[I have edited this story for clarity. This may make a little more sense than the previous version. Thank you NoMM for the constructive suggestions.]

 

A GREEN PUBERTY IN ‘E’ MINOR

“Make sure you buy green balloons and green decorating papers. Buy green paper plates. I want everything green today. Bring Heineken beers; they come in green bottles.” Roshi, who was reciting the grocery list to her husband, Nabin, sounded quite animated that morning.

“I don’t have to color myself green, do I?”

“Save your wisecracks for the guests … I can’t go with you now. There is a lot of cleaning to do here. I’m telling you, don’t forget anything. Else, you’re going right back. Why don’t you jot the list down?”

Roshi was livened up by the anticipation of the dinner party she was hosting that evening. Exactly 11 days ago, after four years as a fed up hostess at a substandard Indian restaurant, she had made a green card for herself and her family.

“You know the card isn’t green anymore?”

“You need to go now. It’s getting late.”  

“How many people have you invited?”

“Twenty-seven. I hope they all make it. I’m cooking a lot of food. We haven’t invited anyone since our loan approval for that Toyota Corolla.”

 

“Oh, yeah. Remind me, why we didn’t invite anyone when we got our tax refund?”  When Nabin saw the look on his wife’s face, he caved in, “I’m leaving then. If you want to add something else to the list, call my cell phone. I will leave my cell phone here.”

 

“Wait. You remember the Shrimp Curry from Rita’s anniversary last month?”

“I don’t remember what I had for breakfast this morning. Oh, that’s because I have not had any breakfast this morning.”

“We also have to make at least one item with shrimps. Otherwise, we look cheap. Bring four pounds of shrimps.”

“What kind of shrimps? I think there’s more than one kind.”

“Get the most expensive ones. I think the big ones are expensive. Get the big ones. Get the biggest ones.”

************************************************************************

An hour later, the moment he entered the house, Nabin asked his wife, “I brought five pounds of extra large jumbo shrimps. How do you plan to cook it?”

“I have never cooked shrimps before. There’s so much for me to do here, why don’t you cook it? Get a recipe from the Internet.”

Another 20 minutes later, the triumphant Nabin sprinted to his wife. “I found a recipe for ‘Garlic Shrimp’. But this darn instruction says I need to devein shrimps first. What does ‘devein’ mean? You know?”

“If it was in the cooking instructions, you know it’s not a literary word. How am I supposed to know? Look for it in the dictionary.” The husband was relieved upon finding that his wife, who often bragged about her Master’s degree in English Literature from Tribhuvan University, did not know the meaning either.

Nabin only had a pocket dictionary at home. The kind of work he did required wrenches, screwdrivers and pliers to fix his problems, not a life-size dictionary. So he quickly called his more intellectual friend, Bikash, a ‘Dollar Store’ entrepreneur in Chantilly, Virginia.

After a minute of grueling research in the Webster’s, the more scholarly friend, Bikash, tutored Nabin over the phone: “I think ‘devein’ means you need to cut it vertically. It looks like ‘de’ means ‘to cut’, and ‘vein’ means ‘vertical’. It has to be French. They use ‘de’ a lot.”  

Thoroughly relying on Bikash’s paraphrasing of the word ‘devein’, Nabin patiently peeled all five pounds of large uncooked shrimps. He then cut each shrimp into two pieces vertically, ‘vein-ly’, in French. After two hours of passionate labor, he had prepared a very unique shrimp appetizer.

************************************************************************

“Punam is bringing her boyfriend, Shohaib. Make him feel at home. Treat him like a Nepali.” Roshi tipped off her husband.

“He is Pakistani. How do I treat him like a Nepali? How do I treat anyone like a Nepali? Sing a Nepalese anthem when he arrives? Even our anthem has changed now. I don’t know the words.”

“Punam will feel at ease if we all talk Nepali with him. She always speaks Nepali with him whenever he is in one of our gatherings. She doesn’t want others to know that he isn’t one of us. You know how people are.”

 

“Yeah I know how people are. They are exactly like you.”

 

“Talk to him in Nepali. That’s all I am asking.”

