Moe turns to me then, and the spotlight is there, without warning.
\n\u201cThat must be annoying, mustn\u2019t it?\u201d\u2014 And he is truly empathetic. \u2014 \u201cYour parents not leaving.\u201d
\nIt is the third day after arrivals weekend and the first time I have met him. When I reply, it comes out sounding, unintentionally, offended.
\n\u201cNo.\u201d
\nThen, to soften it: \u201cI like my parents.\u201d
\n\u201cOh.\u201d
\nHe is taken aback.
\n\u201cThat\u2019s alright then.\u201d He recovers. \u201cIt\u2019s just that \u2014\u201d
\nHe turns and the spotlight moves on.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s just that Asian parents are clingy with their children. They\u2019re not used to them leaving home. My sister, she stayed home till she got married at twenty-five. British parents don\u2019t really care, they\u2019re like \u2018fuck off\u2019: well,\u201d \u2014 the table, predominantly British, laughs\u2014 \u201cnot fuck off, but you know what I mean? Asian mothers, they\u2019ll make a scene, cry and stuff. That\u2019s why I wouldn\u2019t let my mother drop me to Uni. She wanted to, but I was like, \u2018Mom.\u2019 \u201d
\nHe stares sternly\/matter of fact into space and I see his mother sitting in front of us, weeping hysterically at the thought of losing him.
\n\u201c \u2018You know you\u2019re just going to cry. Why do you want to cry?\u2019 \u201d Snap back to present. \u201cIt\u2019s just too much drama for me.\u201d
\nAnd I \u2014 back to my silent role\u2014 nod with everyone else, even as I partially refute everything he is saying, even as I partially accept the grain of truth in it\u2014 but that\u2019s just traditional Indian families. Isn\u2019t it? \u2014 even as I think to myself, baffled: but I\u2019m not Asian. I\u2019m Indian.<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
There is a thud down my corridor.
\nIt is one am and I am in bed, watching Bridget Jones\u2019 Diary, because the Internet here is fantastic and because I am feeling alone. I have failed to buy a ticket for the Fresher\u2019s Ball (\u201c\u00a322 = 2200 rupees. For a party. And I don\u2019t even like partying, mom.\u201d) and have had to take group pictures instead, of my flatmates dolled up with neon paint, bright pink socks and smiles just as glaring. They left an hour ago. It is far too early for them to be back.
\nI hesitate, fidgeting under my duvet. There is another thud, then whispering. I hear, \u201cPriya, man…\u201d and more indistinct sounds.
\nI stay in bed because this is none of my business. They will do fine without me, as usual. I won\u2019t be much help anyway.
\nThere is a third thud, and the voices get louder. Coaxing. Giggling, and then something that sounds like an apology.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe problem with you, my love, is that you don\u2019t try.\u201d My mom is staring at me, unusually hard hearted, as I am silently crying about a petrifying interview at Cambridge, about the difficulty in understanding anyone\u2019s accents, about the \u2018looks\u2019. \u201cYou expect everyone to come to you, to make the effort. Why? Why not you?\u201d<\/p>\n
Bridget Jones is now kissing Colin Firth in the snow. I sweep back the duvet and open my door.
\nPriya is collapsed against the wall, her heeled feet no long holding her up. They look curved, like jelly. She is very drunk. Moe is live acting as prop for her. He is trying to convince her to get to her room, so she can sleep. Ronak, a London Asian, is trying to cheer her up. It is partly working. She is apologising, crying and laughing, all slurred.
\n\u201cIs everything\u2014?\u201d
\n\u201cIt\u2019s fine,\u201d says Moe, jovially. \u201cDon\u2019t worry man, we\u2019ve got her. Go back to sleep.\u201d
\n\u201cIs she alright?\u201d
\n\u201cYeah, yeah,\u201d says Ronak. \u201cDon\u2019t worry, we\u2019ve got this.\u201d This is first time I am interacting with him. I\u2019ve seen him down corridors, talking to people, talking to people who I am with. He seems sedate. Reserved.
\n\u201cCan I help?\u201d
\n\u201cNo don\u2019t worry about it,\u201c says Ronak. \u201cIt\u2019s fine.\u201d
\n\u201cJust go back sleep, yeah,\u201d says Moe, again.
