Brooklyn Book Festival OnePage
Week of 30-Mar-2012
The page is from an "orphan story" that belongs in my latest book, The Meagre Tarmac, but I wrote it after the book came out (it was still ringing in my ears). My publisher, Biblioasis, says he will include it when the book gets reprinted. Its proper place is fourth in the book, following stories narrated by the father, the sister, and the mother. I don't think it can stand alone outside of its context.
“We Are All Illegals”:
Pramila came down from Palo Alto to deliver what she calls a “probabilistic algorithm” for me to beat Stanford’s #1 seed, Mike Mahulkar. She’s been scouting Mike’s game, mathematically. She’s sure of her algorithm, but not of me. I’m the variable. I don’t know why she wants to help me, but nothing about her surprises me.
She’s in Stanford’s on-line “Gifted” program, and she’ll be going full-time to the real Stanford next fall, when she’s thirteen years, ten months old. With all her AP credits, she’ll enter as a junior. I’m older by five years, but next year I’ll just be a sophomore at Santa Cruz. She’ll have her Master’s by the time I graduate. Of course, thirteen of her years are like fifty of anyone else’s.
I hadn’t seen her in two months, not since Christmas break. Two months ago, Dad was still at home but plotting to go back to India. Ma was still working at Stanford Library. Pram was still ice-skating. Now she’s buzz-cut her hair and she’s not skating and she’s thinner and smaller than I remember. She said Ma’s cut her hair real short, a pixie cut, and she’s dying it blacker than Pram’s. The Big Cat’s gone to India so the mice will play. He hated short hair. He dyed his own hair but he disapproved of women changing their looks. All of this turmoil in just two months. My Palo Alto life and all its routines have receded. I barely remember the house I lived in for most of my life.
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“We Are All Illegals”:
Pramila came down from Palo Alto to deliver what she calls a “probabilistic algorithm” for me to beat Stanford’s #1 seed, Mike Mahulkar. She’s been scouting Mike’s game, mathematically. She’s sure of her algorithm, but not of me. I’m the variable. I don’t know why she wants to help me, but nothing about her surprises me.
She’s in Stanford’s on-line “Gifted” program, and she’ll be going full-time to the real Stanford next fall, when she’s thirteen years, ten months old. With all her AP credits, she’ll enter as a junior. I’m older by five years, but next year I’ll just be a sophomore at Santa Cruz. She’ll have her Master’s by the time I graduate. Of course, thirteen of her years are like fifty of anyone else’s.
I hadn’t seen her in two months, not since Christmas break. Two months ago, Dad was still at home but plotting to go back to India. Ma was still working at Stanford Library. Pram was still ice-skating. Now she’s buzz-cut her hair and she’s not skating and she’s thinner and smaller than I remember. She said Ma’s cut her hair real short, a pixie cut, and she’s dying it blacker than Pram’s. The Big Cat’s gone to India so the mice will play. He hated short hair. He dyed his own hair but he disapproved of women changing their looks. All of this turmoil in just two months. My Palo Alto life and all its routines have receded. I barely remember the house I lived in for most of my life.
