Sarah Khan

Growing Up Is Hard to Do: Forced Into Adulthood by an Aging Parent

2012-01-12T01:25:19-05:00

I approached my 30th birthday with the typical trepidation associated with the occasion: I lamented all I hadn't accomplished; I surveyed my face for crevices. Midnight was marked with friends and cupcakes. I fielded the requisite phone calls and flowers at work, and had dinner with 15 friends who braved an impending blizzard to celebrate. Then I went home and waited to feel grown up and responsible overnight.

I didn't. It took four days.

My father had recently begun a consulting project in Cleveland, away from my mother in Boston and his three adult kids in New York and Washington, D.C. I was concerned about him being all alone in a dingy apartment, shoveling spoonfuls of stale cereal into his mouth.

"Calm down," my older brother told me when I relayed my apprehensions. Dad was set up in a nice corporate apartment, he loves to cook, and he'd be flying home on the weekends, so my hyperbolic scenario wasn't likely to become a reality. And so I stopped worrying about him and went back to worrying about myself.

Three days after my birthday, my dad vomited blood at work. The next day, he was hospitalized. Alone in Cleveland. Hundreds of miles from anyone we knew.

I was aimlessly strolling the aisles of Loehmann's when I got the call that Saturday afternoon. "What are you doing?" my mom asked as I pawed a selection of handbags. "Just killing time before dinner with some friends," I answered distractedly, presuming this to be a routine check-in. Then she got to the point: "Your father's in the hospital."

The doctor had assured her the bleeding ulcers weren't too serious, but said someone should come be with him. "I'll go," I told her without hesitation. It simply made the most sense: she'd recently started a new job, my sister was in college, my brother had just visited Cleveland the week before and has a wife and kid to worry about; my only commitments were a brunch I could cancel, some laundry I was happy to put off doing, and a job with a boss I hoped would be understanding. I booked a flight out for the first thing in the morning.

At 30, my mom was responsible for two young lives other than hers and her husband's. At 30, my main obligation was purchasing toilet paper on time, and I had a very happy roommate indeed on the rare occasions I accomplished this. I've always been treated like the baby of the family, even though my sister is eight years my junior. My brother is the archetypal responsible oldest sibling, but even my sister has long adopted a maturity far beyond her years; both of them, along with my parents, tend to baby me. Perhaps this dates back to the day I was born, when my parents got their first glimpse of my tiny body. "My goodness, she's as small as a bean!" they declared, and thus, "Beany" was born -- a nickname that sticks three decades later, and one that I seem to have lived up to with my diminutive 90-pound frame. Even today, my dad does my taxes, my brother helps me move, my sister drives me to the mall, my mom administers backrubs when I'm sick. I can't say I offer much beyond jokes and wisecracks in return. I've become adept at taking, not giving.

I went straight from the airport to the hospital. The sight of him in a flimsy hospital gown, weak and pale, eyes half open, fresh gray stubble on his cheeks negating the effect of his regularly-dyed dark hair, made me shudder, but I didn't let on how I felt beyond a slight furrowing of my brow. For once, this wasn't about me. I got to work, tracking down his doctor to determine where we were at and what still needed to be done. For the next few days, I dutifully monitored my father's blood transfusion, helped him up whenever he went to the bathroom, followed him when they wheeled him to X-rays and MRIs, seasoned his soups and made him tea, led him on a daily constitutional around the floor, chased after nurses to get his medicines on time. I took notes and tried to sound informed whenever doctors came in, even though the medical jargon went over my head. I answered phone calls from concerned family and friends. Whenever he napped, which was most of the time, I sat idly by his bed, playing solitaire on my phone. A two-day stint melted into three, then five.

