CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Hindi word for yes is haan.
I had heard the saying, ‘love is blind,’ but a girl from New Zealand falling for a boy from India? I knew that love had blinded our senses. As far as I was aware the only inter-racial marriages that existed were between two people who were the same colour. To marry someone outside your race or culture, to visually stand out - to look different from your spouse - was not a known occurrence in New Zealand.
We were aware our love would have to be strong, not just boy-girl relationship strong but strong enough to survive all that would be thrown at us. If we were going to be together as a couple, despite what anybody said we could not let anybody or anything break our bond apart. The problem was to convince everybody else our love was as strong as we knew it was.
Was it fate that threw us together? Could our love alone endure all that we were to face?
The pressure on me at times became great, I was being prodded, urged and pushed to end our relationship. When I was alone in my room, I continuously worried our love would not weather the storm. I cried into my constant comforting friend, my pillow, asking why my devotion for a man depended on race and colour, I just didn’t understand.
I met up with Sarah at the gym - at least she supported me. She listened as I vented my anger. In the dressing rooms as we changed into our fluorescent pink and yellow lycra leotards, complete with stripy legwarmers, I wailed, “Sarah, people just don’t understand, how would they know how I feel?”
We did our warm up exercises, stretching in front of our impatiently waiting instructor, Marc-with-a-c. He had quite clearly spelt out his name the first time we met him, he was extremely good-looking but I instinctively knew he wasn’t interested in girls. He had an infectious, overzealous way about him that would have made Richard Simmons proud.
With,‘Like a virgin’ and ‘1984’ bellowing from the speakers with a contagious beat, Sarah and I, along with about twenty other men and women followed Marc-with-a-c’s lead. We tried to copy and keep up with his vigorous exercise moves and were encouraged as he yelled instructions from the stage.
As we left, red-faced, sweaty and exhausted, Marc-with-a-c gave us a thumbs up, Sarah waved and smiled at him while mumbling under her breath, "Thanks for the workout…but…I hate you.”
We walked back to our cars with my ears still ringing from the thrill of the music. It could have been Madonna and the Eurhythmics themselves at the front of the class telling us to ‘move it’ and ‘come on, you can do it!’ instead of Marc-with-a-c.
Approaching our cars Sarah put her arm around me, consoling me, telling me the words of reassurance only a sister can give, “Julie, don’t worry about what anyone says, you should only listen to one thing and that is your heart.”
Once I was home and showered and in the quiet of my room I mulled over my thoughts. I wondered if listening to my heart was enough, could our devotion towards one another endure the criticism, disapproval and conflict placed upon us? As I brushed my hair in front of the mirror, I decided it was immediately apparent that the survival of our dedication to each other depended on the strength of our relationship. Many people had told me we were not meant to be together, that it wasn’t right. I even said it myself countless times.
With a look of defiance at my reflection, I put my brush down and decided that despite what anybody said, the fact is two people from totally different countries, backgrounds and cultures did meet and fall in love. As I stood and stepped towards my bed, I was certain that if our relationship was going to have any chance, I could not let those who stood in our way break our bond apart.
We both knew, Kishore and myself that fate had thrown us together. The dilemma and it was a huge one was to convince everybody else of our love.
*
Kishore told me he was mischievous as a child and regaled me with stories of his antics. When he was eight or nine years old his junior school had one of those old hand bells and a student was selected each week to walk around the school ringing the bell at the appropriate times. One particular day Kishore had been caught by the headmaster running out of the school gates five minutes before the three o’clock bell as he was eager to be the first child home in his neighbourhood. The headmaster let Kishore go but the next day called him in to his office and sternly told him, “Kishore, as your punishment for leaving school early yesterday, you will be bell ringer for the next week.” This, the headmaster was sure, would make Kishore stay until three o’clock. But, as he was never one to listen to rules Kishore decided to ring the bell at ten minutes to three. He then ran out of the school hoping no one would see him. By the time he was half-way home, the rest of the school crowd had only just left their classes and he arrived home well before his neighbouring school friends. Subsequently, the next day he was again called to the headmaster’s office and sternly questioned.
“Why didn’t you ring the school bell yesterday?”
“I did, Sir,” said Kishore.
“Well,” said the headmaster. “Nobody heard it at three o’clock and at five minutes past I had to ring it myself.”
In Kishore’s haste to leave school he had rung the bell too quickly and not loud enough. No one had heard it. The headmaster decided Kishore was to continue to ring the bell but his extra punishment this time was to keep his school bag in the headmaster’s office. He could only collect it from him once he had finished his duty. At three o’clock that afternoon Kishore, with extreme vigour loudly walked around the school ringing the bell, he then headed off towards the headmaster’s office to collect his school bag. Slinging his bag over his shoulder, he sheepishly returned the school bell, which was now in two pieces. In his enthusiasm, he had rung it so hard he had broken it.
I soon learnt Kishore was never one to follow the rules or go with the crowd. It had been his decision to leave India by himself and immigrate to New Zealand and it was also his decision to fall in love with an English girl.
My parents outwardly supported my choice to go out with a man that wasn’t the conventional boyfriend a good Pakeha girl went out with. The underlying tension was evident. In the 1980’s even a relationship between Maori and Pakeha was strange and practically unheard of.
