Author Archives: Siri Ranganath

Cecilia hadn’t seen a man hold an umbrella over a woman like that in a long, long time. Hand on her lower back, getting half his body wet in keeping his lady dry. 

It was a thing of old movies and first loves. Little girls like her watched tall men with dark hair and glittering smiles walk home with their beautiful pixies of girlfriends, giggling in the rain. Every now and then, the man would say something to make the woman blush, and if it was dark enough out, he’d pause in the middle of the sidewalk and kiss her, his hands cupping her face. The woman, startled, would bend back at an acute angle and pop her right leg, perfectly aware of how beautiful they appeared to onlookers. Afterwards, he’d walk her home, and maybe she’d invite him upstairs and they’d make hopeful love, gasping for breath in her poorly ventilated apartment, humid with its possibility. 

She contemplated on whether her God was a just God, as she wanted to believe these gentlemen still existed for her, that somewhere there was a man out in this storm just like she was simply on his way to walk her home. For a while, she sat on the wet cement, hypnotized by the unchanging thud of the raindrops and their shiny mirage. She stayed put, waiting for the weather to lighten up or for a man with an umbrella. She waited too long in the rain, perhaps, and very soon, she would never have to wait for anything ever again.

A homage to “Gospel” from Edward P. Jones’s Lost in the City (201).

“Be good,” Vaani said. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

“I’ll try,” Billo said.

Billo’s yellow dress, a hand-me-down from Vaani’s teenage years, was falling apart, its stitches coming out at the frame. Vaani pulled out the safety pin she kept tucked in her blouse and fastened it on Billo’s left shoulder to hold the dress upright, and for a moment, Vaani touched Billo’s collarbone with her right thumb with a forgotten tenderness before letting go of the fabric. Billo watched Vaani walk away rather unceremoniously, and she remembered an American story she read in school about a little girl who ripped out her neighbor’s freshly planted marigolds. “Bye, Vaani,” she said, her voice lost in the wisps of the spring breeze. Billo knew she would have to ask Ma for new clothes soon. She figured she would have to go through more of Vaani’s before Ma would be willing to go to the market, but in fact, she never wore her sister’s dresses again, nor would she see her at all for two years and ten months.

A homage to “The Sunday Following Mother’s Day” from Edward P. Jones’s Lost in the City (124).

I am wearing a puffy red frock with layers of velvet and netting, and small bows line the waistline like macaroni shells on Christmas ornaments. My mother has spent half an hour this morning rubbing lotion all over my arms, legs, wrists, and hands ensuring that my eczema doesn’t flare up while I am at Kindergarten. Whenever my mother starts walking faster, my five small fingers loosen their grip on her one index, the Cetaphil acting as an infantile motor oil. The greasy coating of my mother’s protection lingers, calming me throughout the morning. My stomach is full of Honey Nut Cheerios and peeled apple slices. On my mouth, my mother has spread some of her red lipstick with her fingers at my behest, never showing me my reflection in her compact to delay the realization that my baby lips are barely colored. I take her word for it, though. I am the loveliest girl in Ms. Ruth’s class. I am wearing rainbow stockings with white ballet flats, and later when I scrape my knees on the playground mulch and see the fabric tear, my heart will break.

A homage to “The First Day” from Edward P. Jones’s Lost in the City (27).

I sit on the bench facing the skateboard blacktop at Tompkins, and this old man on a scooter comes up to me, and he asks, “India?”

Oh boy. I nod, expecting him to say something embarrassingly sexual, perhaps with a lewd mention of “Princess Jasmine” or “Pussy with Spice.”

He starts talking to his friend about me rather innocently in Spanish, mira, la chica está escribiendo algo, and when I drop the yo también hablo español bomb, he’s like, “You speak Spanish? Wow! How do you practice?”

“I’m a teacher at a Spanish-immersion preschool.” 

“I went to pre-school right here on Avenue A a million years ago, and let me tell you, nobody gave a shit about us Boricua kids. We need more people like you.”

“Aw,” I smile, “that makes me feel very good.” It does make me feel very good.

“Stunning smile you got there. I can’t even see it with the you-know-what, pero la sonrisa está en los ojos.”

“Thank you, thank you very much,” I say, with a funny fake bravado. “What about you, sir, are you a Vet?”

“I sure was. Stationed in San Antonio, Air Force base. I can still walk though. This metal crap is just to give me a boost.”

“My mom’s a doctor at the VA. Down in Washington.”

“You’re kidding!”

“I am not.”

“How about that!”

“How old are you, sir?”

“Forty.” I burst into laughter.

“Hey, why are you laughing?”

“You are definitely not forty.”

“Okay, guess my age.”

“Minimum—sixty-five.”

“Oh. Well fine, you got it. You’re so beautiful I didn’t want to tell you how old I am.”

“Aw, thank you.”

“How old are you, twenty?”

“Yeah! I turn twenty-one this Wednesday!”

“Well would you look at that, eh? I’m wishing you the best birthday ever, darling. Whatever your heart desires, ask God, and he’ll give it to you.”

“Thank you for the blessing.”

“You know, you see up there?” he says, pointing at the blue sky, almost as blue as his old foggy eyes. “That’s God. Oye, sweetheart, is the sky manmade? Nope. None of this is manmade. God made everything. God loves you, honey.”

“As I am sure he does you.”

The old man then talks about the Pentecostal Church and Jesus being our Lord and Savior and how he died for our sins and that if we dedicate ourselves to him when we leave this Earth the angels will take us back home, wherever that is. The sudden Evangelist turn in the conversation makes me uncomfortable, so I decide to tell him I am a Hindu, to see if he’d damn me to Hell.