The idea of dad being alone in the hospital was incomprehensible to me, so I logged 12-hour days in uncomfortable plastic chairs apparently designed to deter lengthy visitation. But in the next bed lay an elderly man with lung cancer and a horrific cough who had family stop by for 10 minutes a day, if at all. "I love you," they called out as they left. Then why don't you stay long enough to take off your coat? I wondered. On his side of the curtain, my father proudly announced to anyone who would listen, "She flew in from New York to be with me." "You're a good daughter," they all told me -- people at the hospital, friends, the clerk at the front desk of the apartment building. I didn't know what to make of the statements. Isn't this what kids are supposed to do for their parents? Isn't this what my family did for me?

In the evenings, long after visiting hours ended, I drove myself wearily back to his apartment. This was the part I'd been most terrified about. While my friends had been rushing to get their licenses at 16, I'd pushed it off for years -- and then I failed my road test three times. I'm rarely behind a wheel, but now I was forced by circumstance to chauffeur myself around an unfamiliar place. I avoided alluding to my driving phobia that week because I didn't want to worry my dad. But in true fatherly form, even chained to a hospital bed by an IV stand, he fired up his laptop to Google non-highway directions to the apartment, researched which route would be the fastest and most direct, and carefully wrote everything down on the back of a tea-stained hospital menu. Then he painstakingly explained the area to me, referenced various landmarks I'd pass along the way, told me where the nearest grocery stores and restaurants were, and sent me off.

I surprised myself. Not only did I never get lost that week (how could I, when he had so thoughtfully included reverse directions), but I was impressed by how comfortable I became behind the wheel. I perfected the art of parking within the lines; when cleaning snow off the car, I deduced by trial and error that it's best to push ice away from you (not onto you); I marveled as the defogger actually did what it was supposed to; I learned you should drive slowly when it's snowing -- things most people discover when they're half my age.

"I feel like I've aged 20 years in one week," I texted a friend one night. Suddenly I was living in the suburbs, driving myself around, caring for an ailing parent, and gushing over unfathomably cheap groceries. For the first time in my life I was responsible for the well-being of someone other than myself, and the magnitude of that fact was staggering. One night I sat alone in the apartment -- which was still scattered with used coffee mugs and recently laundered undershirts, signs of his pseudo-bachelor lifestyle -- and wept. It finally dawned on me that I really wasn't a kid anymore. This illness may not have been too severe, but as my parents advanced in age, who knew what lay ahead? Would I ever be able to care for them as selflessly as they had cared for me? Was anything ever going to be the same?

I texted the one person I know who would understand the unfamiliar emotions that left me so unsettled. "Being a grown-up sucks. I don't think I like it," I wrote to my brother. "No one does, Beany," he replied. "No one does."

When my dad was finally discharged, I changed my flight one last time to stay through the weekend and settle him back into his routine. I cleaned his apartment, did laundry, cooked enough food to last a few days, and picked up his prescriptions. I made a list of what pills to take and when, and, not finding any tape in his room, affixed my makeshift chart to a wall with a Band-Aid. I arranged with his building to have someone dig out his car whenever it snowed. When he insisted on going back to work the next day, I insisted on driving him, not sure if the medications would make him drowsy behind the wheel. I pulled right up to the entrance. "Do you have your lunch with you?" I asked. "Yes, Beany," he said with a chuckle and held it up to show me. Then I waited and watched until he walked through the front door. I now know what mothers feel like sending their kids off to the first day of school.

I was nervous about leaving on Sunday, but my usefulness was now obsolete. I kept my composure by rattling off last-minute instructions. "Don't forget about the follow-up appointments I made for you, I put all the numbers and addresses in your phone," I said. "And make sure you go to sleep at a reasonable hour tonight." He's 62 years old and he's been taking care of himself since before you were born, I tried to remind myself. While I happily surrendered the driver's seat back to him that morning, slipping back to our old roles wasn't proving to be as simple.

As he dropped me off, he leaned over and kissed me on my forehead. "You are truly my angel, Beany. I don't know what I would have done without you," he said simply.

"I don't either," I responded breezily with a laugh. Then I turned and walked away quickly before he could see the tears filling up in my eyes.

