After dinner, Aram & Anahit surprised me by inviting me to their home for dessert & tea. It was 10pm. ‘Isn’t it late?’
‘It’s still evening for us,’ Aram said, smiling. ‘We don’t go to sleep until past 1am.’
We took a taxi. It was dark, so I couldn’t see the Mother Armenia statue on a hill as the road curved and skirted around Victory Park and then onto the broad Azatutyan Ave. They lived in an old building off Babayan St. The taxi dropped us off in a narrow alley behind the long building. I stumbled up the uneven stairs behind them in the dark. In what little light there was, I could see that the building was sorely in need of renovation. It had a shabby, worn look, like the older buildings in Bombay that had weathered many a monsoon.
Their thirteen year-old daughter was at home. She smiled awkwardly, revealing her braces. She studied English at school, but she spoke it laboriously, her shyness not helping her.
Their flat was modest. The kitchen was small & narrow. Anahit took out some cherries from the small refrigerator by the gas stove. As we sat around the three sides of a kitchen table pushed against the wall eating cherries, I couldn’t help feeling how this could well have been in India, how generous & hospitable they were to invite a virtual stranger to their home, allowing me into a deeply personal space in their kitchen.
‘You Indians are everywhere too,’ Aram remarked as he poured himself some tea that their daughter had just brewed. ‘There are quite a few of you here in Yerevan. Most come here for medical studies.’
I knew that in Soviet times many Indian students went to universities in various republics of the USSR, but I was surprised to learn that that practice has continued well after its collapse.
‘The first time I remember seeing an Indian was when an Indian woman, who had married an Armenian she’d met at a university in St. Petersburg, came to visit her in-laws in our village,’ Aram said. ‘This was in the early 70s. The India we knew was that of Raj Kapoor’s movies and stories we read about exotic princes & princesses. So the entire village showed up to see what she was like. And just as we’d expected she came dressed like a princess: in a silk sari and all kinds of jewelry as if it was her wedding. I don’t think she was from a royal family, but for the villagers that didn’t matter; they treated her like royalty. She stayed for a month and went back to St. Petersburg with her husband.’
He then looked at Anahit & smiled, as if encouraging her to talk. She hesitated momentarily and cleared her throat after sipping tea. ‘My younger sister used to date an Indian student she met at the university here. He was studying to be a doctor. He was a nice guy, but I told her to break up with him since he would never marry her. And even if he wanted to, his family would never allow it. She loved him deeply, but I had a bigger influence on her than I’d thought. So she broke up with him. But she was devastated. For months she wouldn’t get out of house or speak to anyone. We heard that he was just as heartbroken and had slashed his wrists. There was so much melodrama. It was like in one of your films.’ She smiled, gently mocking.
‘Then what happened?’
‘Eventually they recovered. She met an Armenian man living in the USA and went on to marry him. She lives on Long Island. Her husband is a college professor there. They have two children.’
‘That’s good,’ I remarked.
‘Not really. She’s miserable. They’re going through a bitter divorce. He is – how shall I say this? – eccentric. He’s 55 years old & he still talks to his mother every day for 2-3 hours and tells her what he ate, how many times he’s been to the bathroom, what he spent his money on, what route he took to work, etc. I’ve never met a more miserly man than him. He’s obsessive about saving money. He’ll drive for an hour to save 50 cents on school supplies. If he buys something & finds the same item at a slightly lower price later on, he’ll spend half a day returning the more expensive item just to save a dollar or two. So I can understand why she’s unhappy. She’s been miserable since the day she got married. She wants to get out of the prison she’s in. I spend an hour with her every evening on Skype, helping her with her issues. I love my sister, but she’s emotionally exhausting. And I have to remind myself that she has to live her life and make her own decisions.’
‘And what happened to that guy that she used to date?’
‘Oh, he still lives here. He married another Armenian woman. They’re very happy together & have a couple of beautiful children too. I see them every now and then on the streets.’ She stared at her cup in silence for a few moments and cleared her throat.
It was just past midnight and time for me to leave. They called me a cab on a local app. Aram shook my hand warmly. ‘Remember, you have friends in Armenia now.’
I thanked him for his hospitality. Seeing me stumble on the stairs, Anahit hurried in & returned with a flashlight. She walked down the stairs with me, showing the way with the light as I bumped & stumbled my way down.
‘Deghatan,’ I said to the cab driver, wanting to know if he knew where the street was & have Anahit translate for me if he didn’t. He nodded. I shook Anahit’s hand.
‘You know it’s funny,’ she said and paused, as if uncertain if she should continue with her thought. I waited, holding the cab door open. ‘My sister would have been far happier with him, a man from a totally different culture.’ In the faint fluorescent light that fell on her face, I could see her wry smile break out of her fragile features. It then occurred to me that her work on bridging cultural boundaries was deeply personal, arising from the need to right a mistake she had made many years ago.
