The One with the Thanksgiving in India

I arrive at the top alone. My breathing is fast and a circle of sweat has formed in the middle of my salmon colored kurta. I follow the cracked concrete trail around the temple and arrive at the backside of the mountain. There is a line of sari dressed Hindus snaking out of the collapsing temple and I avoid their chaos for a moment. I come into open space, like I do and have done on every mountain I have climbed. I look out below onto the warm Indian landscape, spotting empty patches of dirt and scanning the lush green bushels of trees. I imagine what my family is doing right now, in preparation for this day in November when we all gather at one long table to give thanks.
To celebrate our Thanksgiving.
This is the first year I will not be there. The first in 21 years.
Before leaving for India, I remember a friend of the family told me it is those holidays you spend away that are the ones you remember the most. The ones that are the most monumental, where you do things differently, practice new traditions, and feel the love for your family even more. I could not tell if I believed her advice yet or not. Standing alone, on the top of a mountain in India, made me think of my family all the more. In the open space I missed what I could not have, while not loving what I did.
“Mal!” I hear the yell of my name from behind me. It is Max, one of the three boys in my study abroad program. He comes running over, a face full of sweat, grabs my hand and pulls me away from the mountaintop ledge. “Let’s be the first ones to see the temple.”
“Sounds good to me!” My thoughts are taken away from Aunt Kim’s mashed potatoes and red glass dinnerware and quickly turned to the mysterious temple, straight on ahead of me.

For the remainder of the day, my mind is in India. Max and I explore the temple. The rest of our class arrives on top and we take a group picture on the temple’s steps. Our Indian director, Yogesh, makes a face that can still make me laugh by looking at that picture today. Our group of students is joyful and free. I feel like I am forgetting to do something all day as I am not rushing to help my aunt set the table, or get myself ready for our annual fancy dinner. Instead I am covered in desert sweat, racing down a mountain, swerving in and out of ancient caves in Bodh Gaya, India. I don’t think I would ever come close to having a Thanksgiving like this again. My heart felt like it was on fire.

My class and I evenly decide that we are going to have and make our own Thanksgiving dinner. The holiday would have been overlooked in India, but as it is many of our first Thanksgiving’s away from home, we want to do something special.
We want to make it ourselves.
In Varanasi, one month ago, we make a list of who will be making what and who is responsible for butchering the chickens. As there are no turkeys in India, chickens were the next best meat option. We designate that duty to the three boys in our program.
Alexandra, who has been my roommate for the majority of the trip and now a permanent best friend, and myself sign up to make the mashed potatoes. Although I don’t actually remember mashing the potatoes. I remember something about apples and raisins, and mixing them together in this tiny little kitchen located on the side of our rooftop terrace. I remember having to tell our hostel’s cook that he did not need to cook for us that night, that we would be doing the cooking instead. I remember him laughing, shaking his head in disbelief.
How hard could it be?
It was just Thanksgiving dinner. In India. Where the butter does not come in sticks, where eggs do not come in cartons, and where milk is rarely drunk because of Hindu’s devotion to cows.
Cooking a Thanksgiving dinner would not be nearly as hard in the United States where you have everything you need either in your kitchen cupboards or in a nearby grocery store. Whereas here, in India, in Bodh Gaya, there were no grocery stores, no recipes, no measuring cups. We instead utilize our resources. Bartering as much as we can from the roadside stand down the street, where the old male vendors make eyes at us as they chew on their tobacco wads. We take guesses on how much ¼ of a cup is, 1 tablespoon, 1 teaspoon. We substitute ghee for butter. We take turns in the kitchen as it is only large enough to fit two people. We make a schedule for the oven as it is only large enough to bake two dishes at a time. The boys buy, kill, defeather, and cook two chickens over a firepit on the rooftop. We make do. We stress. We worry that it is all not going to get done in time.
But miraculously it does.