Originally appeared in The Atlantic.

My Own Private Bollywood

2012-01-04T11:17:56-05:00

After the Slumdog boom, Bollywood has become more Hollywood -- and looks like it's in America to stay. What does that mean for people who grew up with it?

"So, your last name's Khan, huh?" a guy at work asked out of the blue one day. Though we'd always smiled and waved in the hallways, until that particular afternoon, our interactions hadn't progressed far beyond perfunctory assessments of the weather. I nodded and got ready to give him my standard spiel, mastered through years of repetition: "Yes, but K-H-A-N like Genghis or Chaka, not K-A-H-N like the hot dog."

"That's Indian, right?" he continued before I opened my mouth. "Like Shah Rukh?"

Colin, a blond-haired, blue-eyed, rugby-shirt-clad, Nordic-god type -- who'd fit in more at a polo match in the Hamptons than among comb-overed, potbellied uncles half his height in line for the latest from India's movie-making industry -- went on breathlessly to extol the musical merits of the chart-buster "Rock 'n' Roll Sohniye" and profess his love for sultry siren Rani Mukherjee.

The secret was out, I realized that morning. Bollywood is no longer just my cup of chai.

In the time since Colin revealed himself to me as a closet Bollywood buff, Slumdog Millionaire turned the Oscars into a song-and-dance spectacular and all things Indian have now been deemed hot. When Lady Gaga descended on Delhi to perform at an F1 gala last month, she tweeted a pic of herself partying with Bollywood royalty, including Shah Rukh himself. "Screw Hollywood," she declared. "It's all about Bollywood." Hey, if Gaga says it, it must be true.

But what about us who've grown up with Bollywood? We've been singing (and dancing) this gospel for years. The music outnumbers all other genres in my iPod three to one, and I'm far more intrigued by eternal bachelor Salman Khan's romantic entanglements than George Clooney's. I beg anyone heading to the motherland to bring me back copies of Stardust, Filmfare, and People India, which hold prized positions in my personal magazine library, a place where Us Weekly just doesn't make the cut. I even have a Bollywood keychain, featuring a floppy-haired cartoon character wooing a buxom, sari-clad lass in a rain-soaked embrace.

I'll admit, though, that despite all this, I'm not exactly a die-hard fan. For every rare Lagaan (Tax) that holds my attention for four-plus hours, there are scores of asinine Love Aaj Kals (Love These Days) that send me fleeing from the theater in convulsions after 15 minutes. I want to love Bollywood, I really do. Yet as much as I enjoy the accompaniments, the main courses themselves generally leave me unsettled.

But the fact remains that Bollywood is as much a part of my identity as my curly hair. Across the globe, kids of South Asian extraction are raised on a steady diet of screeching violins, over-the-top displays of emotion, delayed reactions to ill-placed dishum-dishums in shoddily realized fight sequences, and, of course, spontaneous, perfectly choreographed and comically attired dance routines. It provides the sound track to every wedding, the punch line to every joke. With more than a billion Indians, it boasts a built-in audience far more vast than anything Hollywood could ever dream of, and hundreds of millions of others are also caught under the influence. Think of Bollywood what you will, but if you're brown, there's no escaping it -- whether you're growing up in Delhi, Dubai, or Des Moines.

The Bollywood of my childhood would be virtually unrecognizable to anyone accustomed to the candy-coated and substance-free froth being churned out by the dream factories of Mumbai today. There was a time when a Hindi movie was a wholesome family affair that transcended every strata of society: It offered tear-jerking melodrama to depress the aunties; a sweet, fresh-faced girl to charm the uncles; a chocolate-box hero and cheesy romance to lure in the girls; blood and gore to excite the guys; melodic music to appeal to the masses; grandeur and sophistication to be appreciated by the classes; morality to appease the conservative set; double entendre-laden (but discreet) humor to entertain the shameless; and -- a miracle! -- an actual storyline that could be followed and enjoyed by all (so what if it was completely implausible and devoid of any reality?).

