Calm and Quiet

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Kumar hadn't actually spoken to his wife til the day of their wedding, or should I say the days of their wedding. It seems the wedding ceremony when you're Hindi can be drawn out for quite some time. He told me he had seen her about nine months earlier when they'd been in a room together with their parents. He was able to look at her for about ten minutes. Just look and observe--no talking. I asked him what he thought when he saw her. He said he knew she would be a good wife because she was calm and quiet.

Calm and quiet....

That's when I knew I'd be destined to a life of singleness and thus barrenness if I were here. I doubt any man has ever spent time with me and thought, "Now this gal would make a great wife! She's so calm and quiet. Just what my parents and I are looking for!"

I'm feeling a bit brash. I'd spent so much time with this man and he was pretty much my only bona fied link to the world of India. Heck, he'd just told me the elephant and ant joke so I just had to know...

"Isn't it weird....after the wedding....you know, the first time you're alone together....when you've never actually spoken before?"

Kumar puts his face in his hands and shakes his head in a "I can't believe you're really asking me this" kind of way.

"Yes, I nervous," he answers.

"Well you must of gotten over that pretty quickly. Dude, your wife's 7 months pregnant and you've been married 7 months!"

He laughs and gives me a fake punch on the arm.

Ok, I'm on a roll here. There's something else I'm curious about.

"So...have you ever hit your wife?"

He's not at all embarrassed by this question. He replies, "No, I not like that."

I feel relieved for this calm and quiet pregnant Indian wife. I've never met her but have spent a lot of time thinking about what her life with Kumar might be like. I imagine their days together are much different than the days I've spent with her husband. There's probably not much joy-riding, laughing over lunch, silk shopping and story telling. Or maybe there is. What do I know? In probably fifty pages of wedding pictures I looked at there's no one smiling. I imagine the poor thing was a nervous wreck. She's moving out of her parent's home and into the home of a man (and his whole family) she's never spoken with before and expected to get pregnant as soon as possible.

Sounds utterly terrifying to me. I imagine it was terrifying for her too. I hated to think she had to accept the idea of being hit by her Prince Charming if she didn't live up to his expectations...which kind of got me wondering, "I wonder what are his expectations?"

I suspect there's a whole lot more to this subject so I cautiously push a little harder.

"Do you think you ever would hit her?"

Without hesitating he says, "If she not do what I say then..." and he swats at the air with an open palm. My heart sinks. I feel like I've been dooped. This kind and funny man I've spent all these days with would actually hit a woman? Not cool. For a split second I feel like I should give him a piece of my mind. Maybe if I reasoned with him and told him now degrading it is to be hit and surely not the way to garner affection from anyone, then maybe he would have an "ah-ha" moment and come to his senses and thank me for enlightening him and then he would go home and tell his dad and his brothers and they would all have "ah-ha" moments and forever change their ways and thus it would spread to all mankind.

But, I've said enough. I didn't come here to judge his culture.

He turns to me and says, "So Jeremy never hit you?"

If I'm getting the questions now then I'll give you my honest answer. "No Kumar. Never. Never ever ever." He looks surprised. Surely I've been out of line a time or two or a hundred. "The Jeremy I know would never hit me. If he did then it just wouldn't be...him. But this I can tell you. If he did ever hit me I would take the kids, take all his money, put him in jail and make him pay for the rest of his life." How ya like me now?

"You can do that?" he asks.

"Yes, I can do that."

Now he's the one that's curious. He asks if I hit my children. I tell him no, I do not strike my children. He seems to think this is a good thing. I asked if he could imagine himself hitting his son one day. "I don't know," he says, "maybe." He goes into a story of what happened to him when he was 13. He has a brother one year older than him who stole some money from their parents. The brother blamed Kumar and Kumar blamed the brother. So just to make sure they got the right kid the mother burned both of them on their side with a metal spoon pulled straight from the fire pit. He points to where the scar is. I almost ask to see it but now we're eating pizza in Domino's and realize this probably isn't the place.

"OHMIGOD Kumar! You're mother did that to you?!"

He nods.

"If that happened where I live your parents would be put in jail and you would be taken away to live with someone else."

"What's jail like?" he asks me.

"I really don't know. I've never been inside a jail or prison. I think jails are kinda clean and you get fed three times a day but I imagine its pretty lonely."

"So...how long would I go to jail for?" Its like his contemplating whether its really worth it or not.

"I have no idea. Maybe a few years."

"Years?"

"Probably."

"How long til I could be with my kids again?"

"I'm not a lawyer Kumar! I have no idea. Its just bad, ok! Its NOT acceptable. And the same goes for hitting your wife. Its just not acceptable!"

I think I've crossed the line now from just "learning" to "judging." Darn, I didn't want to do that.

To my surprise he nods in agreement with me. Maybe he's thinking that's good for his job security or maybe, just maybe, he had an "ah-ha" moment. I'll never know.

"Never hit her, ok, Kumar? If you really want her to love you and take care of you, please be kind. Could you possibly promise me that?"

He says yes.

CALM AND QUIET. THAT I AM NOT.

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