Omkar spent the time offering up details about Aria that he imagined would convert his parents to some shade of approval of her. Aria was so nervous that once she finished eating, she realized that she hadn’t even really tasted it. When their plates were empty, Omkar insisted upon doing the dishes, despite Jarminder’s protests. Neeraj turned on the television to watch a cricket game and sat in front of it, finding it hard to take his mind off of what was happening in the kitchen. Jarminder allowed herself to be consumed by a project that required her to carry things up and down the stairs from the store to their apartment at least a dozen times.

Aria stood next to Omkar with a cold glass of mint chaas in her hand. She sipped on the freshness of the mint, cumin and green chili in the cream of it while watching the look of worry play across the side of his face. Omkar spoke low enough that his parents couldn’t hear him over the chatter of the television. “I’m sorry if all of this is a little weird. Some of this stuff we do is kind of stupid. When we moved here, my parents never got it that we live in a different country and they just kept doing the same stuff they did back home in India.”

Aria was surprised by his apology. “Are you kidding me?” she said. “Omkar, you should never be ashamed of your culture. It is so cool. You guys are like exotic warriors or something. You guys have been telling me about your culture all night and it’s been making me think and I don’t think we even have a culture. I mean, unless you call backyard barbecues and football games a culture.”

Omkar laughed and said, “That’s the thing: you never think you have a culture until you leave the place where your culture is the only culture. If I took you to India, you would all of a sudden know what American culture is. It’s like a fish that spends his life swimming in water. The fish doesn’t know how to tell you about water until he is suddenly in the air.”