Yes, My Accent Is Real (5 page)

I
. Not a typo.

DEAR READER, I KNOW WHAT
you're thinking:
Kunal, you seem awesome and we should totally hang out sometime, but being Indian is soooooo
not
cool.

Now, I don't
mean to throw my own culture under the bus, but if anyone is allowed to say it, it's me; I mean, I
am
Indian. And dear reader, you're right. We are not a nation of cool. We are not cool like the French, or the Italians, or anyone from South America. I'm not saying we're entirely useless. We are known for some really good stuff, like medicine, engineering, and spicy food. But if you put us in a thong on a beach in Rio. . .

Everything came to India a little late. You may remember a few of my favorite TV shows growing up—
Small Wonder, M*A*S*H
,
Doogie Howser, M.D.
, and
The Wonder Years
. So when I moved to the States for college in 1999, all of my cultural references were about thirteen years behind the curve. I'd say things like, “Did you guys hear the new Bryan Adams song?” I worshipped true artists like UB40 and Mariah Carey. I could sing every word from “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You.”
^I
I could even air-guitar the solo with one hand while playing air piano with the other.
Recognize.

Or take fashion. Even when I would try to dress cool, I'd still be held back by my Indianness. I might wear a great pair of jeans and a nice polo shirt, but under that polo you'd see a white undershirt. That means a shirt under a shirt. Think about that when it's 120 degrees Fahrenheit and 99 percent humidity. When I went to the gym, my socks were pulled up to my knees and my shorts were so tight that if I bent over you would see some butt cheek, and maybe even the outline of my testes.
^II
Despite my best efforts, my suit pants would often be a little too short, my shirts a little too shiny.

Then, a few years ago, I noticed something really strange had happened. I noticed that retailers everywhere—from American Apparel to Barneys—had started stealing
my
look for
their
stores. Turns out that we Indians were hipsters before hipsters were even invented. Indians love big mustaches and thick-rimmed glasses. We love pocket calculators and pocket squares. We smell like musk and talcum and the earth but have the latest high-tech toys in our pockets. Today the coolest thing is to appear to be totally unconcerned with what's cool. And I can't help but wonder if we indeed are suddenly actually cool.

It's as if the entire fashion world has run out of ideas, only to begin recycling itself, leaving us, us Indians, at the forefront of cool. We were the original hipsters, with our facial hair and old-fashioned sensibilities. In a sense, we are the rise of the anti-cool movement that has in some roundabout way transformed us, actually, into a nation of cool.

So to my Indian brothers and sisters, I say: Be proud and know that you are now cutting-edge. But don't get used to it. This is fashion, so it will all change again soon.

I
. Aka the stirring love theme from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.

II
. Short for testicles, especially in short shorts.

WHEN I WAS GROWING UP,
it was a truth universally acknowledged
that every night at eight thirty, no exceptions, we had to be seated at the dining room table for dinner. This was the one absolute law that my father enforced. No TV, no phone calls, no texting or Twitter or Facebook (in those days, it was more like no Walkman or pager or Game Boy). And no eating in silence, either. We were
forced
to share about our day. About what we'd been doing, how classes were, anything new that we had learned. Now, at the time I was pretty young, around ten years old, and as such these dinners could often seem tedious and boring. But the truth is, some of my greatest life lessons came from sitting around that solid mahogany dining table, a table that had once belonged to my grandfather's grandfather. It had been around when the British took us over, and stood strong when we got our freedom. I always hoped that table could come to life and join these conversations. I'll bet it would have a lot of wisdom to share. For a table.
^I

Conversations would start trivially, maybe about school or about cricket. But then Dad would move on to something deeper; usually a
topic that would bring up questions of morality and ethics, or why people of the same religion would turn on each other, or why we thought war existed. Heavy stuff. Or we would start by chatting about why one of my aunts was mad at my uncle, and this would segue into a discussion about personal morality. We talked a lot about relationships of all kinds, those between parents and children, or teachers and students, or friends and neighbors. My dad was always curious about humans, about how we react in different situations. He asked us hard questions at a young age, and even better, he listened carefully and respectfully when we answered. He could have dismissed our answers by claiming we were just children. But he always gave us respect; he really did make us feel like our ideas counted. And Dad wasn't just some preachy old professor of philosophy. He was mad cool. He wore slim suits and had a handlebar mustache and Ray-Ban sunglasses—he was like the Original OG. Which I guess would make him the Original Original Gangster.

Here are some things he taught me.
^II

When you want something really badly in life and it doesn't pan out the way you envisioned, you really only have two options:

1. You give up and you get dejected and you shit on yourself.

2. You realize that every failure is an opportunity. It's something you can learn from.

I've
experienced so many setbacks in life. I suppose all of us have. But this is probably the best advice I've ever been given, because it's simple and useful and true.

If it happens, GOOD. If it doesn't happen, VERY GOOD.

Empathy at a young age is a great remedy for confusion. Even and in fact especially when it seems like the other side is absolutely wrong. (Which is in most cases, since we always think we're right. Right?) In 1993, tensions between Hindus and Muslims flared up and literally surrounded us. Riots erupted just outside our neighborhood; we could hear the police sirens and see smoke from various fires around the city. Dad had such a strong sense of morality that even at that moment, amid all the chaos, he still pushed us to be empathetic. “Even though we are Hindu, Kunal, we must recognize that the Muslims feel just as strongly about their religion and their cause. And they also deserve the basic human rights we have. Why else would they be willing to die for their beliefs?”