My family would mutter comments sometimes in front me and at times behind my back. I heard snippets of conversations from behind closed doors. ‘How could she, it’s not right’ and ‘What if she marries him, what sort of children will they have?’
I was most surprised when I first told my parents I was going out with Kishore. I hadn’t even told them what he did for a living. Dad was under the impression Indian men were only capable of owning diaries and he stated, “If you marry that man, you know you will spend the rest of your life behind a shop counter.”
Ignorance was evident as my Dad told our neighbour, Mr Foster about my new boyfriend. Mr Foster chuckled and asked if this boy’s name was Rambuka. Mr Foster did not know my boyfriend was from India not Fiji. Mr Sitiveni Rambuka was a colonel in the Fijian army. With a rumbling of tension within the Fijian government and an imminent coup, the name Rambuka had been in the newspaper recently, so this was of course the first ‘Indian’ name Mr Foster could think of.
I decided it was high time to invite Kishore to my house so they could see him for themselves.
The next Sunday evening I answered a knock on the front door of my family home to find Kishore standing anxiously on the other side. He whispered, “Julie, I am really worried they won’t like me.”
With a dismissive wave of my hand I pulled him inside, trying to sound convincing I said, “Don’t worry, they will love you, just be yourself.” It didn’t appease the apprehension both of us felt in our stomachs. As we walked from the front door and down the hallway, Kishore stopped as his eyes were drawn to the collection of family photos exhibited on the wall of Andrew, Sarah and I at different ages at various family occasions. He smiled as he looked at a photo of me at five years of age beaming at the camera. My nose had a sprinkling of freckles and my ginger hair was in two pig tails that stuck out from each side of my head.
Andrew was the first person to greet Kishore as we entered the lounge room. He was wary and over protective of his baby sister’s choice of boyfriend.
The two men shook hands, Andrew tilted up his chin in a manly way while saying, “How’s it goin’ bro.”
Kishore had learnt the Kiwi way to reply, “Yep, good thanks mate.”
Mum and Tanya, my rather pregnant sister-in-law, sashayed towards him and Kishore shook their hands. After shy hellos, they both quickly scampered, as fast as a very pregnant woman can scamper, back to the kitchen in the guise of finishing dinner.
Sarah had moved with her husband Brett to their home in a small town called Leigh, about an hour out of Auckland so they were unable to come to this first dinner. We were a close-knit family and although I was the only child left living at home, we often got together for family gatherings especially when Sarah came for a visit.
Kishore awkwardly positioned himself on the couch until he saw my Father entering the lounge room. Standing bolt upright almost to military attention he extended his hand, "Hello, Sir, nice to meet you.”
Dad, taking Kishore’s hand replied gruffly “Hmmm, oh yes, Kishore isn’t it? How are you?... Helen! How long until we eat?”
The three men sat, behaving civilly, making rigid small talk until Tanya entered from the kitchen. She tried to ease the tension by announcing, “Grubs up!” then, “Just joking, could everyone please come to the table, dinner is ready.”
Mum, with Tanya’s help, had done herself proud, cooking a traditional Sunday lamb roast with all the trimmings; mint peas, roast potatoes, kumara, pumpkin and a thick gravy. As the family sat to eat Kishore felt shy as he had never tasted this type of food before but between bites made polite conversation. My family found it hard to understand his accent. Whenever he spoke, Mum, Dad, Andrew and Tanya blankly stared at him then simultaneously swivelled their heads to look at me. Rolling my eyes, I repeated, word for word, whatever Kishore had just said.
For dessert, Mum’s homemade lemon cheesecake went down a treat, Kishore had two pieces.
We all soon relaxed as Dad’s frosty exterior melted and much to Kishore’s and my relief, they thought he was wonderful. It wasn’t long before he became a part of our Sunday roast dinner tradition.
*
My memories of December rolling around each year would begin with the preparation of gift lists and the updating of the family Christmas card address book. Two weeks before the big day our fake tinsel tree was pulled from its box in the cupboard, put together and decorated with coloured baubles, tinsel and plastic angels. On Christmas Eve cookies and milk were put out for Santa, not forgetting carrots for the reindeer. With tingling excitement the big day finally arrived, heralded in by the sun, hopefully but not always, because its been known at the last minute to rain. We gathered in the lounge room to open our presents. Every year the whole family united to revel in the festivities, the celebration always made me feel content inside as if a candle was glowing in my heart.
When we were little, during the summer holiday’s Mum and Dad took us on warm evenings to the beach. Mum packed sausages and salad in the car along with our portable BBQ set. While we swam in the warm water and played on the sand with our spades and buckets, Dad cooked sausages once he managed to light the BBQ.
When our food was ready he called us to come to eat. Sausages taste so much better outdoors wrapped around a piece of bread and spread with tomato sauce. Once we finished eating and had wiped the sauce off our faces, Dad set up the swing-ball set and we played and played until the sun was setting. Just before it got dark, Mum and Dad loaded up all of our belongings into the boot of the car and we hopped in the back. Happy but exhausted we couldn’t keep our eyes open and slept on the way home.
It was a ritual to watch the evening news at six o’clock. This was the most important news medium at the time. At-one-minute-to-six every night our whole house was hushed as we sat in front of the television, eager to see and hear the news of the day.
These rituals are part of Kiwi traditions that most New Zealand families enjoy.