Footprints on the Sand

Those are our footprints on the sand. Aren’t brown, see? Shaped like our curves. Or the number eight.

Eight is the number of months we’re here. Look! They’re in search of new-ish homes!

We stoop to touch them, wish they froze on the wet sand, like Buddha’s on the rock near where we were born. But then, the waves come crashing.

Look closer! Notice our brown-black eyes; see the penciled-kohl, the desire to excel?

We, girls from Chikmaglur, Chennai, Baripada or Bihar, places off your maps, like far end of your back, are here because education takes us places; lets us chase our audacious dreams!

We, Kalpana, Radha, Jasmine or Sripada, names our great-grandmothers gave us, names that melt love and sweetness in our ears, won’t mind if you call us what-you-will --- what’s in a name? A syllable missed, a vowel stretched too long --- sounds sweeter on the lover’s tongue! Even the sunshine, air, is brighter, crisper, here! Oh! The grass --- yes, it’s greener too.

We marvel at skyscrapers kissing blue oblivion, people kissing at Times Square --- that’s the stuff our fantasies are made of, spun around Hollywood movies we saw on TV, crammed in our stuffy dwellings. So we prepped well, didn’t we?

When you see us at Berkley or Boston, on the University campus, browsing books, or at the fireworks on the Fourth, you will know these are the ‘Crossover Girls’, with the unsure gait, bunched together, smell of curry and pickle. We will look at you too, but not meet the eye. But back home, we are the apple of our family’s eye --- our father, his brothers, mother, her sisters, and six cousins, who go around saying --- our sister/daughter made it to the Big Apple, sounding like they have. When we call them they pretend to be sad; rue that we’re gone forever; but inside they’re happy --- happy that at least one has escaped the cauldron where the crabs pull each other down. One of them, they know, has made it big.

We acquire an accent. You’re amused by our choice of words, cringe at our over-enthusiasm, but laud our tenacity.

When you check our rounded bodies, over-sized hips, we hiss, Hide it! Hide it! We layer our bodies with oversized jackets. But once in a while, we dare to bare a midriff, tease with a tee too full for comfort, why not?

We go out, get ourselves clicked with mugs of beer but only get drunk as much so we don’t forget where we came from. We tell you how amazing you drive, how great your place is, and don’t expect you to return the favor.

When you touch our smooth brown skin, we tell you we like it, because that’s an honest answer!

When our boys from Bangalore, Bandipur, Delhi or Dibrugarh, go back to their Mammas to get their brides, we stay back to snog someone here. We tell those with whom we’re slowly falling in love about love and marriage and families we’d like to have. You, guys from Chicago, Boston, Seattle or Michigan, love us back because  you’re flattered, and if you’re thirty and above, marry us.

We pit against our husbands the ogling men, the sweating men, to whom we thought we’d be pegged, like our hapless mothers, if we didn’t make it here. And tell our sisters back home we got the men we drooled over on TV when we were thirteen or fourteen, only iris color or jaw-line amiss. We like to believe the men we married think our personalities matched, that they love our smiles, or that they love where we came from.

We, Kalpana, Radha, Jasmine or Sripada, earn our degrees. We work like mad, keep house, love our husbands, cook them curries, mow the lawn, then get to books to study some more.

We, our bump too large to fit into the car, drive to the hospital anyways, while our mothers are angry and screaming at us on international calls, worried if we can make it alone. We joke we’re not alone---there’s two of us! Our husbands join when the baby is out, drawing its tiny fist at both of us.

We, mothers strolling with prams at Oak Park or Rosindale; if you meet us, we’ll tell you how much we love the Ox-bow Lake or Mouse River; and compare them to the places we grew up in --- bursting with people at the seams.

We, mothers of High School kids who look like us, love the equality, fairness, and hard work our kids have imbibed. We tell you we’re proud our children talk of opportunity and dreams. We tell you we’ve taught ourselves hymns to thank the gods, and plant a nice green tulsi at our snowed-down doorstep because we want our sons to be the next Satya Nadella. 

We, who’re happy for ourselves, go back to Florida beach where it all started. Notice our footprints frozen!

Mandira Pattnaik

Mandira Pattnaik's work has appeared in Watershed Review, Citron Review, Bending Genres, Splonk, Amsterdam Quarterly and Passages North, among other places. She is a Pushcart Prize 2021, BotN 2020 and Best Microfiction 2021 nominee. Lives in India. Find her @MandiraPattnaik