“Oh no, sweetheart, you have a good heart. I can tell. A really good soul you are. No way you’re going to Hell.”

“Whew,” I say sarcastically, “what a relief.”

“Are you right with God? Do you do good by God?”

“I like to think so.”

“I know so.”

“I’m sure you have done good by your God too, sir. It looks like it.”

“Well, we’ll be seeing sooner rather than later, ha!”

“You’ll live a long life.”

“You’re so beautiful, and you got a great personality and heart, I know it, and in times like this I wish I was younger and I had more time.”

“Thank you. You are too kind.”

“I’m off to church now. God bless you, sweetheart. Que Dios te bendiga.”

“Be well, sir. It was wonderful talking to you.” I blow a kiss from the distance as he wheels away. The bespectacled man on the bench to my right and the handsome tennis player on the bench to my left both look at me, bewildered, confused as to why I spent half an hour talking to a strange old man I don’t know. I guess it’s easier for me to talk to supposed bums than most others. I wonder what that says about me.

A homage to early spring afternoons at Tompkins Square Park.

In my recurring dream, my sister and I take the form of glassy lavender nymphs, gliding like little wisps across the evening sky. We are barely visible. Our presence is only established by the whirring sound of our flight. We search for a resting place, drawn to brick houses on lush greens and pastel bungalows on dusty earth, where we might begin to materialize enough to see our shadows. She doesn’t fly long; I know because I can no longer hear the soft chime of her wings. I stop hearing my own after many years, and I wonder if people on land think I’m a fairy or a crow, wondering what kind of omens I bring. I understand the meaning of this dream quite well: we flit about the clouds and look for a new home. The only catch is that she finds hers, and I continue to fly, tirelessly, pointlessly, scavenging for a salvation that doesn’t exist.

A homage to “Luna Moth” from Jessica Hagedorn’s Dogeaters (247).

Her face was too dark, and her eyes, too earnest, but Urvashi was inviting and indulgent in bed, and he would simply close his eyes and imagine the sparkling starlet Rekha, her body arching under his. He could hear Rekha moaning as he whispered in Urvashi’s ear: “My kamal ka phool, my svarg, oh, my narag.” 

On these stolen nights by the river Urvashi believed herself to be the celestial beauty she always was. She pardoned Sachin’s angry outbursts and false promises. Early in the mornings, she went to the mandir, where she ran into Sachin’s mother, Bhanumati, doing her prayers. Urvashi so longed to tell her that she loved her golden son, that he was to wed her as soon as the time was right for him to ask for her hand. Bhanumati never noticed Urvashi there. Urvashi blended in with the blue-black marble surrounding the temple’s lingam. 

The panditji observed Urvashi’s quiet yearning and rebuked her with pity: “Apne aukaat mein raho, kalika.” He lingered on that last word. “You don’t know my Sachin, panditji.” 

To be honest, she didn’t know her Sachin either. Sachin was too fair-skinned and too bored to not take advantage of what Urvashi offered him in the abandoned stable by the river. He couldn’t see her in the darkness of night, and in daylight, he didn’t have to reckon with her darkness. But she still fantasized about the day he would hold her hand in front of his parents and her parents and the whole village, wearing her love proudly, the way that Amitabh Bachchan returned to Jaya Bachchan after realizing the foolishness of his affair with Rekha. Silsila was Urvashi’s favorite film.

A homage to “Serenade” from Jessica Hagedorn’s Dogeaters (53).

My sister couldn’t understand why I continued teaching at the Montessori. The children, yes, they were endearing, but the spills and sticky hands and tantrums surely weren’t worth their trouble. The word “endearing” bore contempt in her voice.

Clementine was one of my first students. She was only two years and one month old when I met her. She spoke English and French at home, but in my classroom, we only spoke in Spanish. Her hair was chestnut brown and pinned with two pink barrettes—never one, never three, always two. She stared at me with enormous blue eyes, smiling, baring her uneven front teeth, upon hearing me say her name. Clementine snored loudly and had a tendency to leave trails of green peas all over the floor when she ate her lunch, and when she cried, she cried, and it hurt. She was beautiful and I loved her like my own. Those Monday mornings when she ran to me and hugged my calves, singing abrazos y besos, love inflated me. My soul flew, weightless, parachuting dandelion seeds in its wake. Love begets love, from teacher to child, in its perfectly vast expanse. 

The children were beautiful. They were not “the.” They were “my.” I suppose that is why she didn’t get it.

A homage to “The Deer” (103) from Irini Spanidou’s God’s Snake.

A young man checks the NASDAQ on the Uptown 6
while he listens to Joe Rogan. He pauses.
AirPods in already, yes. “Buy it, Dave. Now. Don’t hesitate
and do as I say.” His chinos are too tight, and
he has avocado lingering in the corner of his mouth
from company brunch, celebrating a new acquisition.
He stinks of spilt mimosas and blood, 
namely, the blood of the soon-to-be evicted. 
There’s never been a better time for real estate.

A newly homeless woman of forty —
black sweater, black mask on her forehead, pink lips, gold eyelids—
is left by her lover on the Uptown 6. 
She rips his blanket out of her suitcase and throws it, but it gets caught in the train doors. Feathers drift in the car’s stale air and
land on her shoulders. She talks to the feathers.
Some are God and the Devil. Others, her sister and
her first-grade teacher. “Ma’am, can you put your mask back on?”
She doesn’t. In less than a month, she too drifts.

A homage to “The North” from Charles Reznikoff’s Testimony.