\nI close my door and disappear.<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you serious?\u201d
\nHe is incredulous, but in a flattering way. He cannot believe he has placed me wrong, this London Asian, normally so perceptive of the difference between a British Asian and an international student. \u201c Are you really an international student? Hey Moe\u2014,\u201d as Moe pushes open his bedroom door. \u201cDid you know she was fresh?\u201d
\nFresh?
\n\u201cFreshie,\u201d explains Moe. \u201cPeople from India and Pakistan that haven\u2019t lived in England at all, who\u2019ve come straight from the \u2018mother land\u2019.\u201d He lifts his hands to place it in inverted commas.
\n\u201cFresh off the boat,\u201d says Ronak, grinning.<\/p>\n
Gayatri Patel, who lives three doors down the corridor, an international student, studied at Dhirubai Ambani International School, polished, going to France with her friends on vacation, visiting USA for the fiftieth time, carrying Mango bags and wearing Jimmy Choo shoes, impeccable English (of course) and I cannot see how she can be fresh, how she can be associated with the traditional Indian at all with her parties, her liberal western outlook and her superior education, let alone someone who has just stepped off the boat, hungry and tired, smelling of fish, trying to immigrate to England as the land of dreams.<\/p>\n
We don\u2019t make friends with Freshies, yeah?\u201d Ronak, in his half joking way. He is trying to explain the status quo to me, the difference, and I don\u2019t get it.
\nI frown. \u201cI\u2019m a freshie.\u201d
\nHe smiles at that, sensing the pride. \u201cYeah, but you don\u2019t seem like it.\u201d
\nAnd I am pleased. Pleased to be befriend-able, approved, singled out. Not that I get it. What makes you seem like one?<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
Our interaction is sporadic. They are in a different kitchen from me, just down the hall, but different. I can hear them, laughing and sharing inside jokes. They are tight, the way all students want to be when they join university. Someone\u2019s best friend. A person that somebody will miss, will ask after, will knock on their door to seek out.
\nThey would miss each other. They would remember each other. And they would re-tell the stories\u2014 \u201cMate, you won\u2019t believe what Ronak did last night.\u201d\u2014 so each of them could be there, every experience a communal one.
\nTight.
\nI have heard the stories. They spend their days together, missing lectures, just hanging out in each other\u2019s rooms, and talking or watching a movie. Often they fall asleep on the same bed. Friends\u2014 no, closer. \u201cLike brothers and sister,\u201d says Priya. \u201cMoe calls me his younger sister all the time.\u201d They have their own language almost, taken from London\u2014 things like \u201callow\u201d and \u201csafe\u201d. They play cricket with a paper plate and pink stuffed pig.
\nI am not a cricket fan. I am learning, in these two weeks, that there are a lot of things I am not. A good cook, for one. Or half as knowledgeable as I thought (EastEnders? Cheryl Cole? X Factor?). My accent\u2014 which I have always classified as neutral and international\u2014 is definitely Indian and definitely hard to understand. When I say \u2018can\u2019t\u2019, it can sound like \u2018cunt\u2019. I am authority on all things Indian. I am a lot better at being silent.
\n\u201cCome and play pool with us tonight.\u201d
\nMoe and Ronak are standing in the corridor, on their way back from Tesco. I am going back to my room.
\n\u201cI\u2019ve never played pool before.\u201d
\n\u201cWe\u2019ll teach you,\u201d says Moe.
\n\u201cWe haven\u2019t seen you in ages, Mehta. You can\u2019t say no.\u201d Ronak is smiling.
\nI smile back. \u201cAlright. Yeah, that would be nice.\u201d
\nI go back to my room and close the door, and wonder what I am going to tell Jenny Hellesy\u2014 fair skinned, blue eyed, loud laughing, boisterous Jenny. She has been trying to be their friends for weeks now, staying up late at night to play cards in their kitchen, knocking individually on their doors, exchanging history, lives and stories. Nothing.
