Nice Indian Parents
what is a marriage without kissing? don't knock it till you try it!
Months ago, Jonathan Groff sat next to me at a “steakeasy” on the Lower East Side and now I know why. It all comes back to his new movie, A Nice Indian Boy. A Nice Indian Boy provides us with one of the most effective modern day takes on an early 2000’s Bollywood storyline: Jay Kurundkar (Jonathan Groff) falls madly in love with Naveen Gavaskar (Karan Soni), who falls hesitantly but nonetheless plummets, and they have to solve the central problem of any relationship–these two people have families. Or, at least Naveen does– Jay’s adoptive Indian parents died a few years before this movie takes place. A Nice Indian Boy so beautifully displays the possibilities of leading a culturally rich life that has room for the love of your immigrant parents, being practically as opposed to theoretically gay in front of your immigrant parents, and doing so with your racially white but culturally Indian boyfriend. Culturally Indian is a questionable term–Jay touches Naveen’s parents feet but then he smokes his weed vape in their bathroom?? On second thought, perhaps the most Indian American thing you can do.
There is so much about this film that deeply moved me and had tears continuously streaming down my face in theaters, but the most unexpected was the appreciation and acknowledgement of the love contained in the arranged marriages of our parents that is often thrown away as a purely familial transaction, void of romantic love as we have been exposed to by western media. Parents in these movies, and often in real life, seem connected only by their relationship to their children with seemingly no connection to each other beyond the ways in which they work together to provide for their families.
Until recently, it was an assumption I made about my own parents and the parents I know who got married like them–with little of a relationship built before marriage only to immediately move to the states and have kids. My parents had a “love marriage”— a term I can’t really get behind as it reinforces the assumption that arranged marriages are loveless—but even still, despite all the trouble my dad went through to marry my mom– fraudulent horoscope readings, multiple threats of suicide, and all bets placed on a love at first sight moment– I assumed the glue and purpose of their marriage was somehow practicality.
Naveen’s parents, Megha (an immaculate Zarna Garg) and Archit Gavaskar (unexpected MVP Harish Patel), classically play this relationship of two South Asian parents, deeply and perhaps too much so, invested in their children’s romantic prospects while not being invested at all in each other. They watch OutTV to try to understand their son’s homosexuality but nothing much comes out of that other than an education on Harvey Milk and hopefully the subconscious desire to try some butt stuff. When Naveen tells his dad he wants more for his romantic life than the loveless marriage of his parents, Archit is shocked by his son's reading of their relationship. He goes home that day and attempts to sit on the couch next to his wife–it does not go well. Megha yells at him, asks why he’s sitting so close to her and to go back to his usual spot on his chair that he bought for himself. When he moves away, he watches her, contemplating seeking connection, when she proceeds to yell at him for looking at her. Defeated, he leaves to go to bed. It is hilarious and accurate in a way that is so touching to see on the big screen. Megha Gavaskar asks the age old question, why are you, as my husband, sitting next to me?
When I went home to California at the end of March, I started to see the love between South Asian parents in places I did not notice it before. I paid a visit to the parents of my childhood best friend, Shreya, whose parents provided a second home to me as a child and into adolescence. After work, Uncle and Aunty go for a walk, eat dinner at 6:00, watch TV afterwards, and both end up dead asleep on the couch. The image of them asleep with the TV still on, side by side, both kids living across the country, in the house they bought almost 20 years ago, was so full of the qualities that make love what it is–routine, comfort, and dedication. I watched Uncle do the dishes and wipe down the countertop after we had eaten the meal Aunty made for us, struck by how an act that on some days is just a chore, on others is a window into a shared life.
I’ve always known that my friend Riya has affectionate parents because she taught me her endearing ways, I could only assume were mirrored from them. When I visited them, I learned that Aunty’s mother would cook eggplant for husband, knowing how much he loved it, despite how much she despised it, as we ate the eggplant dish Aunty made for us, a separate portion reserved for Uncle without any peanuts due to his allergy. Uncle tried to sell the three of us on the broad appeal of Las Vegas, citing the many shows he attended there, Cirque du Soleil, the Sphere, etc. Then he mentioned that last time he visited, he wanted to see an adult show but couldn’t get tickets. Aunty’s jaw dropped as I nodded along politely, not knowing what the protocol was. It turns out, we had all misheard him– he had wanted to see an Adele show, not an adult show. Insulted by his wife’s crude assumption, he asked, "You think your husband has been someone else this whole time?” Witnessing another part of the routine of love–knowing.
During my last day in California I went looking for photo albums at my mom’s house and was surprised to find pictures I had never seen before and cards from birthdays and holidays decades ago that she had kept. I found the developed photos along with their negatives from when my parents had just moved from India to Atlanta, experiencing their first glimpse of fall foliage, their first snow, and their first visit to the Northeast. I found a Valentine’s Day card my dad gave my mom in 1997. The card opens up to a heart filled pop up where my dad has written in, before and after the prewritten message, “Dear Renu Kutti…Your everloving hubby, Sendhil.” I did not know my dad knew the word hubby or that he had ever called my mom kutti, a Tamil word meaning small, often used with fondness towards children. My dad’s routine of love was not to do the dishes or any other chores for that matter, but he provided something else–he looks like he’s got the winning lottery ticket in every picture from 1996 onwards and the rare courage of knowing that the love he had for his wife and kids transcends how short a life can be.
At Naveen and Jay’s wedding, Megha gives a speech about how her love for Archit sprouted and how it continues to grow. In their earliest days of marriage, as a newcomer to the kitchen, Megha practically poisoned her husband with her cooking each day. About a week into this routine, hope faltering on both sides, she smelled an aroma coming from the kitchen and was met with several home cooked dishes, fully prepared by her husband. Love made itself known between the two strangers, filling in the gaps that had just barely been revealed to them.
Having physically affectionate parents probably provides a more pleasurable standard for what your own marriage could look like but we are ultimately pleasure seeking creatures. We will find it not just in the bedroom but in the kitchen, on our way to pick each other up from the airport, and on separate ends of the couch while watching OutTV. They’re all aphrodisiacs to me.