The first Indian movie I remember watching checked off most of those boxes. It was the '80s, and I was five. That era's screen queen Sridevi -- known affectionately to her legion of fans as Thunder Thighs, owing to her copious curves, a source of great pride in those days -- starred in and as Nagina, a shape-shifting snake woman (what was that I said about implausible?). I was easily entranced by a world filled with hypnotizing music, romance, and intrigue that went far over my tiny head.

But the defining movie of my childhood was Mr. India. In this sci-fi-fantasy-superhero-family-action-comedy-drama-romance musical, a poor man raising a band of orphans inherits a special watch that gives him the ability to turn invisible... and protect the nation from the evil Mogambo, an island-dwelling character heavily inspired by Dr. No. Mr. India starred the aforementioned Sridevi alongside Anil Kapoor, whom the rest of the world is now familiar with as the nefarious quiz master from Slumdog Millionaire. But while he may be rubbing shoulders with the likes of Tom Cruise in this month's Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, to me he'll always be the bumbling, big-hearted Arun Bhaiyya.

Pre-"Bollywood" Bollywood was a simpler time, with simpler titles like Beta (Son) and Maine Pyar Kiya (I Have Fallen in Love) and Hum (Us). Today, nonsensical spectacles with monstrous appellations like Jab Kabhi Kabhi Kuch Kuch Ho Na Ho to Dhoom Machake Alvida Na Kehna (JK4HNHTDMANK for short) generally struggle to make up for what they lack in story lines by serving up extra helpings of vulgarities. Even the music is rapidly spiraling downhill. "Sheila Ki Jawaani" (Sheila's Sexiness) and Character Dheela (Loose Character) might get the frontbenchers excited for all the wrong reasons, but it was during the smash Mehndi Lagake Rakhna (Keep Yourself Adorned with Henna) in the '90s classic Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge (The Good Hearted Will Take the Bride) at a theater in Hyderabad that I witnessed crowds express their sincerest appreciation by exuberantly flinging rubber chappals (flip-flops) high into the air.

Today's Bollywood is a different animal. Bye-bye, dhamakedaar (action-packed) plot twists; hello, remakes of remakes of remakes. Sylvester Stallone and Rob Lowe share screen space with Kareena Kapoor and Akshay Kumar, and Akon and Snoop Dogg collaborate with Mumbai's top music directors -- even singing lyrics in accented but admirable Hindi. The arrival last month of Royal Couple Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan's baby made headlines on E! News; superstar Priyanka Chopra signed on with Lady Gaga's manager and is currently joining forces with the likes of Pete Wentz on an album; and one of India's most celebrated production houses, YRF Films, announced just a few weeks ago that it'll be adding a touch of masala to a romantic comedy it's producing starring Jason Bateman, Olivia Wilde, and Billy Crudup. Gone is the innocence of yore, replaced instead by X-rated dance moves that put the Pussycat Dolls to shame -- in fact, when that very girl group joined music maestro A.R. Rahman for an English version of his Slumdog hit Jai Ho, it seemed all too natural.

Perhaps it's easy to romanticize the past; after all, when do I ever sit down to watch an '80s romance-revenge mash-up in my Manhattan apartment? Maybe if I actually revisit the favored films of my bachpan (childhood) -- I saw Dil (Heart) a mind-numbing 93 times -- I'll cringe at the gaudy clothes, over-the-top histrionics, and voluminous tresses (on both the heroines and heroes). Glorified in the enchanted recesses of my memory, these movies will always have a special place in my own dil.

But being a true Bollywood fan has always required a certain kind of undying devotion, a willingness to celebrate the insignificant and overlook the illogical; it's about loving the culture, stubbornly unified eyebrows and all. To billions of people, it's a way of life. Any religion requires a degree of blind faith; Bollywood is no different a creed. So regardless of my personal opinions on the latest sudsy epic, my heart will flutter with pride when I see its name light up the marquee at a Third Avenue theater alongside considerably more substantive flicks by Leonardo DiCaprio and Ryan Gosling.

