“I mean Thatha will probably try to kill you,” Nate added.

“I know. ”

“Well, good luck. This should make things infinitely easier for me,” Nate said as he gulped down all the water in the glass he was holding. “My girlfriend is from Delhi, north Indian; she is going to look so good in front of your American boyfriend.”

“You’re all heart, Nate,” I said in sibling disgust and walked back into the living room where my mother sat in judgment of my life and me.

Ammamma’s living room, the hall, was large. It could, during festivals and other celebratory occasions, hold at least sixty seated people for a meal, and it had, several times.

The floor was stone, polished and weathered by time. It glistened beautifully when Parvati mopped it and it was cool to touch, which was a blessing during the hot summer days.

At home Nick and I had hardwood floors and carpet and I could never walk barefoot on either since neither was as cold as stone. It was just one of those things I had brought along with me to the United States, like my inability to eat beef, no matter how many times I told myself that the cow in America was probably not sacred.

I sat down on the floor next to mounds of mangoes. Sowmya sat next to me, while Ammamma was settled comfortably on a new sofa, which was a step up from the old one that had springs coming out from the fabric and needed to be covered with thick towels to prevent bottoms from being pierced. Lata sat on a chair and immediately Ma demanded a chair for herself and Sowmya got one for her from the dining room.

I had no idea how to break the ice with people I had known for a good part of my life. The saving grace was my grandmother. Ammamma could talk anyone under the table and she almost always did. She usually launched into vitriolic tirades about something or the other. This time the spotlight was on my younger uncle and his “elopement.” Anand, to everyone’s surprise, had a love marriage. He fell in love with a colleague, Neelima, at the company he worked for. Neelima was a Maharashtrian and they got married in secret without telling anyone about it until after the three knots of the mangala sutra had been tied.