Murder She Wrote

Sumitra Mattai

Priya taught me how to bump and grind twenty years ago, the summer we graduated from college. I don’t remember if I requested the lesson or if she was just tired of watching me cower on the dance floor. We both knew I had the skills; I could bogle and butterfly, shimmy and shake, as long as I was in the safe circle of my friends. But when a boy tried to grind on me, sweaty and off-beat, I froze, even with a drink in my system, the tingle of vodka that was supposed to make my body brave. The most fun I had on those nights was after the club, when all pretensions of hooking up were behind us. We were just girls in glittery eyeshadow, laughing in line for kati rolls on Bleecker Street at three in the morning.

“Straddle my leg,” Priya instructed, always the bossy one, even though she was a year and a half younger. 

Priya and I had been dancing together since we were chubby kids in Bharatanatyam dance class. In those days, the Indian community was sparse and spread out, and our mothers shuttled us up and down the New Jersey Turnpike for hours-long sessions in rented church basements and temple halls. With time and practice, our class became a real troop, performing classical, folk, and Bollywood dances at functions around the tri-state area. We piled into minivans with overstuffed Caboodles kits and garment bags packed with matching chaniya cholis. Once after a show, Priya fell asleep on my mother’s couch in full costume, complete with make-up and jewelry, passed out like a fairytale princess waiting for a kiss.

That afternoon in my bedroom, we were preparing for a different kind of performance. Reggae replaced the carnatic rhythms of our childhood as the stereo played our favorite dancehall track, “Murder She Wrote,” by Chaka Demus and Pliers. The song always featured at my family’s West Indian weddings, from the banquet halls of Toronto to the backyards of Queens. Reggae usually featured at the peak of the night, after the requisite Michael Jackson hits, soca jams, and Bollywood remixes. In the womb-like darkness of the dance floor, sweaty and purple-tinted, I watched my tipsy relatives “wine down” in sequin dresses, saris and suits. Even my demure Hindu mother couldn’t resist the siren call of the hypnotic Bam Bam riddim. 

I know this little girl, her name is Maxine, 

Her beauty like a bunch of rose.

“Are we seriously doing this?” I asked over Pliers’ gentle crooning. I watched as Priya cleared my books, clothes and art supplies from the floor, piling everything onto the bed.

“It’s time,” Her dimples deepened as she grinned, her stance like a goalie primed for action. She was just a few inches taller than me, but her presence filled the room. Her face was leaner than when we were kids, but her eyes were just as mischievous. 

“This is silly,” 

“Get up here, bitch!” 

An ardent Hindu who fasted for a good husband every year, Priya was also a party girl who talked too fast and sometimes drank too much. She’d graduated from NYU in three years and was on track to become a lawyer like her mother. Her world was wrapped in contradictions we could never fully unpack.

In the narrow space of my bedroom, under a poster of Monet’s water lilies, I hopped onto Priya’s leg like it was a fairground ride. 

“Now, pretend I’m a dude,” she said, which was impossible. Priya had the biggest boobs of anyone in our group, a point of both pain and pride for her. At the mall, we combed the racks for button downs and blazers that didn’t gape at the bust and make her look slutty at her corporate job. As a young adult, Priya learned to adapt to her body’s power; if she was going to stand out in a room, she would disregard everyone in it until she deemed them worthy. I loved her, but I was also a little afraid of her.

“C’mon, higher!” she demanded, grabbing my waist. 

I inched my crotch up her thigh with all the sensuality of a wooden puppet. 

“Ugh, what do I do with my arms?”

“My neck or my hips, your choice,”

“Thanks for the options,” My arms hung around her like a garland of limp noodles.

I’d lost my virginity in college, but I still felt like a late bloomer, awkward and unsure in my skin. The only place I could trust my body, where it all made sense, was on stage. In the spotlight, every move was choreographed and well-rehearsed; there was little room for error. Dancing with a stranger at a club was unstructured and spontaneous, requiring a different skill set.

As I tried to gracefully hump Priya’s leg, Chaka growled:

Seh gal yuh pretty

Yuh face it pretty but yuh character dirty

Gal yuh just act too, flirty, flirty

I couldn’t help but think about the irony of a group of sexually repressed girls finding catharsis in an ode to a promiscuous woman. The music video for “Murder She Wrote” featured a tribe of Maxines clad in spandex and glitter dancing with Chaka and Pliers in the streets of Jamaica. Desired yet spurned, they didn’t seem to care what anyone thought. They did the butterfly with ease, thighs flaring outward like wings, butts undulating all the way down to the ground. Reggae allowed me and my friends to inhabit that bad girl fantasy, if only for the duration of the song. 