Dad was an accountant, so I knew how to use Excel before I knew how to unhook a bra. Everything had to fall within a budget, and all expenses and cash outflow as well as inflow had to be perfectly balanced in the spreadsheet. And to be honest, to this day spreadsheets still drive me bat-shit crazy. But using them has saved my ass again and again. Even as a naïve college freshman, my spreadsheet told me that if I spent too much on eating and going out, I wouldn't have enough money to buy underwear. (So I didn't. Buy underwear, that is.) So
do your spreadsheets, everyone, lest you be left naked underneath your pants.

Valentine's Day was a big deal when I was young. The year I finally had a girlfriend in Ishani (or so I thought), I naturally wanted to get her something really nice. It was going to be my first Valentine's Day gift to my first girlfriend, so of course I carefully selected the one thing every girl wants: an electronic card that plays a tinny version of “I Will Always Love You” when you open it. They sold these at Archie's Gallery, a popular gift shop named after the comic book of the same name.
Archie
comics were huge in India. I never could figure out exactly why. But anyway . . .

I found the card and handed the clerk a hundred rupees, which is the equivalent of two dollars.

“I need more,” said the clerk.

“What?”

“The card is a hundred and sixty rupees.”

“Oh. I don't have any more money. I won't buy it, then.”

“No, you already bought it. See, it's in your hand. You need to give me sixty more rupees,” the clerk said. He was being a dick and I wasn't having it.

“I'm going to call my father!” I said, raising my voice. “We live down the street. He won't stand for the way you're treating me.”

“Okay, call him, we'll see what happens,” the clerk said.

I called my father, sniffling and blubbering, “You won't believe it, Dad. They're not giving me my money back. They are acting like thieves.”

“I'll be there soon,” my dad said.

At this point, the manager and the security guard had moved to the front of the store, nervous about what force might come barging through the door. A few minutes later my dad showed up and I gave them a smug smile, knowing that Dad would rip them a new one.
You messed with the wrong twelve-year-old.

My dad comes in without saying a word and just smiles at them. A big, warm smile. He has two of the deepest dimples I have ever seen on his cheeks, which gives his smile the power to disarm a thousand Archie's Gallery guards. It puts everyone at ease. “I'm sorry for the confusion, gentlemen. How much more do we owe you?”

“Sir, just sixty rupees.”

“Okay. Here's sixty rupees,” my dad said, paying them. “Any more problems? Is this all sorted?”

“Thank you, sir. Yes, we're all good here, we are sorry.”

We left the store and I looked at him, betrayed. “Dad, what happened? I thought you were going to kick their asses!”

My dad looked at me.

“Kunal, how much did the card cost?”

“A hundred and sixty rupees.”

“How much did you pay them?”

“One hundred.”

“Okay, then between the two of us, we paid for it.”

Two sides. One smile to bridge the gap.
^III

If you buy something that's too expensive, then you won't have
enough leftover money to go out and enjoy yourself, so what's the point? You want to sit in an empty house all alone? Dad viewed money as a means to an end. It wasn't the finish line. Rather than save every single rupee to buy the biggest house, he'd rather have extra money to spend generously on food and friends and sharing. Live in a house you can afford, but eat like a king.

My dad never raised his hand to me. Ever. He didn't believe in violence. He did, however, have a temper, something I experienced whenever I misbehaved. One night the whole family was watching a movie together at the house, and there was this scene where this woman grotesquely, repeatedly, and bloodily stabbed some guy. The day before, I just had a fight with my brother about who gets to watch the TV before going to bed—or some other stupid territorial battle that takes place when you share a room with a sibling—so when the woman stabbed the guy, I said under my breath, “God, I wish that was my brother.”

My father snapped his entire head toward me, and in the deepest, most furious tone I'd ever heard, roared, “WHAT DID YOU SAY?”

“I, um, I said . . . I wish that was my brother?”

“GET OUT OF THIS ROOM!”

“What, I was just kidding—”

“Kunal, get out of this damn room! If I ever hear you say something like that again, I will kick you out of this FUCKING HOUSE!”

I ran from the room, sobbing. My mom came into my bedroom after me and said that I should never say things about murdering my brother, and that even though I didn't mean it, it's still not a nice thing to say. I nodded, though I thought she was wrong.

The next morning, I woke up for breakfast and my dad was sipping tea at the table, and I felt that he, too, was embarrassed about the night before. We didn't really know how to break the ice. He then turned to me and said calmly, “Kunal, I'm sorry that I screamed at you. I shouldn't have used bad language, but you should never say that, or anything like that, in this house again.”
^IV

Sometimes when we are young (and even as adults) we can get caught up in a moment and say things we don't mean. Or maybe in that moment, we do mean them. But I think what Dad was instilling in me was to be responsible for my words. Because words
are
powerful; they can hurt and wound, and one word can lead to a thousand horrors. So don't forget to be impeccable with your words.

Also, don't wish anyone dead.

Every one of Dad's budgets has a category he calls “cushion.” He believes that you should enjoy your money, but that you will sleep more soundly if you have just a bit of extra wiggle room. This way, even if things go wrong, you'll still have some margin for error. Having a cushion means always having a Plan B. That's why I
stuck with my business degree before I got my master's in acting. To have a Plan B. To have a cushion.

In the early 1990s, protests broke out between students and police in riot gear over discrimination in the education system, all within walking distance of our home. Our eyes were glued to the TV and the bloodshed it depicted and we often talked about it over dinner.

My dad came home from work early one day. “Kunal, come with me.”

He took me to his gun cabinet.

“Help me clean these guns.”

We cleaned and loaded every single gun. He was a collector of antique guns and owned seven rifles. He showed me how to double- and triple-check that the safety was on.