Train to Agra

Twentieth-Century Sita

 Twentieth-Century Sita . I never learned about sex from my mother, a woman who didn’t know what the word whore meant in English, or from Hindi movies with all their thrust and grind but no kisses, no nudity—the camera hovering over parted lips that never seemed to touch. I never learned the first time with Charles in the back room of my house.We were just tongue-heavy mouths and that was it. No fevered breath in my ear, no one breaking into song. . The second time was after midnight under an apple tree. He said, the first time I saw you, I thought you were white, and leaned in. He was the last Indian I ever kissed, but once, another read me the Kama Sutra by lamplight, pointed out the diagrams. . My mother speaks of broken teacups, half moons of regret, and I am never sure if she means sex or spilling tea. She spends Saturdays fingering classifieds in the back of IndiaToday for a suitable suitor.Their stats say it all in fifteen words or less (read as Indian, Hindu, Punjabi). Now, I’ve thrown off the purdah for good, and it’s nothing but banishment for me. She hopes some Ram will ask me to walk through the wedding fire like a modern day Sita in blue jeans to prove my purity, to prove I didn’t want anything but a monkey god to save me. ...