High Tea at the Kapurs'

by Karuna Ezara Parikh

‘Caste is abolished in India now!’
Aunty Kapur, ‘Last name with a u not a double o,’ says.
Nandi didi who’s “just like family”
and cuts tuberoses charmingly,
at an angle as perfectly obtuse as her boss lady,
brings us porcelain cups with chai, ‘garma garam!’ Aunty says, and
small-small samosas with ‘meethe mattar’ Aunty says.
She tells me and my college friend from London
– Diana, ‘like the princess!’ Aunty says –
that ‘nowadays it’s only for marriage,
like we are Khatri, we want Karan also to marry Khatri.’
Diana asks why, as I dip Pure Magic in chai,
but Karan comes in, bringing with him hot-hot air,
‘Bhenchod’ he says, and tells us how the ‘bloody driver’ has been unfair.
He winks at Diana, leaves for the gym
and ‘foreign girl will also do,’ Aunty says with a grin.
But much as she likes her “kaale chashme” and coordinated chiffon,
we know she wouldn’t call, say, a black foreigner home.
Nandi didi comes to clear the plates,
Diana rises, ‘Arrey leave it,’ Aunty says,
but we help anyway;
it’s what young girls do, clean up crumbs after you.
In the kitchen, frying pakoras are choking the vents,
Karan’s post gym snack, dries on newsprint.
It soaks up the oil so his upper caste –
Oh sorry did I say caste?
I meant upper class –
body’s ruin is refrained.
There, blotted by tel
Nandi Didi is allowed to use second-hand for her food,
we see a story, printed smaller than the samosas, the mattar,
or the odd edge in our moods,
about a Dalit girl being gang raped for trying to go to school.
Aunty Kapur continuing, says, ‘See, even all this reservation is a total farce,’
and Nandi Didi, who knows no English, sips tea, from a steel glass.