“But he doesn’t understand a word of Nepali. I might as well speak Turkish or Korean. That way I won’t understand myself either. It will be fun. Like ‘Deal or no deal’, we can play ‘Turkish’ or ‘Korean’ all night. What do you say?”

“Cut it out.”

“How about religion? Shohaib is Muslim. Do I have to recite Koran when he’s here? Shrimps are done. I’m free right now; I can go buy a Koran. I’m not sure if they sell a green Koran though.”

 

“I said cut it out. Why are you annoying me?”

 

“Because you keep on giving me opportunities to annoy you. Like any normal person would, why can’t I simply speak English with him?”

“Don’t you dare speak English with Shohaib. He went to high school here. He speaks fluent English. You are going to embarrass us all with your accent. If you don’t want to talk to him, that’s fine by me. I will ask Pratik to give him a company…”

A phone call disrupted the ‘Hosting Shohaib’ conflict.

“I’m calling from Baskin Robbins. Is this Mrs. Bhyandory?”

“This is Roshi Bhandari.”

“I believe you ordered a cake a while ago.”

“I sure did.”

“I was not here in the store when you ordered it. The guy who took your order is a big time prankster. Today was his last day. He already left for good. I have a feeling he wrote something silly on your cake, a prank, I fear. Just wanted to confirm before we embarrass the establishment and ourselves. Did you really want ‘Have a Great Green Life’ on your cake, ma’am?”

“Yes, that’s right,” Roshi giggled, as she always did when she talked to English speaking people. She found every single one of them quite fascinating.  

“If you don’t mind me asking, what’s the occasion? Pardon my snooping.”

“Oh I don’t mind at all. We are celebrating our green card.” Roshi said proudly.

“Oh, congratulations! My friend Mohammad, who is from Egypt, got his green card last year. He was quite relieved.”

“I know that Mohammed from Egypt. I know his wife too.”

“I don’t think you do. From what I know, there are five million Mohammads in Egypt, and I met this Mohammad in Omaha, Nebraska … By the way, you can come pick up your cake any time you want. Congratulations once again.”

************************************************************************

When Roshi saw her husband coming out of the shower, she instructed, “When you’re ready, you have to go pick up Sama and Anup.”

“They have a car. Why should I go pick them up?”

“Anup still doesn’t drive in the highway. He only drives from home to work and for groceries and stuff.”

“WHAT? He’s been driving for a year. I will make him drive in the highway. I will call him and give him directions. I’m not going to pick them up. They have got to be kidding us.”

Ten minutes later Nabin came to the kitchen and sat silently. “What happened?” Roshi asked.

 

“There’s no point talking to that wimp. I will go pick them up in a hour.”

“What did he say?”

“Apparently he’s got problems changing lanes in the highway. He says he can change from left to right comfortably, but he gets scared when he has to change from the right lane to the left lane.”

“I told you so,” the victorious wife rejoiced.  

“By the way, what happened to those toilet paper rolls in the bathroom downstairs? I put four rolls there just an hour ago.”

“I moved those to the bathroom upstairs… These people always talk behind our back that we don’t spend. I want to show them.” Roshi’s response perplexed Nabin.

“I’m sure you have plotted this wisely, but reveal to me how you’re going to achieve that by removing toilet papers from the bathroom downstairs?”

“Think.”

“Wait a minute … When they see no toilet papers here, they’re going to ask us. And you’re going to tell them to use the bathroom upstairs, so that they can see our new furniture upstairs. That’s why you removed those toilet papers from here.” The husband had it all figured out.

“You bet. You’re also telling them to use the bathroom upstairs.”

 

“The thing we bought, is that even considered furniture?”

Another phone call interrupted the toilet paper talk.  

Nabin said ‘hello’ and he did not speak for two full minutes. He tried to, but the person on the other side did not stop. After two trying minutes, Nabin said, “If you’re coming from Gaithersburg, why do you need directions from Tyson’s Corner? I will give you directions from Gaithersburg.” Even the unflappable Nabin was losing his patience.