*

Growing up, Priya and I had played many characters on stage - goddess Kali chasing down demons, elephant-headed Ganesha gobbling ladoos and Lord Rama, effortlessly breaking Shiva’s bow. But no role was as confusing or complex as the part of an unmarried Indian-American woman. I watched Priya struggle under the weight of her family’s demands, their success and social prominence a shadow looming over every relationship, constantly reminding her she had to get it right. 

While Priya had “descended from a line of kings and queens,” as she once shared over brunch, my ancestors had a less romantic history. In the early 1900s, they were brought from India by British colonizers to work as indentured laborers in Guyana, South America. As the story goes, my great, great paternal grandfather completed his servitude and earned his passage back to India. In the village, he was stopped from drawing water from a well because of his caste. Frustrated with the system, he decided to return to Guyana - a shocking choice that profoundly altered the course of my family’s fate.

When brown folk asked me what part of India I was from, I had to explain my history in a two-minute elevator pitch that left them questioning my authenticity, and me ashamed of my story. There were times when I felt as much like an imposter in dance class as I did in my predominantly white suburban school. 

Pursuing a career in textile design further distanced me from the Indian community, and their collective belief that becoming anything other than doctors, lawyers or engineers made us failures. When I moved back home after graduation, I was lonely. Priya had moved into a one-bedroom one town over, and her apartment became a refuge. We lolled on her sofa eating spoonfuls of peanut butter and trading anxiety for laughter. Our old dance crew reunited, but instead of practicing adavus on Sunday mornings, we pre-gamed for the club on Saturday nights. 

Every weekend, we piled into someone’s Honda and ventured into Manhattan. We waited in lines, sometimes wrapping around a city block, to get into clubs that charged eighteen dollars for a vodka soda. Mostly, the crowds were mixed, with people of every race and skin color rubbing up on each other in the dark. Other parties were packed with first generation kids like us, promoted by Indians for Indians. Wherever we were, hip hop blared so loudly we lost our voices trying to order shots and give each other directions to the bathroom. In our tight black dresses and liquid eyeliner, we pretended that we didn’t care about the next morning’s hangover or our families’ expectations.

*

While Priya had already selected the cut and carat of her future diamond ring, I struggled to picture myself as coupled when I imagined my adult life. Perhaps it was because my parents were divorced, and I knew too well how things could fall apart. Perhaps it was because I always felt between worlds, never quite inside of them. 

My older sister had married a man from the midwest, and most of my cousins were also dating white people. My aunts and uncles had protested at first, but eventually, they had to give in to our reality. Back in Georgetown, my maternal grandfather had been a matchmaker, responsible for introducing dozens of couples. But I had only visited Guyana once, and being with a fellow countryman didn’t feel especially relevant. 

As for the first generation Indian-Americans, I knew where I stood in the hierarchy. I could still remember when my Bharatanatyam dance teacher told me she would never want me to marry her son. I don’t recall the context for this conversation, and it certainly had no bearing on reality. But whenever I tried to imagine being with a South Asian man, all I could focus on was how much I would disappoint his mother with my art school degree and legacy of indentured servitude. This thought made my whole body tighten with dread. I couldn’t explain this to Priya, let alone to the strangers on the dance floor trying to grab my ass. It would take years for me to realize that none of it mattered.

I can still remember writing my phone number on a bar napkin for an Indian boy who never called, and blocking a different one who called too many times. I remember months of semi-flirtatious online chats with a friend of one of Priya’s ex-boyfriends, who I’d met at a New Years’ party in Las Vegas.

In the end, none of us married anyone we met on the dance floor. That summer was the beginning of our quest to find our adult selves. In another decade, we would all be wives and mothers. We would live in different cities, and only see each other through the scroll of social media. But at that moment in my childhood bedroom, my friendship with Priya was the center of my universe.

*

“Murder she wrote, nah nah nah, murder sheee wrooote,” Priya and I sang along to the chorus. 

Buoyed by the music, I finally let myself sink into Priya’s “Betty Boop” curves, as we called them. Her hair smelled of Herbal Essence shampoo. The fabric of our leggings chafed as our hips bobbed and swayed in unison. The hard angles and clear notes of our classical dance training gave way to slow, sinuous movement. 

“You’re doing it!” Priya grinned, proud of her own instruction. 

Flushed and embarrassed, I jumped off her leg. The song ended, and we fell to the floor, laughing. 

***

About the Author

Sumitra Mattai is a writer and textile designer based in New York City. She holds a BFA in Textile Design from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA in Creative Writing from The New School. Her essays on family, food and culture have been published widely. For more information, please visit her website,www.sumitramattai.com or find her on Instagram @sumitramattai.