They formed a tableau as I walked out: My sister, four months pregnant, her belly round, eyes lowered and eyebrows drawn together. My mother, absently stirring a pot of savoury chicken korma curry as Fahim loaded the dishwasher, his usual smile banished by worry.
That was their life. The life I had opted out of when I chose to pursue broadcast journalism.
Mom was big on choice. She hadn’t pushed me to join her full-time in the food business. Baba had never encouraged us to study accounting like him. When my sister decided to go to culinary school, my mother had been happy to welcome her, but only because she came into the restaurant world with eyes wide open, prepared to survive on hope and prayer.
Fifteen years ago, Three Sisters had been the only halal restaurant in the area. That wasn’t the case today, though we were still the only restaurant in Golden Crescent. It was ironic, then, that our origin story didn’t revolve around food at all.
Three Sisters Biryani Poutine had been conceived by soccer. Premier rep soccer. The kind that costs thousands of dollars a year and had been completely unaffordable on my father’s modest salary as a bookkeeper, even before his accident. But my sister Fazeela loved soccer, and she had been very, very good at it—ferocious and ambitious on the field in a way she had never been anywhere else. Mom supported my sister’s talent in the best way she knew: she paid for the expensive lessons by starting a catering business. A few years later, Three Sisters Biryani Poutine was born.
Then FIFA, the official governing body for international football,had enacted a new dress code that banned all “headgear.” The rule was unsubtly aimed at hijab-wearing Muslim female athletes. Fazeela had decided to stop playing soon afterwards.
I was pretty sure my sister was happy with her choices—she had Fahim, she had the little cantaloupe growing in her belly. But sometimes I wondered if she had made those choices because she felt she had to. Mom had started Three Sisters Biryani Poutine to pay for Fazeela’s soccer dreams. And when those dreams died, maybe my sister’s career choice had felt more like an inevitability.
Maybe I was the only one who would really get to choose anything. And I had chosen to get out.
Chapter Three
Three Sisters Biryani Poutine was located in a commercial strip surrounded by a dozen storefronts, all owned by first- and second-generation immigrant business owners. Luxmi Aunty ran the Tamil bakery next door, where she sold fresh-baked flatbread and fried savoury snacks such as samosas, chaat, and bhel puri, as well as Indian sweets. Sulaiman Uncle owned the halal butcher a few doors down. A florist shop that specialized in the elaborate garlands used in South Asian weddings and other celebrations stood beside a hair and nail salon that had curtains over the windows to accommodate hijab-wearing women looking for a blowout with some privacy. There was a convenience store that sold lottery tickets and henna cones, and a dry cleaner that knew how to get turmeric and oil stains out of clothes and offered an on-site seamstress.
The street was bookended by a Tim Hortons coffee shop at the north end, run by our business elder, Mr. Lewis, and at the south end by the hollowed-out shell of an abandoned storefront that had long ago been home to another restaurant. A tiny grocery stood directly across the street from Three Sisters, owned by my best friend Yusuf’s Syrian family. Beside it was a computer and electronics repair shopthat also offered wire money transfers around the world, and a South Asian bridal shop that specialized in bespokelenghasand saris. The stores fronted the residential neighbourhood known as the Golden Crescent, named after its main street. According to local lore, the subdivision also formed the shape of a crescent on Google Maps.
I set off to check on Baba before my shift at the radio station, ducking around the back of the restaurant, through the parking lot, and deeper inside the Golden Crescent. Here the homes were built close together, semi-detached units and blocks of townhouses interspersed with two-storey houses with tiny front lawns. Driveways held two or three cars, usually minivans and older sedans. Extended families lived together, and basement tenants were common.
I turned onto my street, a cul-de-sac that backed onto a ravine. Our home was a split-level detached unit, and I ran up the half-dozen stairs to the front door, eyes resting briefly on the peeling paint that surrounded our large bay window. If Baba was having a good day, he would be dressed and seated in the living room, perhaps reading or working on a jigsaw puzzle. He would greet me with a smile and make a joke about how we worried unnecessarily, and I could text Mom with enough assurances to wipe the strain from her face.
But my father wasn’t sitting in the neat living room on his favourite chair. A quick look revealed that he wasn’t in the kitchen either, and there was no empty chai mug on the counter. I took the steps two at a time to the room my parents shared at the end of the hall. I knocked once and entered. He was still in bed.
“I tried to get up,” Baba said, greeting me with an apologetic smile. “I’m feeling shaky today, and I didn’t want to fall again.”
Ijaz Khan was a diminutive man, and he seemed even more shrunken under the duvet. His face looked as if it had been assembled from mismatched Mr. Potato Head parts—dark slash of unibrow, large, bulbous nose, full lips, receding hairline—all on a beloved face. He wore oversized reading glasses that magnified his dark eyes. Mom had been right to send me; it was obvious he was in pain.
“Should I get your pills?” I asked gently. He nodded, and I went to the bathroom for his medication. I hated seeing him this way.
Two years ago my father’s car had been struck by an SUV making a left turn, his compact sedan pushed into oncoming traffic, legs pinned by the wreckage. For a few weeks afterwards we hadn’t been sure if he would ever walk again. Most of the insurance settlement went to paying for extra therapy, medicine, and help after the accident, and he hadn’t worked regularly since. Before the accident my father had counted most of the businesses on Golden Crescent among his bookkeeping clients. Now he managed only a handful of storeowners loyal to him. Our family’s ability to pay bills in a timely manner rested largely on the success of Three Sisters Biryani Poutine.
While we waited for his medicine to kick in, I switched on the radio he kept on the night table, tuned to the CBC. We listened to the last ten minutes of a tech program until he felt steady enough to grasp the handles of the walker I had moved near.
I helped Baba make his way down the steps, then busied myself in the kitchen, boiling water and heating milk for chai. He hated when I hovered. I buttered toast and brought his meal to the white plastic kitchen table.
“Play one of your podcast episodes, Hanabeta,” he said after taking a restorative sip of scalding hot chai. I had made a mug of the strong, milky tea for myself as well, and we settled down to listen. Baba was the only one in my family who had thought my podcast was a good idea. I scrolled to an episode I thought he would like, and pressed Play.
***
Welcome toAna’s Brown Girl Rambles, an anonymous podcast about life as a twenty-something Muslim woman in Canada.
I come from a long line of storytellers. My father loved to tell stories about his family and growing up in India. My sister and I never grew tired of hearing those tales. One of our favourite stories was about my father’s oldest brother, who loved to play tricks on his siblings. One day their youngest sister and her friends were play-acting a wedding between their dolls, and my uncle insisted on participating. He would play the part of the imam and marry the dolls. He dressed up in a long robe and prayer cap, and when the time came for the wedding feast, my sister and her friends provided snacks: cakes, and sweet sherbet to drink. Naturally, the minute the nikah was over, my uncle had his friends swoop in and steal all the food, while he kidnapped the newly married dolls and held them for ransom in his hideout on the roof. He didn’t let them go until his little sister and her friends agreed to hand over the bride’s dowry—three bottles of cola, a toy car, and a handful of rupees.
Baba laughed aloud at my retelling of his mischievous brother’s long-ago antics. While he listened to the rest of the podcast, I skimmed the comments.
COMMENTS
StanleyP
I’d like to meet your uncle.
AnaBGR
I haven’t seen him in years, but he’s a joker even as an adult.
