Happy Independence Day

Dear dedicated reader,

“Happy Independence Day” was the message that greeted me on the board of my 11th standard class when I walked in on Friday. It had been written neatly in the perfectly formed English handwriting characteristic of my students. A similarly neat “To Miss Biddle” preceded it.

I smiled.

Independence Day seems dearer so far away from home. We wanted to do something suitably ‘American’ to celebrate, though true Americana is as hard to come by here as toilet paper. We settled on having a party: we would invite our newly made friends over for a small celebration, replete with as American style refreshments as we could muster.

No endeavor in India would be complete without a few obstacles. First of all, we have no stove in our house. All of our food is prepared by the same kitchen that prepares the food for the boys who stay in the hostel here at the school, and so no hot food could be made. We began to brainstorm some cold snacks that would be acceptable. We settled on small tea sandwiches with cheese and tomato. We also thought we’d get ‘cold drinks’ (Thums up, the Indian version of Pepsi, and Sprite) and ‘American style’ potato chips, which here means sour cream and onion. Apparently, anything with cheese is considered American here, or so we were told.

Second, who to invite? We settled on Jagrutiben and her family (the local teacher who helps us), the staff from the computer lab (all young and mostly English speaking), and the principal’s family. We invited everyone ahead of time except for the prinipal’s family (whose invitation I will get to in a minute). One by one they turned us down. Our party was happening too late. They lived too far away. However, their excuses operated on another level as well: one of the young guys who works in the computer lab put it most plainly for us when he gave his apologies. “I’m just the son of a farmer and the principal is an important man. It is not suitable for me to come.” In a typically American fashion, we had forgotten about the role of social status here.

The time finally came to invite the principal’s family. I excitedly went over to see them the night before when I saw they were out sitting peacefully on their porch. I said my namaste’s and the principal’s wife gestured that I should sit.

In my broken Hindi, I began to give them the invitation. “I come to give you an invitation to a small party that we are having tomorrow for our Independence Day—“ I began

“You are having a party tomorrow?” The principal said.

“Well, yes,” I continued hesitantly. “Just something small, for independence day—“

“Who is invited?” He asked.

“Um, well – we had invited Jagrutiben and some of the computer lab teachers –“

“What time is the party?” He interrupted.

“Er, 8 o’clock—“ I said, rapidly losing confidence with these rapid interruptions.

“Jagrutiben will not come. It is too late. And the computer teachers are living too far away,” He declared dismissively.

“Ah, well, yes…” I said. “So,” I continued, “would you all like to come?”

“Will the food be vegetarian?” The wife asked me. “It should be vegetarian.” This struck me as a silly thing to say. All four of us Americans are vegetarian, as the principal’s family is aware of, I think.

“Oh, of course,” I said patiently.

“What will you have for food?” She asked me.

“Oh, just sandwiches and drinks. Very simple,” I explained.

The wife began to speak rapidly to the principal in Gujarati. They discussed something back and forth for awhile and then sent Jaydeep, the youngest son, into the house to get Sejalben. Sejalben having been retrieved, they repeated whatever they had said to each other to her and indicated that she should translate.

“My father is saying that we will get someone to help you with the cooking for the party,” she said sweetly.

I began to protest. “Oh, that is very kind, but the idea is that we would like you to be our guests. We will make the food ourselves, American food. No problem…”

“Yes, but she can make anything,” Sejalben explained. “Punjabi, South Indian, Chinese— will this do, Chinese food?”

I suppressed a laugh. How had my simple invitation morphed into this mess. “I mean, I think we’ll be all right. We will make our food ourselves. But thank you.”

“Yes, I understand this. But she can make something else to go with it,” she insisted.

Inwardly I sighed. “Chinese food would be wonderful.”

“Oh good, she makes tasty Manchurian noodles,” Sejalben said with delight. “Can she help you make the sandwiches too? She can toast them.”

“No no no, it’s all right, we’ll make them ourselves,” I insisted. “But thank you.”
The insistence did not stick as early in the morning the day of the party the hostel manager was sent to tell me that he could go buy all of the ingredients we needed to make our sandwiches and give them to the cook. I repeated our collective insistence that we would make them, this time in Hindi. Lathaben came to get the ingredients from the fridge so the cooks could make them later in the day: the insistence was repeated, this time in Gujarati by Vanisha. How many times did we have to say it, and in how many languages?

After a happy hour or so before the party of cleaning and making our sorry excuse for appetizers, the cook arrived with the Manchurian noodles. We put on some American music and a messenger (Vanisha) was dispatched to invite them over for dinner. We only have 4 plates in our house, and since those had been used for the appetizers, we also had to humbly ask that everyone bring their own plate and silverware.

The principal’s family arrived and sat in our sitting room. There was an awkward silence for a moment.

The principal finally asked us, tentatively, “So, what do we do now?”

There was a pause as I suppressed a laugh. “What do you mean?”

He continued, unsure, “Do we, uh, sing?”

The tiniest smile was the only outward indication of my inward mirth at this statement. “Uh sing? I mean, we can…”

“American songs? Is this what you do for your independence day?”

“Uh, we usually uh, just eat food and hang out and talk,” I explained. “Not too much singing. But we can if you want,” I offered.

“Oh no,” he said. He looked relieved.

“So, shall we eat?” We shepherded people towards the kitchen, mostly to avoid more awkwardness.

The food having been distributed and everyone settled with their plates, there wasn’t much talking as everyone enjoyed their food while listening to the soothing sound of Hindi film songs (we figured this was better for the atmosphere) from Vanisha’s ipod. The sound of chewing and the clinking of silverware was broken by the principal who had finished his food.

“So I can,” he paused, “go now?” He looked unsure.

We were taken aback. “Uh, yeah, sure.”

“Okay.” He smiled. “Thank you. You are our guests and now we are yours.” He smiled again and was out the door.

We looked at each other and then had to look away so we wouldn’t laugh. This was obviously the worst party of all time.

The principal’s departure served as a kind of stimulant for conversation, however, and soon we found ourselves laughing away with Yashpalbhai and Sejalben and Jaydeepbhai, who until this point I had never, ever heard speak.

At the end of the night, we let on that we had obtained some fireworks from the village. “You do these for your independence day?” They asked.

“Yeah, it’s kind of the main event,” we explained.

We had bought one huge firework, which no one wanted to volunteer to light.

“There’s a hospital nearby?” I asked them.

“Yes,” they replied, confused.

“Okay, then I’ll do it,” I said with a smile.

All the hostel boys gathered outside of their door as we went to light it. The wick caught and then everyone was running for cover behind some pillars, and for a moment we weren’t sure it would work until suddenly we were all surprised by the huge “BOOOOOOOOOOOM”.

It shot up into the air and exploded into a thousand colors. Beautiful. With cries of “happy independence day”, our guests retreated back into their house and we returned to ours to clean.

Best,
Cat