As I was still reacting to Lady Gaga's recent Bollywood proclamation, a Heineken ad that went viral found its way onto my Facebook newsfeed. The logic -- and gravity-defying "The Date" spot shows a couple dodging faux dragons, performing magic tricks, and dancing with gusto -- all to the beats of a frenzied 1960s Mohammed Rafi classic, Jaan Pehchaan Ho.

Well done, Bollywood. It's about time you got the world dancing to your tune.

Originally appeared in The Atlantic

Santa Claus Is Coming to Town... NOT

2011-12-20T13:01:00-05:00

When I was a kid I, like millions of other children across America, ardently believed in Santa Claus.

The problem? That persnickety detail that I'm Muslim. Oh, and that I happened to be living in Saudi Arabia at the time.

There I was, in a desert nation, mere miles from Mecca, the birthplace of Islam, captivated by mistletoe, turtledoves, Christmas lights, and outlandish accounts of reindeer with remarkably unconventional capabilities.

I wonder if my parents had any idea of the gusto with which we observed the birth of Christ at the American school in Jeddah. Our music teachers led us in rousing renditions of "Jingle Bells" and "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree"; we watched The Nutcracker ballet on TV and erected whimsical gingerbread houses; and the halls at school were decked most extravagantly indeed. In art class I strove to craft the glitteriest, spangliest star to take home to hoist atop our nonexistent tree. I was sad to discover that Dusty the Sandman doesn't have quite the same ring, nor does he hold together quite as well as his frostier counterpart. And if there were any irony to painstakingly poring over paper snowflakes in the middle of the desert, it was lost upon me as we fashioned our own little air-conditioned winter wonderland oasis. Who cares if it was actually 90 degrees and there were only palm trees in sight?

But what fascinated me the most about this holiday was the existence of one particular jovial, borderline obese, and strangely generous man with impeccable time-management skills. I did not doubt Santa's existence, and listened with reverent awe to Mrs. Faulkner, our music teacher, as she recounted tales of his heroics. I rejoiced when Rudolph (with his nose so bright) got to drive his sleigh one night. I tried extra hard to be good for goodness sake, because the potential ramifications of winding up on the naughty list concerned me greatly. And yes, I may have furtively dispatched a missive or two to the North Pole. My parents usually just rolled their eyes and humored me, occasionally even carting my ambitious letters off to the post office. They must have just gotten lost in the mail, I consoled myself, as Dec. 25 came and went with nary a pink Barbie convertible in sight.

Sure, many people believe there's nothing wrong with letting kids get caught up in this innocent fabrication while they're young. But show me anything more heartbreaking than a gullible, sweet, frizzy-haired child passionately believing in this mythology, only to realize through an exhaustive investigation of her friends, that her jolly old idol appears to peddle exclusively to Christian kids. I give up food and water for a month every Ramadan, while they get stockings and presents and fancy trees -- even the ones who are decidedly more naughty than nice? Where is the justice?

After a few years of receiving no love from Santa, even when I went all the way to Michigan to sit on his lap in front of a Sears to earnestly beseech him to include my humble abode in his travel plans, I stopped seeing the world through red-and-green tinted glasses. I became a pint-size Grinch. I secretly hoped Santa would drop the Kingdom off his global itinerary. After all, there are no chimneys in the desert. How would his big butt shimmy his way into a nonexistent fireplace? And who was going to guide his sleigh through the dunes, Raheem the Red-Nosed Camel? Muahahahaha. But somehow that wily fatso always found a way, and my classmates would come back to school in January with reports of their holiday spoils: new clothes and bikes and Cabbage Patch Kids and Lisa Frank Trapper Keepers and Transformers and Popples.

