I pulled up the white Nike socks I had finally convinced Mom to buy for me after months, trying my best to copy my friends’ trademarked styles. Everyone in Ms. Johnson’s fifth-grade class would be head-to-toe clad in variations of Nike and Under Armour. Mom hurried me into the living room to take a picture with my great-grandmother––Badi Nani––before we headed back to New Jersey. He’s always caught up in fashion, what’s gotten into him, I heard Mom mumble under her breath. Part of me wanted to comment on how she would spend hours getting ready for Pujas or birthday parties, but I stopped myself.
Trying to ignore what she said, I approached Badi Nani who was sitting down cross-legged on her bed, stitching a baby-blue colored Kurta for me to wear on Diwali that day. I sat down next to her, noticing the new wrinkles which had formed under her eyes. She placed her arm around me, and I knew I couldn’t wear this at the party in front of Sebastian and Aidan tonight. Last year, Mom forced me to wear a Kurta in front of them. I remember hearing them talking to each other, laughing at me. Probably something about what I was wearing or the food that Mom had cooked. I didn’t talk to them until the next school-year.
“Beta, I finished this just for you. Wear it, the color suits you,” Badi Nani said to me as she tried to fit the sleeve of the Kurta around my arm, snapping me back into focus. She continued to yank it up my arm as I scampered up from her bed.
“Why don’t you want to wear it, Beta?” Badi Nani asked me.
“Uhh, no reason, Badi Nani,” I said to her. “It’s just a bit too itchy to wear in the car.”
Not knowing what else to say, I picked up one bag in each hand and ran outside to load the car. As I walked back into the house, scrolling through Instagram, I noticed Mom glaring at me through the glass window with her arms crossed. I stopped myself in my tracks from entering the house.
After a few minutes of walking around outside in the backyard, waiting for Mom to cool off, I heard the screen door open and saw Badi Nani give me a thumbs-up. I strolled inside, avoiding eye contact with Mom, and went back to Badi Nani’s lap.
After a few minutes, she gestured at Mom and Dad to leave the room and rested her calloused hands on me. A pit of guilt started forming in my stomach. I could’ve worn it and then just stuffed it in my bag later! I didn’t say a word.
She started folding the Kurta, but I stopped her. “It’s okay, Badi Nani, I’ll wear it if you want me to,” I said to her, grabbing it from her hands and slipping my head through the gold-embroidered Om pattern on the collar, the same one on the Kurta she was wearing.
“Beta, it’s your choice. Although, there is something I want to tell you that I should’ve long ago,” she replied.
She told me my parents were the first in our family to immigrate to the United States from India and that I would struggle growing up by finding the balance between Western and Indian culture. She pulled out a photo album from under her bed and flipped a few pages. She showed me pictures of Diwalis from years ago with me dressed in a full Kurta-Pajama with a Tilak from the temple on my forehead.
“You shouldn’t be embarrassed of your roots, Atishay. You have been gifted both cultures for a reason. Go out and wear the Kurta with jeans if you want. Go play Tabla on English songs. No one is stopping you,” she explained.
I nodded in response, fidgeting with the top of my sock, looking down at all the obnoxious labels on my clothes. I couldn’t say anything to her. I didn’t know what Badi Nani would think of me for being her “white-washed” Beta. But then, it struck me. That I was the first and so far, only person in our entire family to be born in America. That in fact, I would be the first in our family to wear a baby-blue Kurta with Nike socks on Diwali.
Badi Nani called my parents back into the room and gave them the same thumbs-up she had given me. She glanced over at me one more time and said, “Khush raho, mere bete,” (Stay happy, my son).