\nAnd I get an invitation to pool. Because I\u2019m Indian.<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not a question of her race or anything.\u201d
\nMoe Abad, talking about Jenny as we sit in Ronak\u2019s room and I ask him why he doesn\u2019t like her: she obviously likes him; she\u2019s just trying to be friendly; trying to get to know them better. And Ronak is shushing me to keep silent lest she is outside the door and wants to hang out and we hear a knock, tentative, and then another one, louder, and we all \u2014 we all\u2014 keep as silent as mice.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s just a question of who we get along with.\u201d<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
\u201cAh,\u201d he says and leans back against the table so that I have to lean forward, tottering on my high heels, to catch what he is saying, \u201cYou\u2019re a coconut, aren\u2019t you?\u201d
\n\u201cA what?\u201d
\nI think I have heard wrong. This is my third night out with them and I am at the bar, in an overly crowded Asian club, hip-hop music blaring (I have discovered that I cannot dance), trying to find my bearings. But that is what he said, a coconut, this boy I barely know (and who barely knows me) \u2013 a course friend of Priya\u2019s, this our first conversation and I am a coconut: what the hell is a coconut?
\n\u201cBrown on the outside but white on the inside. Asian in your skin colour, white in everything else.\u201d<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
\u201cTashan,\u201d Ronak pushing the kitchen door as I lean the chair back, happy, confident, drunk. \u201cWould you sleep with someone before you\u2019re married?\u201d
\n\u201cOf course.\u201d
\nHis eyes widen. \u201cAre you serious? What would your parents say?\u201d
\nMy mother, on the broken line of skype: \u201cLook, love, you\u2019re there now. And it\u2019s an ideal opportunity for you to experiment. If you felt cloistered here because you felt people knew you and you had a certain image: all that is gone. Go, make-out in nightclubs if that\u2019s what they do. Have a fling with a random boy if that\u2019s what you feel like doing\u2014 just make sure you\u2019re safe. But, what I\u2019m trying to say, is just go with the flow.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not something that would bother them.\u201d
\n\u201cMate,\u201d Ronal, glancing at Moe, a little incredulous, \u201cMy parents would kill me if they thought I\u2019d had sex before marriage.\u201d
\n\u201cWould you?\u201d
\nRonak, Hindu, a charmer in an odd sort of way, picking his girls out carefully, kissing Priya over the Oceanic counter for the fun of it, pulling up tops and flirting, classily, with the pretty girls, only Asian though, always only Asian. Maybe Chinese.
\n\u201cMaybe.\u201d He smiles a little. \u201cIf I found the right one.\u201d<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
She is crying in my bed. In my mind\u2019s eye, I see them kissing, merging over Oceania\u2019s counter, one second apart, now welded together by their mouths, swaying, blocking other customers. But it doesn\u2019t matter now, he has told her it was all just a bit of fun and her heart is broken. Worse: toyed with.
\n\u201cTashan,\u201d she asks hesitantly, \u201cDo you think I\u2019ve done something wrong?\u201d
\n\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
Jenny, in our kitchen, drunk, eating nutella out of the bottle, turning as I come in. \u201cI got with someone today.\u201d
\n\u201cOh wow! Who?\u201d<\/p>\n
She shrugs, \u201cNo idea. Standard.\u201d and spoons more nutella in. And I laugh, because it is.
\n\u201cBecause you kissed him?\u201d I cannot reconcile this.
\n\u201cNo. Yes.\u201d She stares at her hands. \u201cI don\u2019t know. The kind of decisions I\u2019ve made Tash: I slept in his bed that night. I\u2019ve never done anything like that: I wouldn\u2019t have dreamed of it back home.\u201d
\nAnd I cannot reconcile this. Priya Hemandani, seven years in England (moving from India) to date, not conservative at all. She knows more than me sexually, she can match gossip for gossip: educated, beautiful, sassy, confident.
\n\u201cHemandani, you liked a guy and you kissed him because you thought he liked you back. You slept in his bed \u2013 just slept \u2014 that\u2019s all.\u201d
\n\u201cBut it isn\u2019t though, is it? We don\u2019t act like that: it\u2019s a question of dignity. It\u2019s different for us.\u201d A tear runs down her cheek and she wipes it off to look at me. \u201cIsn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
I walk into my kitchen and they are there, fifteen something of them. The Freshies.