Sure, I got my own piles of presents on my birthday two weeks later, but that wasn't the point. Was it too much to ask to be pampered, just one night a year, by a random red-suited stranger with a broad face and little round belly that shook when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly? One who knows when you're sleeping, and knows when you're awake? Which, in retrospect, sounds rather creepy, but what did I know?

I think we all can guess how this story ended: Eventually the truth came out, devastating millions of young believers. But by then, I was not among them. Knowing what I did about the not-so-enchanted origins of those colorfully packaged presents, by the time that fat troll's scam was finally revealed, I wasn't shouting, pouting, or crying.

But I have a feeling that by the time I have kids of my own, they may have a magical Eid Elf in their lives, mysteriously appearing at the end of Ramadan with food and gifts galore.

Originally published on FreshYarn.com

Ramadan Rumblings

2011-08-18T10:22:18-04:00

A few years ago, I approached my desk after a morning meeting and was greeted by giant glossy color images of donuts, burgers, ice cream, and french fries plastered on the wall of my cubicle.

This was my then-boss's charming way of helping me ring in in the first day of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month that requires fasting from sunrise to sunset.

I guess you'd have to know her personality and sense of humor -- "quirky" doesn't begin to describe it -- but while some of my colleagues were furious on my behalf and threatened to report her to HR, I was mostly unfazed.

Because if she had really wanted to make me suffer, she would have posted eight-by-seven pictures of kheema samosas instead.

Ramadan is a time of reflection, prayer, charity, and spiritual renewal. While all of those are important and all, for me it's also the time of post-sunset kheema samosa gorge-fests. I fancy myself a connoisseur of the ground-meat-stuffed pastries that are an iftar (the fast-breaking meal) staple in most South Asian homes, and are as characteristic of this spiritual time as matzoh is of Passover and candy corn is of Halloween. The coriander-laced beef or chicken, the occasional splash of zesty lemon juice, the refreshing mint chutney, the flaky dough that somehow balances a fine line between crispy and greasy... just a bite of the plump treat at any other time of year instantly transports me back to the feeling of succor and contentment I experience after a long day of dietary abstinence in Ramadan. If all you've ever encountered is the potato-and-peas-filled variety, I implore you to storm your nearest Indo-Pak hole-in-the-wall at once to remedy this travesty. (Unless you're a vegetarian. In which case, my sympathies.)

Since trekking four hours to Boston for my mom's kheema rolls is hardly always feasible during such an exhausting month, I make do with the offerings in the tri-state area. Last week I showed up at my brother's place in Hoboken an hour before iftar with but one request, only to be informed upon my arrival that there was a pound of raw ground beef and pastry dough thawed and waiting for me to whip them up myself -- which I promptly did. At my friend Asma's house in Nanuet last Friday, I downed 10. The next day I inhaled five, even though I was wary of the health-conscious "baked" variety my host that evening had on offer. Some years I hop the Metro-North to Connecticut to indulge in my friend Sobia's mom's epicurean exploits; this Wednesday, I've invited myself over to a good friend's home in Brooklyn where I aspire to down at least 15, in between bites of Shameema Aunty's divine biryani, haleem, and kababs.

When I'm not whiling away the days fantasizing about kheema samosas, finding innovative ways of masking Ramadan breath, patiently responding to well-intentioned but repetitive queries (no, not even water!), and finding detours to avoid the massive platters of free cupcakes and pizza that have a habit of magically materializing at the office this month, I really do make time for prayer and introspection. But let's be honest, when you spend 16 hours a day in a delirious state of prandial deprivation, your cravings rival those of a pregnant woman. Sweet Tarts, Lays potato chips, and ranch dip, all together? Drool! Kheema samosas are perhaps the most normal item I develop a hankering for.

So if you're looking for me during iftar, I'm likely hovering by the samosa tray, encouraging everyone else to try the pakoras, fruit chaat, or haleem instead. And if you're hell-bent on encroaching my samosa territory, might I suggest you try the potato ones? I hear they're delightful.