so time consuming. If she had been in India right now, three ayahs would be helping her out with the children, but not in America--- "Do it yourself" was the life motto here. On top of that she had to have warm meals ready for Rajesh when he came home, and she had to admit that sometimes it really got on her nerves. Wouldn't it be nice if she had a "wife" of her own who would cook meals for her, clean the house, take care of her children and please her husband?
Maybe moving to another town would cure Raksha's boredom, lack of excitement and feelings of isolation. However, at this point she had to be content with Carlton being her home.
After finding out about all sorts of careers and making connections with the women that were present at the open house, Raksha had a plan in mind. She would start off by volunteering and getting to know the organization better, before plunging into a full time career. This would give her more time to think about how to balance career and family. She had already thought about volunteering with the Red Cross and maybe the battered women's shelter.
When Raksha reached the exit door of the building, she saw heavy rain coming down. She quickly ran to her car and as she was driving away, being attacked by the hard rain drops, she could not help but think of the difficulties her children were experiencing in school right now. She had already been thinking about how taking up a career would affect her family, but really she was thinking about her children the whole time. Her daughter and son were only two years apart from each other in age and attending the same elementary school. They were the only non-white children in their elementary school, and would often come home crying because someone had made a ridiculous comment like "Oh, you're Indian, you're going to have an arranged marriage," or "you're so weird with your dirty, brown skin, why don't you take a shower?" Academically, her daughter and son, Maham and Dhruv, were doing wonderfully in school, but socially the problems never seemed to end. Raksha wondered if it was partly her fault...ooops a red light, "I better slow down," she thought. She always encouraged her children to consider their Indian community friends their "real" friends, and their school friends as people who they saw and talked to in school, but certainly not outside of school. Raksha remembered Maham being unhappy last year because she had to have separate birthday parties for her American friends and for her Indian friends. Raksha did not force Maham to celebrate that way, but Maham herself felt strange about introducing her American friends to her Indian friends and vice versa. She did not know it then, being a fourth grader, but later on realized how she grew up in two different worlds: One which included her family life intermelded with the Indian community and the Other, which was her school life in an American environment.
Dhruv had different problems in school. He was not just bullied verbally, but he had already been beaten up twice this year by two American boys. Both times it had been clear that the two American boys had started the fight and their reason for doing it was "He was just in my way." It was these occurrences that really troubled Raksha and made her think twice about taking up a job. And then there was Rajesh who would express his anger if she came home after he did from work, or if he had to take care of the children for two hours because she had been volunteering. The rain was only trickling now as a pensive Raksha drove into her perfectly middle class American suburbia cement driveway. Her rose bushes were absolutely drenched, and the rose petals were sagging sadly, letting single water drops fall onto the ground one by one.
Another person who had indirectly slammed the door in her face and did not want to give business to her. Raksha's feet were aching from walking all day long and she was sick of being denied business from every place she stepped foot in! The Women's network had warned her about this; the combination of being a woman and then a minority woman on top of that would make it difficult for her to establish contacts and create a business within the white, male dominated world of business executive travel planning. The only time another company had given her business was last month and Raksha knew it was because the boss was African -American. He had been the only person who had even taken the time to listen to her company's contract proposals. However, she was also aware of the fact that as an African - American he knew what it was like to be discriminated against and recognized that she, as a minority woman, had not had much business luck as yet. It was during times of rejection that Raksha questioned her decision to pursue a career. She was not worried about the children any more because she had planned her schedule to such an extent that she could spend enough time with them. Of course there were problems with Rajesh, because he did not have warm meals on the table as he used to and both of them had become too wrapped up in their work lives. Individuals in the Indian community criticized Raksha for neglecting her family (no surprise there!) and becoming too independent. As far as Raksha's career was concerned, she wasn't going to give up any time soon. She was starting out small, but hopefully it would develop into a permanent career at some point. She looked at her watch, wow, it was already 7p.m., time to go home. After a tiring drive home, she entered into her beige carpeted, dull living room, hoping to relax a little bit, but there was Rajesh standing in the door way just waiting to give her a piece of his mind. Raksha didn't know how much longer such tension between her and Rajesh could go on. . .
Divorce. Argggghhhhh. The ugly word was surrounding her like a swarm of bees that were all ready to sting her. She had known it was going to happen. In fact she wanted it to happen, but she had never been able to express it like Rajesh had done for her a month ago. After thirty years of a marriage that had no companionship and no love, it was time to put it to an end. Raksha had realized a couple years ago that she was the true embodiment of an independent woman who did not need a man in her life to support her financially. As far as emotions were concerned, she always felt that she had a much stronger emotional bond to her children than she ever did to Rajesh. Hopefully, this interview was not going to be published with her real name because then she definitely would not give it. How come she had forgotten to ask the girl about such an important detail? If her name was published, the ridiculous gossips in the Indian community would take advantage of it. They would jump at the chance to make her the main topic of malicious conversation once they found out about the divorce. And of course they would blame it all on her because after all she was the one who started neglecting the family by volunteering in the community. It was she who did not take care of her husband, it was she who was selfish and wanted to get a job, alas, it was she who let the family fall apart, who let THINGS FALL APART. However, once the gossip would die down, so would Raksha's contact with the Indian community. She feared becoming a non-entity and invisible in the Indian community. The majority of the people she knew who regularly socialized with the Indian community, were all couples. Once you are an old, single woman people start forgetting about you.
Nonetheless, Raksha was happy and most of all relieved that Rajesh had decided to break things off. She really had created a life of her own, with a full fledged, respectable career, a good relationship with her children and time left over for volunteer work. At this point she did not want to deal with Rajesh any longer, who had never truly understood her. It was sad that he had failed to acknowledge her needs and accomplishments at every point in their former life together. His constant refusal of appreciating Raksha, had made her fall out of love with him.
Another companion that had become stronger in her life was religion. Nothing was more peaceful to Raksha than going to the temple and praying or meditating. However, to get through the painful process of divorce Raksha would need some outside help, maybe a support group?
It slowly started to rain and Raksha sat calmly in her home office looking outside and wondering what the future had in store for her. All of a sudden the doorbell rang and Raksha sprang out of her pensive daze. She had forgotten the time, it was already 4p.m. . The girl was at the door, drenched from the rain and profusely apologizing for her tardiness, "I got stuck in traffic," she said. Raksha started mentally preparing herself for the interview questions, and made sure that her real name would not be published in the transcript of her interview. As Raksha and the girl sat down for the interview, Raksha tried to think back to a life of fifty-three years, filled with cultural adventure, a woman's liberation, two wonderful children, a painful divorce and now a new beginning. . . "Can you please tell me when you immigrated to the United States and what the first few months were like for you in this country?" asked the girl as one of her first interview questions. "Well, it was 1969, and I remember I was wearing this beautiful flower-patterned sari when I arrived to the United States, I was quite attractive in those days mind you and . . .