The girls get ready in my room. We play Christmas music from my laptop, blaring Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You,” numerous times. We help each other tie our newly purchased and silk woven saris. Some are navy blue, one is a bright orange, mine is an orchid pink. We assist each other in perfectly placing our red bindhis in the center of our forehead. Somehow, somebody has a bottle of vodka that we pass around, taking swigs between tying and curling and placing and perfecting. The shots are sharp and go down smooth.
We all become giddy. Instantly forgetting the stress of the day, our dreadful and looming final papers, our last two weeks in India, and of course the thought of not being home with our families. The past three months have been unifying. Making us grow in ways we never thought we could and see in ways we never knew where there. Thinking back to this time in my life always makes me wish I was still there. There in that room, getting ready for Thanksgiving dinner. Dancing to Christmas music in a pink and gold sari, with a vodka buzz, surrounded by some of the most beautiful women I will ever know.
Anna asks, “What time is dinner?” as we continue to hurry and finish getting ready.
“Six!” April answers back.
“What time is it now?” Asks Anna again.
“A quarter after six,” Alexandra giggles as she glances down at her watch.
“What!” Chloe yells. “You mean it already started?!” The room becomes silent as we look at each other with wide open mouths. A wave of laughter simultaneously erupts as we stampede out of my room. We run up the steep cases of stairs, holding up our saris to keep us from falling, to eventually arrive at the flat rooftop.
“We’ve only been waiting for you,” Sam says as he turns around from the table that is pristinely set, where he, Max, and John, and our professors are patiently awaiting our arrival.
“Now we can let the wild rumpus begin!” yells Max as we all take our seats and make the table full.
After we become settled and situated we begin the dinner we made for ourselves.
The Thanksgiving dinner we made in India.

I can’t remember what we talked about at dinner or how long it lasted or the taste of all the dishes we ate. But I do remember laughing so hard my smile hurt the next day. I remember bouncing from one end of the table to the other, trying to soak up a little bit of every friend filled up with joy. I remember talking to Natalia, our professor, and her telling me how stunning I looked in my sari. I remember the empty bottles of beer we drank, and tugging on chicken bones, and exchanging our secret Santa presents. I remember the scarf Sam gave me, and the mints and gum he wrapped hidden inside. I remember the toy chameleon I gave to Kerry, Natalia’s husband, as his secret Santa present. A chameleon was the animal he chose the night we all did our spirit animal cards along the Eastern shore, on the sands, of the Ganga River. Nobody at the table was not laughing when he opened it. I remember the fire we had later that night, after we had all changed out of our dress suits and saris and into our lounge pants and pajamas. I remember dancing to “Tu Meri,” this Indian dance song from the popular movie Bang Bang! we were all obsessed with and Yogesh loved.
I remember it all and yet I wish I remembered more.
Whether I die tomorrow or in fifty years, I have already decided this Thanksgiving is my favorite one of them all.

My alarm goes off at 3:30 am the next morning. I push the snooze button and five minutes later it goes off again. I don’t want to wake up, the vodka and partial food comma keep pushing me back to sleep. But finally, by 3:45 am, after three snoozes I pull myself out of bed. I don’t bother with putting my contacts in and I stumble up to the rooftop alone. I sit down at the end of our long dinner table and I begin to dial a familiar number.
Ring. Ring. Ring.
“Happy Thanksgiving!!! We have been waiting for you!” Aunt Kim shouts merrily into the phone. “Oh I love and miss you sweetie. Here let me pass you around to everybody!” The phone is passed to my grandma, my grandpa, my Mom and Dad, my sisters, their husbands, my niece, my nephew, my cousins, Uncle Lyle, Aunt Colleen and Uncle Bobby. I lose it quickly. It might have been when my grandma says “I wish I was with you,” that the tears begin to fall. I remember not barely being able to say anything at all, as I did not want to give away the fact that I was crying all by myself, alone on a rooftop, almost a million of miles away. I quietly try to hold back my whimpers, as sounds of my family’s thanksgiving invade my ears. The laughter of the little ones, the background noise of the television, the clattering of plates. I can almost smell the Hawaiian rolls on the table and the taste of a glass of red wine my aunt would have poured me. The phone returns back to my mother. She asks about my day and I quickly try to explain to her all that happened.
“I miss you so much. It just doesn’t feel the same without you,” She says; there might be a little tearful whimper in her voice.
“It wasn’t the same without you either. All of you,” I sniffle and cough on my tears.
“Did you have a good day at least?” She asks.
“The best,” I say as I wipe the tears from my eyes and finish up the phone call. I hit the end button and place my phone on the table.
I squint up at the tiny stars in the Indian sky, letting my tears continue to fall, thanking all of the gods and goddesses up there for the most beautiful Thanksgiving I could have ever had.
It was all that and a little bit more.