Rita, who was on the other side was adamant, “We only know our way around in Virginia from Tyson’s Corner. You know our record; we still lose our way getting back home from Priti’s daycare. We know how to get to Tyson’s Corner from here. We lived in Tyson’s Corner for three years; we can drive to most places in Virginia from there.”

“But you’ll lose at least 15 minutes if you do that. All you have to do is take I-66 west from the Beltway. You can reach to our place faster than you can reach Tyson’s Corner.”

“Please, Please, Please, Nabin daai” Rita insisted childishly.

“You have a pen handy?” Nabin lost one more battle of the day.

“Yes I do. One second, hold on… ANIL, I’M ON THE PHONE WITH NABIN DAAI. HE’S GIVING ME DIRECTIONS TO HIS PLACE FROM TYSON’S CORNER. WE NEED DIRECTIONS FROM THE FRONT PARKING LOT OF BLOOMINGDALES OR THE BACK?”

“NO. GET THE DIRECTIONS FROM NORDSTROM’S PARKING LOT.” Nabin heard Rita’s husband shout in the background.

“Didn’t you guys drive to Boston last month?” Nabin sighed.

“We did. But Philadelphia and Connecticut were not in our itinerary. We saw both. Do you know which city is the first capital of America?” Rita quizzed Nabin.  

*******************************************************************

“Sorry officer it was totally my mistake. I was cooking Chili Chicken. It’s my specialty. I thought I turned the stove off and the exhaustion fan on. It seems I ended up doing the opposite.”

 

“You did not hear the fire alarm or smell the food burning?”

 

“I went to vacuum the living room after that. My vacuum cleaner makes a very loud noise. I have this sinus thing; I can’t smell much. By the time I heard the fire alarm, there were five firefighters outside the house.”

 

“Was anything damaged?” The somber-sounding police officer interrogated.

 

“No. Except that black spot on top of the stove, luckily nothing was damaged.”

 

“Even if you did not smell the food or heard the alarm, I can’t quite understand how you didn’t feel the smoke. Your neighbors did.”

 

“Of course I did too. But by then, it was too late. Someone had already called the firefighters.”

 

“There was nobody home but you?” 

 

“That’s correct. My son has a baseball practice. My husband is out to pick up two of our guests … they don’t drive in the highway… I’m going to have to cook chili chicken again. It’s a lot of work. Do you like Indian food? Would you like to try some Samosas?”

 

“Ma’am we’re on duty right now, it won’t be appropriate. You have to be careful. It costs taxpayers a lot of money for a small slip-up like this on your part.”

 

“I will be careful in the future. It’s totally my negligence.”

 

“By the way, is there any legal reason why your guest doesn’t drive in the highway?”

 

“No. Not at all. It’s just that my friend’s husband has a problem changing lane from right to left. So I hear.”

 

“Run that by me again.”

 

“That’s what he told my husband. He said he is too scared when he has to change from right lane to the left. But only in the highway. He drives ok otherwise.”

 

“How long has he been driving?”

 

“A year I think.”        

 

“How old is he?”

 

“He is in his mid 30s.”

 

“Thirteen years in the force,” the police officer shook his head, “I thought I’d seen and heard everything by now. Everyday is a surprise in this job … Don’t let your husband drink tonight. I assume he’ll have to drop them off too.”

 

*********************************************************************

 

Upasana, Bikash’s wife, was the first guest to arrive. She came alone since her husband was busy at his Dollar Store.

 

“I didn’t know the occasion, so I brought one for each of you.” Upasana said, picking out three identical wristwatches from a plastic bag. At $4.99 each, those Malaysia made watches were among the rarest items in her husband’s Dollar Store that cost more than a dollar.   

 

“These are unisex. Which one do you like?” Upasana asked, ripping off the price tag right in front of Roshi’s eyes. Since the watches looked identical in design, Roshi picked the one with a purple band. 

 

“That’s my favorite too. It will look great on you. Nabin ji should take the green one. The red one will look good on Pratik.” 

 

Upasana quickly hid the watches when she heard a knock on the door. Standing in the doorway were Tim uncle, formerly Tikaram, his young wife Ann, AKA Anupriya, and their 14-year-old son Andre, officially Anand.

