Lessons In Life From My Indian Father-in-law And A Watermelon
Tags: Food, Indian Food, Family, Parenting, Life

As a dad, it is my responsibility to provide what I think passes as wisdom to my children. In order to do this well and also to keep me humble, I accept that I too must continue to learn. I must absorb the knowledge of those who came before me and apply it to my own model of living a good life.

My father-in-law, Dr. Davinder Singh, arrived in America in 1971 with a winter coat on his back and 7 dollars in his pocket. It was the middle of a frozen January. The sky was snowing and the wind was blowing. He came from India all the way to the United States to practice medicine in an urban Chicago hospital, but that was certainly not where he started. He was born in a small village in Northern India called Nehranwala. As the old saying goes, though: you can never really go home. In Davinder’s case, this truth was by necessity. The tiny village of Nehranwala soon became part of neighboring Pakistan.

Davinder was a farm boy as accustomed to caring for crops and water buffalos as he now is caring for human patients. He is no longer a boy in body (even though he often resembles one in the heart), but he is still very much a farmer. On the one acre of land surrounding his Southern California home, he has planted about 60 fruit trees which he cares for and harvests from.

His arboreal collection consists of persimmons, tangerines, lemons, apricots, mulberries, oranges, guavas, Jamun Indian berries, and one enormous fig tree which has never been trimmed or tamed. Its massive trunk and branches hover over the north side of their ranch-style home like a creepy old man bearing gifts of sweet fruit. He and my mother-in-law, Ravinder, harvest and dry these sweet fig jewels every season and offer them out to all who enter their home. Actually, they offer just about anything edible just about all of the time.

This is a feature of Northern Indian culture that took me a while to get used to. If you happen to be in the vicinity of either of my in-laws without some form of food in your hand or mouth they sense it. They then immediately descend upon you with offerings of various fruit, nuts, vegetables, sweets, and a variety of other edible items. Many times I have politely declined the offering of more rajma (Indian red bean dish) or roti (Northern Indian flatbread) only to be asked a minute later if I have changed my mind. Usually, my in-laws don’t even seem to recall their most recent offering. More times than not, it is far easier to accept the delicious food and also accept that I am becoming fatter as a member of this Punjabi family.

When we visit Nanu and Nani’s home (grandfather and grandmother in Punjabi), my two kids disappear almost instantly with their cousins and their turbaned Nanu into the vast wilderness that is Nanu’s orchard/back yard. It is an attractively savage piece of land, draped like a prickly, verdant blanket over an impossibly steep hillside. There are rickety steps winding throughout clumps of spikey cactuses and forbidding shrubs. The integrity of these old and often rotted wooden steps is questionable for my adult bulk (especially after Nani’s generous lunch selections), but they seem to support the lightweight of Nanu and my sylphlike kids quite well.

The kids return back to the nest, often many hours later, with dirty knees and an array of foliage and foxtails stuck in their hair and clothes. They bring back with them stories of prehistoric bugs discovered, tales of near-missed accidents, and also with hands full of fruit that Nanu picked and then dispersed to the natives. One of those fruits — The Jamun Indian Berry — causes the eater to experience an unforgettable dry mouth sensation. Not long after I became engaged to his daughter, Davinder casually offered me a Jamun berry, but he did not inform me of this unique gustatorial side-effect. I suppose I should have asked his permission for her hand in marriage. It was my first and last welcome hazing to the family.

Of all the fruit that Nanu’s land generously provides, though, one of the most important to his household does not grow there at all. This magical oblong fruit is watermelon.

Nanu does not grow the watermelon himself, but his thought process of procuring, consuming, sharing, and ultimately disposing of the watermelon is where his lessons in living a good life begin. These are not lessons that Nanu ever intended to teach, but in the tradition of the sagest gurus, Nanu’s lessons are mostly by example.

Nanu does not procure his watermelons in a half-hazard manner. He is most particular about the quality of the fruit as well as its affordability. He will strategize his fruit buying as he travels between hospitals in the course of a day’s work, always buying the best fruit for the lowest price. This is Nanu’s first lesson: Get the best, but pay the least. Much like his approach to life, Nanu has an entirely unique approach to melons. Nanu never slices a watermelon in half and then into smaller crescent-shaped wedges as normal humans do. No. Instead, he extrudes a generous square-shaped wedge from the side of the melon and offers it unceremoniously to a grandson or daughter. Each subsequent cut further enlarges the square opening bit by bit, but maintains the outside rind around the melon and, thereby, the integrity of the remaining fruit flesh below. If the melon is not in high demand when it is first offered, this method allows for convenient and efficient storage until someone else is hungry. This is Nanu’s second fruit secret and also one of his life creeds: Waste not, want not or in Punjabi — Barabāda nā karanā cāhudē (but, you knew that, didn’t you?). Nanu’s third lesson taught through the watermelon is all about family. Of course, the watermelon is intended to satiate bellies and titillate taste buds, but it’s most important purpose is to bring the family together. As Nanu unceremoniously makes his first cut into the thick rind, all his grandchildren descend upon him like wild African Dingoes. We parents follow too, armed with magazines and drinks to be consumed under the hot Southern California sun. We come for the food and drink, of course, but these things are not our primary motivations. We are there to be together — To laugh, to talk, to discuss, and to learn. The watermelon brings us all together. This is Nanu’s third lesson: Family is always first. Nanu’s fourth and last lesson in life through the lens of the watermelon is perhaps my favorite, though. Nanu does not believe in throwing the watermelon rind in the trash. To add to the waste would simply be a waste. When Nanu is done with the fruit part of the melon, he tosses the uneaten portion into the wild garden behind the porch so it can again join the earth. His grandchildren have learned to copy this nonchalant redistribution of fruit wealth. At any given time, there must be hundreds of pieces of watermelon rind and other half-eaten fruits riddled upon Nanu’s hillside, all in different states of decomposition. Nanu is not a fancy man. He believes in living a good and simple life. He believes that there are many more important goals than wealth and recognition. “When it is my time to go, it is my time to go,” he often says as he points up to the sky. How Nanu treats the watermelon is a perfect metaphor for this mode of living and his last lesson too. Enjoy the fruit with your family. Laugh and play and wonder as you do. When it is time to go, don’t hold on too tight. Toss that rind over your shoulder. Let it land where it lands.