non-fiction Teresa Yang Sunny in India

Sunny in India

There are so many people in India that we can afford to have three guides:

Sunny, our guide; Rohan, his assistant; and the bus driver.

Driving in India requires its own dedicated resource. Like some Bollywood

dance, it’s all color and motion: cars, motorcycles, trucks, buses, bicycles, tuk tuks,

carts, pedestrians and, naturally, the sacrosanct cows. Our Sikh driver is unflappable,

his eyebrows and turban fixed. Roadblocked in Old Delhi by a too short overpass and

sandwiched in a glacial stream of cars, our driver somehow maneuvered the vehicle

to freedom, inch by inch, gingerly avoiding the cows. Even Sunny congratulated him

afterwards, in words we do not understand.

Conspicuous signs hang on the backs of trucks, ordering “Blow horn!” Our driver

obliges, honking to say, “Excuse me, just letting you know. I’m behind you.”

Remarkably, there’s little hostility; it’s pointless to yell and scream over the

Bollywood soundtrack playing in everyone’s head.

Rohan also does not speak English, except for words like “sir” and “ma’am,”

which sounds more like “mom” in his adopted British accent. His job, when we climb

onto the bus, is to offer a squirt of antibacterial gel and a cold drink.

We are in India, the six of us, my husband, his sister, his brother, and their

respective spouses. It is a chance for the siblings to return to their youth, make new

happier memories in the wake of their mother’s and eldest brother’s deaths.

In Agra Rohan accidentally drops a water bottle, the plastic tube rolling on the

bus floor towards the Taj Mahal and Sunny’s feet. Ever helpful, Nellie in our group

bends down to retrieve it only to hear Sunny say, “Leave it.” Faster than a family of

frogs, we all jump to conclusions. Sunny looks ahead, ignoring the water, and begins

his story about the labor of love that produced the Taj Mahal.

In that moment, Sunny reminds me of my mother-in-law. She had grown up in

Shanghai as the daughter of the family that owned the salt mines, one of the key

ingredients of soy sauce. Like the royal family, she had a nanny for each of her four

children. Of course, once she moved to California, her children raised themselves. She

was too busy working, cooking, and cleaning. Her downgraded status didn’t prevent

her from charging to the front of any line, though, like she was destined to be first,

oblivious to the other waiting customers.

Perhaps it is not noteworthy, but Sunny’s skin is much lighter than the other

two guides. His extended family lives together, separate but apart, the older brother

and family in one apartment, Sunny’s upstairs in the other. As tradition dictates, his

mother lives with his brother. Sunny’s sister lives in Las Vegas, his niece studying to

be a dentist at UNLV. Every few years Sunny makes the long journey from Delhi to

Vegas, where he “doesn’t have to pay for a thing.” He has seen the Blue Man Group

and, his favorite, Celine Dion.

Have you ever thought about moving to America, Nellie (who else) asks. She

mentions all the Indian PhD students who have stayed, jobs at Apple or Google,

children enrolled in the Palo Alto school district, green cards in hand.

“My duty is here, with my mother,” Sunny says. “It’s different with my sister.

She goes with her husband.”

Later at dinner Sunny says, Rohan will lose face if I pick up the bottle. “It is his

job. If I do his job, then it means he is inadequate.” In the U.S., we think we can do

everybody’s job better than they can – politicians, doctors, daughters-in-law.

Yet, I wonder, is it the remnants of the Indian caste system that keep Rohan

and Sunny swimming in different pool lanes? If Sunny stoops to pick up the bottle,

then maybe next month Rohan will decide to improve his English and say, “I trust you

slept well last night, madam.” Is it strictly about the dignity of doing a menial job

well? Or does job security and protecting one’s way of life enter into the prickly fold?

With a population of 1.4 billion, resources and indoor toilets are scarce. I ponder this

while sitting in the luxurious Oberoi Amarvilas dining room.

Every morning Sunny greets us with palms clasped together, steepled fingers

skyward, “Namaste.” With his V-neck sweater vest, fanny pack, and Panna National

Park hat, he could easily be a suburban dad on some Silicon Valley soccer field. Or

just as easily, dressed in uniform, Lord Mountbatten’s house manager, sipping his Earl

Grey tea just like the British. Even his name, originally Sunil, has been westernized.

The middle of three, Sunny’s birth order has given him considerable skills.

While the honking is not aggressive, the souvenir vendors are. Sunny calls them “the

hawkers,” birds of prey waving their China made trinkets at every opportunity. Once

we’re seated comfortably, already serviced by Rohan, he invites the hawkers, one by

one, onto the bus landing. “Any takers? 10 rupees,” he says, showing bangles, T-

shirts, replicas of Ganesha. Where otherwise we would be running for cover, eyes

averted, here cocooned under Sunny’s safety, we buy! It’s small change – and we

cannot return home empty handed.

We spend two days, one day too many, at a camel festival. Only the white

horses, awaiting auction, are pristine, their whiteness made even more dramatic by

the surrounding dirty brown. Gypsy families, camels, stray dogs, and horses all drink

from the community trough. Sometimes the barefooted, half naked Gypsy children

jump in to cool off, or maybe urinate. As young as 4 or 5, they grab onto pant legs,

shirt sleeves, sometimes bare arms, their immature fingers begging for money as the

mother looks on, infant to her breast. Even Sunny seems discombobulated, wishing for

his hawkers.

On the drive westward towards Rajasthan and Jaipur, Sunny tells us about

Partition, a bureaucratic, neutral sounding term, Britain’s last gift to the

subcontinent. The body of India was carved, left arm to Pakistan, right arm to

Bangladesh, the liver of Punjab cleaved in two, the resultant bleeding too mighty for

any tourniquet. Sunny’s grandparents fled current day Muslim majority Pakistan for

Hindu Delhi. Expectant belly swollen, it was already so difficult for his grandmother

to travel. She tried to focus on her unborn child, shielding its eyes from the horror of

decapitated heads, randomly strewn limbs, the physical manifestation of the

motherland’s dissection. When the pain awakened her one night, she knew the baby

had seen enough and was trying to escape. It’s starting, she told her husband. Alone

and without water or medical help, the two of them did the best they could. After

nineteen long hours, Sunny’s mother was born, but by then his grandmother, like

India herself, was bleeding to death.

It’s estimated that as many as two million people died during Partition.

“So you see,” he says, looking at Nellie, “I cannot leave my mother. She has

already been abandoned once.” Sunny then puts on a popular Bollywood comedy, The

Three Idiots.

Finally we arrive at the Rambagh Palace in Jaipur, once home to the Maharaja.

His grandson’s wedding will take place soon. Anticipation abuzz, the Palace will host

the nighttime festivities for the A list guests, with live streaming to the other dinner

venues. The Gypsy children are a fading memory.

As if reading my mind, Sunny says, “It’s a country of monumental contrasts,”

something he has said all along.

Teresa Yang

Teresa Yang is a dentist living in Los Angeles. Her work has been featured in several journals, including HerStry and The Writing Disorder, as well as in dental publications. She is currently working on a dental memoir.