 

“Where’s Pratik?” Andre, Pratik’s classmate and close friend, asked Roshi as soon as he took off his shoes.

 

“He just got back from his baseball thing. He is taking a shower upstairs.” 

 

“I’ll go upstairs, chill with him. You get ESPN right?”

 

“What is that?”

 

“Never mind, I’ll ask Pratik. Give us a yell when wings are ready, a’ight?”

 

************************************************************************

 

By 7:15 PM, most of the guests had arrived. At one corner of the room, two men seemed to be enjoying each other’s company.

 

“So this picture is mandatory for every Nepali household or what? I see this everywhere I go. Either this, or that other one, of the mountain ‘Macchha Puchhaa’.” The first man inquired, pointing at the framed picture of Bhaktapur Durbar Square on the wall. 

 

“Nepal’s federal bank doesn’t let us exchange dollars if we don’t present one of these pictures,” Nabin deadpanned, drawing the most bona fide laugh of the developing evening. 

 

“Punam tells me you’re a true sports aficionado.”

 

“If that means ‘an addict’ in Urdu, then I am,” the modest Nabin, who had never heard the word ‘aficionado’ until that moment, replied. He was delighted to have found someone willing to talk about his interests.

 

Punam’s boyfriend Shohaib, the Pakistani man who went to high school in the US, chuckled again. “What are you watching lately? August is not a happening month for sports.”

 

“I watched the PGA championship.”

 

“Yeah I saw a part of it too.”

 

“How about that Tiger Woods?”

 

“I don’t have a favorite player in golf anymore. When Tiger Woods first came, I used to root for him, you know. I thought he was black. The next thing I know he’s just a dark person who’s extremely good. There is nothing ghetto about him. I bet he can’t rap. I bet he doesn’t even listen to Hip-hop. I totally lost my interest in golf when I realized how white he is. I don’t care who wins anymore as long as it’s not Vijay Singh.”

 

“What’s wrong with Vijay Singh?” A very surprised, almost confrontational Nabin, grilled his guest.

 

“He is Indian.”

 

“So?”

 

“There are two things I’ll never do in my life. I will never stop hating Indians, and I’ll never eat pork.” Chewing on Roshi’s minced pork, Shohaib made two confessions.

 

“Vijay Singh is from Fiji. And you know that’s pork.”

 

“There is one thing in life I’ll never do. I will never stop hating Indians,” Shohaib’s comedic timing was so perfect that it set off another loud laughter. The two men seemed to be getting along pretty well. English was the medium of their communication.

 

Only Abesh could sidetrack Nabin from talking sports.

 

“GREETINGS!” The loud Abesh addressed everyone as soon as he entered the room with a large paper bag in his hand. “The guy who was delivering this Chili Chicken was a Nepali. When he found out he was delivering to another Nepali, he was too embarrassed to come inside. He was waiting outside for someone.”

 

Roshi, who looked very uncomfortable, asked, “You paid him already?”

 

“You guys owe me 65 dollars. He wouldn’t accept my tips.”  

 

Tim uncle teased Roshi, “We know the secret of your Chili Chicken now. So it comes in a brown bag?”

 

The group laughter was followed by Roshi’s 10-minute explanation.

 

********************************************************************

 

The green dinner was at its full swing by eight O’ Clock. Everyone was praising Roshi’s food. She was quite busy serving food, asking how the food was, and collecting answers in the form of compliments.

 

“MOM!”

 

A loud panicky voice interrupted the munching session. Everyone was alerted. Brinda’s nine-year-old son Pappu was screaming from the top of his lungs. They all ran to the direction where the sound came from. Then they all suddenly stopped.

 

Brinda, who led the crowd outside the bathroom downstairs, asked her son nervously, “What’s wrong Pappu? Why are you screaming?”

 

“There’s no toilet paper here. I just did number two. It’s gross.” Pappu yelled back.

 

“Why don’t you use water?” The host’s solo voice stood out in the crowd.

 

“WHAT?” At lest three voices rejected Roshi’s idea. Nabin led the chorus.

