Eh Ki Keeta Tu (tans: What did you do?)

I stared in shock at my brother blocking my door and desperately tried to think of a convincing reason for my appearance. Jack took a step towards me and asked "have you been drinking?" I tried to take a step back, tripped and fell. "Well that answers my question" he said. He watched me try to come up with an excuse and got even angrier. "This is why mom and dad didn't want you to go out tonight. They knew you would do something stupid. Tenu ohna maar dena jidu ohna nu pata chalya (they are going to kill you, when they find out)".

I started to say something but he kept on talking. "I don't even know where to start, Rory. For one thing, what are wearing? What happened to that witch's costume that you left the house in? I can't even tell what you are supposed to be. Something that requires you to wear a very short slutty dress apparently that leaves nothing to the imagination". He suddenly turned and marched to my closet and grabbed my robe. "Cover yourself up because I do not need to see my little sister dressed like that". I grabbed the robe as he tossed it to me and managed to get my arms into it and belted it tightly.
"You can turn around now" I said, "I'm covered like a nun". My comment about the nun made him spin around and he seemed to get his second wind. "Another thing, did you forgot sometime today that you are an Indian girl from a respectable family. What if someone saw you dressed like that and obviously drunk to make it worse? When did it become okay for you to do something like this. Did you even think about what would happen if someone found out and told mom and dad"? He paused to take a breath and then kept on going "I stuck my neck out to get mom and dad to agree to let you go out tonight with your friends. You promised me that all you would do was go to the UO vs. USC football game and then to a party for a couple of hours at a friend’s house and be home by 2 am. Well the last time I checked it’s not 2 am. In fact it’s about 2 hours past that". He came over and grabbed my shoulders and looked like he wanted to shake me. But then I felt his arms relax around me and he pulled me into a hug.

"I thought something had happened to you", he said as he hugged me. "When I got home at 3 and you checked you room and found out you still weren't home, I started to worry that something had happened to you". I put my arms around him and asked "why didn't you just call and find out where I was?" "I tried calling you when I figured out you weren't home yet but you didn't pick up which only made me more worried". He suddenly pushed me away and shook me hard and said "Why did you drink? You know that mom and dad don't approve of drinking at all. And I hate to repeat myself, you are an Indian girl. You know how big of a deal respectability is in our life and our culture. What were you thinking?"

I pulled back from him and went to sit on my bed. "I was thinking that I want to have some fun. To not be the perfect Indian daughter for once. To have fun with my friends and for once not think about what everyone else thinks. Do you have any idea what it is like to live with all this pressure all the damn time? Every time I do something, anything, I think a million times about whether it would be appropriate for an Indian girl to do. On how it would reflect on mom and dad". I put my hand up to stop him from interrupting and said "I know Jack that you think you know exactly what I am talking about but you really don't. It’s different for you and it always has been. I am not saying that you don't have pressure on you to behave a certain way all the time but for me it’s 10 times worse. To a certain extent the things you do can be forgiven and forgotten but if I was to slip up, like I admit I did today, and everyone found out about it, it would never be forgiven or forgotten. I..I just wanted to be Rory for a little while today, okay.  Not Rawinder but Rory. A normal, average college student.

I finally ran out of breath and fell silent. The room was silent for a few minutes and when I looked up at Jack, I found him looking thoughtfully at me. "What" I asked...