Excerpt: Colorstruck [Shine, Coconut Moon]
About the book:
Seventeen-year-old Samar — a.k.a. Sam — has never known much about her Indian heritage. Her mom has deliberately kept Sam away from her old-fashioned family. It’s never bothered Sam, who is busy with school, friends, and a really cute but demanding boyfriend.
But things change after 9/11. A guy in a turban shows up at Sam’s house, and he turns out to be her uncle. He wants to reconcile the family and teach Sam about her Sikh heritage. Sam isn’t sure what to do, until a girl at school calls her a coconut — brown on the outside, white on the inside. That decides it: Why shouldn’t Sam get to know her family? What is her mom so afraid of? Then some boys attack her uncle, shouting, “Go back home, Osama!” and Sam realizes she could be in danger — and also discovers how dangerous ignorance can be. Sam will need all her smarts and savvy to try to bridge two worlds and make them both her own.
—
I soak up the images, the tidbits and soundbytes, as we go through the [photo] albums.
This was during the trip to Niagara Falls, Look how skinny your cousin Pradeep is here! That was my favorite birthday shirt. I see Mom at six, wearing loud prints and checkered brown and orange pants, smiling broadly at the camera with her piano teeth; at ten, smiling pleasantly in a Raggedy-Ann dress.
Then at thirteen, the smile becomes just a small fraction of the crescent it used to be; her braids hang limp on the sides of her face, and her hands are folded in front of her on her lap.
But the photos of a teenage Mom are what hold me riveted. Mom and Uncle Sandeep both grow quiet. There are no smiles in these photos, and the spark in Mom’s eyes is gone. She stands, hunched, or staring off in the distance, almost as if she doesn’t notice the camera. The teenager in these photos is nothing like the Mom I’ve known my whole life. Nothing like the Mom in the photos we have at home—mom with her fist raised at a Take Back the Night march, or smiling with two fingers held up at a peace rally. Mom, with her eyes crackling in dissent. My mom.
I stare in disbelief at the photos, then look at my mother, and back again. No matter how hard I try, I can’t see that bleak teenager in the woman sitting next to me.
She points to the last photo in the album. “This was the day before I shaved my head,” she says quietly. She turns the page, and a small photo falls to the floor. I pick it up and turn it over. There, smiling blissfully back at me, is Mom standing next to a man I know must be my dad.
I gasp and hear Mom’s sharp intake of breath next to me. The photo is slightly discolored and a little dog-eared, but it’s whole and complete. Mom and Dad on the day of their marriage.
The halls of the courthouse are blurred behind them, in stark contrast to the shimmering excitement in their eyes. Mom has on a lustrous, fitted, silver-gray mermaid dress that reaches just above her ankles. She wears a dazzling bindi on her forehead, and there are tiny rhinestones following the arch above her perfectly plucked brows. Her hair is carefully swept up on top of her head and fastened with fresh flowers. Her lips are a deep ruby color, and tiny pearl earrings dangle from her ears. She stands in his arms; one hand on his chest, the other around his waist, and smiles radiantly at the camera.
He stands next to her, both arms around her waist. He looks dapper and handsome; tall and velvety dark in his suit and tie. His hair is slicked back into a tight, shiny, black ponytail, and he has a ruby flower on his lapel, the same color as the flowers in Mom’s hair. He, too, beams joyfully at the camera.
I feel my throat beginning to close up as Mom takes the photo from my hand. She looks up at Naniji. “Why would you keep this?”
Naniji keeps her gaze level, sharp pain clearly evident in her eyes. “It was the last photo we ever received from you.”
“But…but I thought you hated him,” Mom says, just above a whisper.
“Han,” Naniji says softly, “but he is not the only one in the photo.”
Mom stares at the photo in her hand. “This was when it was good,” she says, her words packed with static.
“We tried very hard to warn you, Sharanjit… He didn’t have a stitch of ambition, and he was absolutely un—” Nanaji gives her a look, and Naniji stops herself before turning away.
Mom holds the photo for a moment longer between her thumb and forefinger, gently like a cracked raw egg. Then she places it back in the back of the album where it was. A brief silence follows. Uncle Sandeep delicately takes the album away from Mom and opens the next one.
“Ah…! Look at cousin Rimi!” he says, opening to a page from earlier years.
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