 

“Hang in there Pappu; I will get some toilet paper from the bathroom upstairs.”

 

And just like that, Roshi’s husband foiled the plot.

 

While this was taking place outside the bathroom downstairs, some 12 feet away, a disapproving adolescent muttered under his breath: “These peeps, these FOBs man, these wacks, dude your parents too, they’re freakin offbeat. Who wrapped this sofa with this dumbass green blanket?”

 

“Duh! Who else?” Pratik rolled his eyes, “I can never tell what goes in my mom’s mind. Dad’s cool though. Mom can be weird.”

 

“This green crap is making me so damn tense. Bro, don’t be a bi*tch, let’s go upstairs, play some Madden.” Andre insisted.

 

“Hang tight a bit, we’ll go after dinner.” Pratik replied, incessantly gaping at Punam’s bosoms.

 

************************************************************************

 

“Today is Saturday. Felt like Sunday for some reason. Have you checked the mail?” Roshi asked her husband while everyone was busy eating and chatting. Nabin was expecting a 25-dollar rebate from his cell phone company. He grabbed his keys and ran to the mailbox. 

 

Five minutes later, a seemingly upset Nabin came back to the room with an open envelope in his hand. “INS has sent you a letter. There seems to be a problem with your birth certificate,” he whispered to his wife.

 

“WHAT PROBLEM?” Roshi shrieked. 

 

“It seems there was an extra ‘e’ at the end of your first name in your birth certificate that came from Nepal. How did we miss that?”

 

Roshi looked like she was going to faint. She read the letter quickly before roaring, “They have me as R-O-S-H-I-E. How could we miss this? You never help me with these things. I told you a million times to check everything, proofread everything.”

 

“We both checked everything a million times.”

 

“If they call that ‘dhoti’, I’m screwed. I left the restaurant the day we got stamped. I know that ‘dhoti’, he holds a grudge like no one else.” Roshi started sobbing.

 

“It’ll be ok, it’s not a big thing, happens all the time,” Tim uncle tried to comfort her.  

 

“I cooked 11 dishes to celebrate it.” Roshi said loudly.

 

“Is that including Chili Chicken?” Abesh whispered in Nabin’s ear.

 

Before Nabin could gather enough moments for himself to be appropriately embarrassed, Roshi whined, “My first name ends with a vowel, why would those idiots put an extra vowel at the end of my name? I am not Eastern European …”  

 

Roshi was in the middle of her monologue, Upasana interrupted, “But Roshi, your first name does not end with a vowel. Your first name ends with an ‘i’.”

 

Before Roshi could pounce and kill her, Tim uncle grabbed Upasana and pulled her to his corner. He spoke very softly, “This is not the time Upasana. She’s very proud of her English.”

 

“But kaka, where I come from, “i” is not a vowel,” Upasana stressed.

 

“First of all you come from ‘Ghattekulo’. And second, we can talk about vowels and constants tomorrow.”

 

“Consonants,” Abesh, who was standing next to Tim uncle, corrected him. 

 

“That’s what I said,” Tim uncle sounded a bit annoyed.

 

“No you said ‘constants’,” Abesh repeated.

 

“That’s what I said. Constants. I know ‘A’, ‘E’, ‘I’, ‘O’, and ‘U’ are vowels, and the rest are constants. They don’t change, they are always constant,” yelled a somewhat offended Tim uncle. 

 

While the three were having a side meeting, dissecting the English language phonetics, the tragic heroine requested her guests: “Give me a few minutes. Please continue with your dinner. I will be ok. Nabin, take care of everyone.” And just like that, Roshi left the room to mourn the surplus ‘e’. 

 

**********************************************************************

 

Bewildered by Roshi’s departure, while Nabin patiently fought the tricky silence, Pratik grabbed Andre and said, “Let’s go upstairs, I gotta tell you something.”

 

When they reached his room upstairs, Pratik closed the door and mumbled, “I think I’m infected down there. This is the second time today. I woke up this morning and I was like all dirty. I had to take a shower at four in the morning to clean myself.”

 

“What you talking about chump?”