\n\u201cOh, I\u2019m sorry.\u201d
\nEven to me, this apology sounds ridiculous. It is my kitchen; there is no need to apologise. They smile at me, politely, awkwardly. They have been having a party of sorts. The table is littered with food: Kurkure, Maggi, banana chips. It has been so long since I\u2019ve had banana chips.
\n\u201cHow are you?\u201d says Gayatri, polite, breaking the ice.
\nI haven\u2019t seen them for five weeks, not since the international orientation back in Mumbai. They have spent their time in Warwick together. Days and often nights; I\u2019ve seen them carrying their sleeping bags to Gayatri\u2019s room. They have explored the country, like tourists, visiting places they\u2019ve never seen and their friends that are scattered in other universities. They gamble instead of going out.
\n\u201cI\u2019m good. You? How is your course?\u201d
\nWe exchange the regular Fresher week questions. How are you? Where do you live? How is your course? How are your course mates? And your flatmates? The rest of the group stays silent as we talk and I get the impression she is answering in the collective, one person for all. When I ask about her flatmates she says \u201cGood\u201d like a platitude and I know it is a silly question. All the friends she needs are sitting right here.
\nAfter five minutes, I take my nutella and leave. I have nothing to say to them.
\nNot really.<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
Both Priya and Ronak are seriously religious: Priya believing in her God, fasting for him, an active and valued member of her church; and Ronak, not really caring but going to the Ganesh Temple every week when home, wearing the golden Om around his neck, believing because it is a part of him, because
\n\u201cIt\u2019s who we are.\u201d says Priya.
\nAnd there are religious and non-religious people in India and there are agnostics and atheists, the whole lot of them, loving, ignoring, or bearing religion and it never occurs to me as a part of identity, just as clingy Asian parents don\u2019t, or being sheltered, or innocence, or dignity, but here, here it is tied up with
\n\u201cBut you\u2019re not really Indian, are you?\u201d Priya, not meaning to be rude, just saying it like it is, like she sees it. \u201cYou\u2019re too westernized.\u201d<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
There are no international students, Asians, British Asians or Indians down my corridor. Just the British, a Scotsman (because it is not the same thing) and a low jean wearing Dane. To them, my friends, I am just Tashan. Tashan who is Asian, and international, but Tashan first.
\nI am sitting in Sarah\u2019s room, listening as they re-hash last night for my benefit. I am laughing as they explain all the antics and all the alcohol (and the copious amount of falling down).
\n\u201cWas there anyone else we know?\u201d I say, after the conversation has dwindled down.
\n\u201cJust A-Soc,\u201d says Sarah.
\nThe Warwick Asian Society? This is odd. How does Sarah know them (or any of their members) considering she can\u2019t be a part of it?
\n\u201cOh no,\u201d Jenny laughs, \u201cA-soc is the name we gave to the Asians down the corridor because they only ever hang out with themselves\u2013 and other Asians.\u201d
\nI shrug, \u201cI hang out with you guys.\u201d
\n\u201cYeah but you\u2019re different.\u201d Jenny is dismissive.
\nSarah, who is applying cream in the mirror, adds, \u201cAnd you\u2019re not part of A-soc.\u201d
\n\u201cI am Asian, though. Technically, apart from Priya,\u201d and I am piqued now, at the labels the British Asians are denying me with their behaviour, at the act of labelling at all, \u201cthe only one who has actually lived in India.\u201d
\n\u201cYeah no, we know.\u201d Jenny, nodding. Sarah turns and flashes a wide smile at me. \u201cBut you\u2019re our Asian.\u201d<\/p>\n
This story was shortlisted for the Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts International Student Short Story Competition 2012<\/a>.<\/p>\n A report on all of the entries by International Student Marleen van Os<\/a> can be read here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Moe turns to me then, and the spotlight is there, without warning. \u201cThat must be annoying, mustn\u2019t it?\u201d\u2014 And he is truly empathetic. \u2014 \u201cYour…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":757,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[152,80,151,153,149],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=467"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":957,"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467\/revisions\/957"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archive.nclacommunity.org\/content\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}