Naming Maya Read Online Free PDF Page A

month before my eleventh birthday. Some gift. The divorce was after that.”
    â€œEver see him?” she asks.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œMiss him?”
    I shrug casually, not letting on. “I guess.” Because although she makes me laugh, and we can talk about nothing and everything for hours, she is not yet to be trusted. “Not that much.”
    â€œIt must be hard,” she says.
    Mami still says nothing, but in passing behind my chair, as we get up from lunch and begin clearing away the plates, she rests her rough hand for a moment on my shoulder, so I can feel its warmth.

    Ashwin survives his haircut with a fuzz of hair all across the top of his head and his ears sticking out. Lakshmi Auntie picks up Sumati. She says, “Kullan’s coming back from Bangalore tonight. Honestly, I’m starting to feel like a taxi service.”
    Ashwin complains that his neck itches.
    â€œYou can go home and wash off the bits of hair. You could probably use a bath anyway, stinko,” says Sumati.
    They drive off. Their friendly bickering is just another reminder that these people might be part of our larger family, but their lives are very different from ours.

On the Sidewalk
    The trouble in my family began with naming me. Thatha, Mom’s father, had my name picked out even before I was born. Two names, actually, because he didn’t know I was going to be a girl and he wasn’t taking any chances. He also figured that since he was the only grandparent on my mom’s side he needed to be doubly prepared. Dad’s parents had a girl’s name picked out too. The only problem was it wasn’t the same name. Mom liked Maya, so Maya I became. Dad didn’t care. It would have been fine if it had stopped there, but it didn’t. When Thatha called us, and wanted to talk to me, he’d ask for Maya. But when Dad’s parents telephoned, they’d ask for Preeta. For a while I answered to both.

    At Hindu Culture Camp they told us Maya was the name of the Buddha’s mother. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, since she’d died seven days after he was born. And even if she’d lived, her son would have left her to go off and teach the world. Great for the world, but what about poor Queen Maya? Joanie, who always tried to help when I had parent problems, once suggested, “Why don’t you just make ‘Preeta’ your middle name?” But when I asked Mom, she said, “Well, it says ‘Maya’ on the birth certificate and you don’t have a middle name.” So I waffled between names, and sometimes I used them like weapons. When I was mad at Mom, I wouldn’t answer to “Maya.” Once, I annoyed her for days by saying, “Maya’s gone away. I’m Preeta.”
    I asked Dad, “Which name do you like?” and he said, “I like them both. Why don’t you use the one you like?” Only how was I supposed to choose and still please them both? I grew into Maya from habit, but Preeta still hung out there, a ghost-name waiting in the wings, crying, Choose me, choose me!
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    â€œYou are very quiet,” Mami says to me on one of our shopping trips. I have taken to helping her haul the heavy produce from the market. We are eating so many tons of fresh vegetables I am in danger of turning into an okra or an eggplant.

    â€œYou have trouble in your heart,” she says. “It’s difficult for you, because you don’t understand.”
    I protest. “What don’t I understand?”
    â€œThings,” she says. “Grownup things. Things that should never have happened.”
    â€œLike my parents being divorced?” There. I’ve said it. Why does it sound so terrible? Like something to be ashamed of. I think she’s going to tell me to be quiet. That is, after all, the response I have gotten from Mom when I have dared to raise the issue. She usually gets a pained look and says, “Maya,