 

“I don’t know what’s going on with me dude, but I’m having all these weird thoughts lately. And I feel like my penis responds to my thoughts.”

 

Andre was baffled by Pratik’s admission. “What kind of weird thoughts, dude?”

 

“I get this weird vibe every time I look at Punam. I was watching her downstairs, and I felt like I can watch her for hours. I’m telling you bro, I wanted to do weird things with her. Last month I went to Ocean City with them, right? I can’t get my mind off her booty in that Daisy Dukes she had on that day. Bro, you should’ve seen her.”

 

Andre moved a step back. “Gross! You dork. That chick is like 22. Ok she’s a hottie, but she’s like at least 22 or 29, you dim-wit. She’s too old. She hangs out with your mom. What’s wrong with you assclown? This psycho-ass talk is seriously freaking me out.”

 

“I dig her. Can’t help it.”

 

“You call her ‘aunt’. You’re sick in your freakin filthy head.”

 

“I’m not sick in the head, I’m sick here. Look at this.” Pratik pulled down his pants and underwear to prove to his friend how dirty he was getting lately.

 

“Eeew…Eeew…Eeew…dude you’re sick. Pull up your pants. I know what that is; it’s a disease. Beethoven had it.”

 

“Who?” Pratik sounded intrigued.  

 

“That classic music dude who’s kinda dead now. He had that thing that you have. That bi*tch went deaf and he died… He was like recording a song or something and he died from that. I’m serious, go see a doctor soon or you will die too.”

 

“When did he die? They still don’t have a cure?”

 

“I think he died in the 60s. Maybe 50s. He was even before Beatles. You know that Beethoven dude couldn’t finish his tenth album because things were coming out of his dick, like yours, and he couldn’t hear his own song and stuff. But he kept on playing his guitar, or piano, or violin. I forgot which one.”

 

As soon as Pratik heard Andre’s diagnosis, he ran out of the room like a maniac. He was scared to death. He was screaming for his dad when his left foot tangled on the new shoe rack by the stairs. He took a bad tumble on the stairs.

 

“I BROKE MY LEG. DAD I CAN’T FEEL MY LEG. MOM, WHY DID YOU MOVE THAT STUPID SHOE RACK THERE?” The poor kid screamed hysterically.

 

“BECAUSE YOUR MOM WANTS TO SHOW THE NEW SHOE RACK TO EVERYONE. IT WAS 89 DOLLARS FOR CRYING OUT LOUD.” The usually calm Nabin had finally lost it.

 

“He landed pretty hard. I think he broke his leg. Grab him, I’ll drive,” Abesh volunteered.

 

**********************************************************************

 

Tim uncle called Nabin after midnight. “What time you guys got back from the hospital?”

 

“Just ten minutes ago. It’s been a long night.” In one telling sigh, Nabin exhaled the entire evening. 

 

“How’s he doing?”

 

“He broke his left leg. He is in a lot of pain. They put a huge cast that spreads from his lower thigh to his ankle … What a nightmare it turned out to be.”

 

 â€œThings happen. He will be ok. How is Roshi holding up?” 

 

“The ER doctor couldn’t find a cast to correct that extra ‘e’. So she’s still hurting.” When Tim uncle stopped laughing, Nabin added, “She’s not talking to me.”

 

“Because of the shoe rack thing?” 

 

“Yeah. It’s a long story, I’ll tell you some other time. But let me ask you this, you think a shoe rack qualifies as furniture?”

 

“I won’t.” 

 

“Me neither … By the way kaka, you know who Beethoven is?”

 

“Why?”

 

“I will tell you when I tell you the furniture story.”

 

“It’s a name of a dog in a movie. There’s this movie called Beethoven. The main character is a dog; his name is Beethoven.”

 

Tim uncle was curious about one more thing. “Did you ask Pratik why was he running so madly before he took a tumble on the stairs? I asked Andre, but he wouldn’t tell me. He’s acting like he saw a ghost or something. He’s been very quiet.”

 

The drained Nabin started laughing uncontrollably. “Yes I asked him, so did the doctor. It looks like our little Pratik is not little anymore. Our little boy has hit his puberty. He hit it pretty hard.”