YOU

Her name was Mindy (or was it Cindy). If the wind blew hard enough, her hair blew all over the place, revealing a pink round patch of baldness right smack in the center of her scalp. You see, she only had hair in the circumferential periphery of her head. Her face was a little squashed in, kind of like Barbie looking into one of those funny circus mirrors. She wore a skimpy little one piece the day I got her. The blue swimsuit was fraying in the front from the pressure of her pointy plastic breasts. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when my dad handed her to me proudly, "here you go chotoo, you always wanted a Barbie doll." But wait, this wasn’t Barbie; this was a stupid el-cheapo Cindy (or was it Mindy). Of course I never said that to him. I was a good kid, always took what I got with a smile on my face. Cindy was treated well. My elder sister made her some tiny dhoti shalwar suits, which were a symbol of desi high fashion back in the Eighties. I got used to her plastic ugliness. But my heart still yearned for a real Barbie doll, the one which came in a pretty pink Mattel box, the one which had silky soft hair all over her head (not just the periphery), the one with the solid plastic body instead of the hollow one.
We didn’t have money to afford a real Barbie back in those days. Even Mindy was a family splurge, since I was the youngest one and got what I wanted (or close to it). We had just moved to the States, into a tiny studio apartment nestled in a little Connecticut town. The apartment always smelled like a mixture of dog food and dog poop. I guess you could call those days dog foop days, since we ate, slept, and watched TV in that smell. The only entertainment we could afford was cable TV and that consisted of watching the weather channel (ammi), basketball (abbu), MTV (baji), or WWF (bhai) twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Since there wasn’t much TV time for me, I was left to my imaginary play scenarios with Mindy that consisted of a new boyfriend named Prince (I just want your extra time and your Kiss). My mother would have killed me if she had ever heard me singing obscene Prince lyrics to Mindy. I didn’t know what they meant. Honestly.
And so we moved up in life, which meant making trips to the city to buy groceries. If we were hungry, my dad would buy a pound cake and a half a gallon of whole milk. We’d sit in the car eating pound cake and milk listening to old Indian songs my mother recorded from movies (by holding the tape recorder up to the TV of course). That was when Prince suddenly turned desi and sang "dekho maine dekha hai yeh ek sapna" to Mindy.
And so we moved up in life even further, which meant taking more trips into the city to buy more groceries. And now when we were hungry, we’d buy a whole rotisserie chicken from Pathmark (3 bucks), a loaf of Italian bread (69 cents), a carton of salt (39 cents), and a half liter bottle of store brand soda (one whole buck). Those just-over-five-bucks meals were wonderful. We were happy. As long as our stomachs were full and we were together, nothing else mattered. Did I mention we were happy?
School was an interesting experience. I brought a grape jelly sandwich to school everyday in a plastic grocery bag. Some of the kids felt sorry for me and tried to share their hefty turkey or roast beef deluxes (fresh from their Rainbow Brite, Hulk Hogan lunchboxes) with me. But I always said no. I was a proud little kid and I ate my own food happily. I could share my food but I could never take any from anyone, not even a little gummy bear. If I didn’t eat it, I wouldn’t miss it. But I was happy. I missed the toys though. I always made fun of Cabbage Patch Kids even though I secretly would have liked to have one myself. I told my friend I thought they were the ugliest things in the world till she started crying. I started believing it too.
I think my phoopi felt sorry for me one Eid after my tenth birthday. She sent me a real Barbie doll. It was the Peaches and Cream Barbie with her flowing peachy keen evening gown. I loved her to death. Her lipstick had started to fade, so one day, I tried putting it back on with my mom’s red nail polish. I got some on her cheek and while taking it off with some nail polish remover, I accidentally removed her right eye. And while I cried over her missing eye, my brother had the bright idea of rubbing off the left eye too, to make her face even. So her face was even. She had no eyes. I decided to draw them back on with a ballpoint pen. She looked like a zombie with the long blonde hair and the horrible black ballpoint pen eyes. And that’s when I decided to throw caution to the wind and give my once-Peaches-n-Cream-Barbie a Lady Diana haircut (kind of like getting a haircut when you’re having a bad day). But I didn’t stop there. I cut her some bangs while I was at it. That Barbie doll sure had character, even if it did look like Chucky’s bride. I think I had a nightmare that she came to life once and was trying to strangle me. I actually scared a little kid with that thing. I still loved her though. She lies in the basement of our house now. I should take her out to scare my future kids (soe jao warna zombie Barbie ajaegi).
So we grew out of our poor-ness eventually, and out of our happiness as well. We joined the rat race to become educated and rich. It came at a price though. My family life deteriorated. Someone died. Someone got married. Two fought a lot. We drifted apart. There was money, but there was no happiness. I still went to Toys’R’Us every year and walked by the Barbie doll section.
I still go. I pretend I’m buying a toy for a niece or nephew. I walk down the aisles with my eyes wide with wonder and amazement. I have money to buy all the toys I want but I don’t have that childhood yearning. It’s an empty yearning that drives me to look at toys, at Barbies in particular. I could stand and stare at their faces forever. I’ve seen a new version of Mindy too, but they’ve upped the price to five bucks compared to the one dollar my dad paid way back then.
I miss Mindy in her white and green dhoti shalwar. I miss happiness and the simple things in life. I miss the feeling of wanting something badly, not getting it, and finding happiness in something less. I’m solid plastic now. I’m plastic through and through. I even paint my face peaches’n’cream. There is no room for anything else in the world of a twenty first century adult.

i received the above in my mail.....