Munni's LIA - A Serial Fiction - Episode 18

NOTE: All characters and venues are totally fictional; any semblance to real persons or places is merely coincidental. 
Synopsis: Ana and Munni sent off immigration forms. They get busy with life. Ana graduates from college. The Shahs celebrate Ana's graduation with an open house party. Ana and Munni go to Niagara Falls. Munni worries about future. 

Munni's LIA - Episode 18

Life Happens - I

A week after the wedding, the paralegal woman came back as promised, with copies of all the necessary documents and filled immigration forms on a USB drive. Munni and Oksana proof-read the information on the filled forms for correctness, made changes where necessary, printed the forms and signed. Some of the forms required pictures to be pasted on , for others the pictures were staple-attached. The paralegal woman said that they will have copies of all of the final versions in a folder after Kiran checked them and authorized for filing. The couple were under very strict instruction not to ever go to Windsor, Canada by mistake, as Reddy is required to stay within the USA until his provisional immigrant status is attained.

Kiran had also asked Ana and Reddy to take photos of themselves using a regular film camera whenever they go out together and visit restaurants or places of interest. Kiran wanted the developed copies have dates of photos on the copies. Such photos, as well as proof of co-mingling of financial assets, joint apartment lease, utility bills, copies of joint tax-filings for at least two years and other evidence of cohabitation and holidays together are all required for the ultimate GC application for Reddy.

During a couple of weekends, Ana took Munni to a large empty parking lot of a closed factory, and taught him driving. Then Reddy took the test and passed it in his first attempt. In a few months, Munni got more cards, EAD, Conditional GC, Discover and Visa. 

Sample EAD Card:

The credit cards were joint with Ana. Every time Ana and Munni jointly owned something, they remembered Kiran's advice to make copies for him. For some time, Reddy worked for Benny in all the care-taking and maintenance of the flats. Ana owned an old car; Reddy did not buy another one until he started college. Ana went to U of M and worked part time in a sporting goods shop. She had only a year to graduate with her BS in computer science. Munni had applied both U-of-M and Wayne State and had to wait for the new fall semester to get into either college. Benny had told him that he can easily find a night job and then go to classes during the day. The ideas seemed good. Looking at the course schedule, and the degree requirements, Munni estimated that he ought to be done in about a little more than 2 years and have his MS. Very soon Munni got himself a job in the Jack's Convenience store, first as a day worker and then after a couple of months, as a night worker at a much higher salary.

Reddy called home to let them know that he had changed his address from California to Michigan. His brother could not quite see the rationale of moving from a nice weather location to the cold weather place. Even after many assurances that Reddy made about living separately from his uncle Benny, his brother and mother worried a lot about the uncle living in the same city. Reddy could easily see how, much more time had to pass and reality to set on the ground before his mother and brother could come around to see Benny as the nice person and a benefactor to Reddy.

Reddy couldn't bring himself to tell them the complete story, that he was no longer enrolled in college because he had to wait for the new fall semester, that he was married, and married to a Russian girl at that....and so on. Reddy called home once a month, to maintain his story that he was now in college in Michigan and lived well away from his uncle at a different address. Once in a while he used skype video, but the transmission was dithery; however, his mom was happy to see his face and had noticed that he was filling up nicely and didn't look as scrawny as he used to when he lived in Chennai.

In their busy lives, Ana and Munni hardly had much time for the two of them together. Reddy was very careful to keep it that way so that he wasn't seen as insinuating himself on Ana, unless she wanted it. He wanted to make sure there could be nothing that brought back Ana's bad memories of her first marriage. Reddy was naturally inclined to be a quiet helper. After all, (We all know that..) even after months of helping Shanti board the bus everyday, he continued on without attempting to claim any favors in return, such as a conversation or an occasional exchange of smile at the bus stand. For his life with Ana, his night work and their busy college lives were just made to order for Reddy to avoid even an appearance of infringing on Ana's space and independence. Reddy had learnt enough about the lives of the immigrant struggles of Ugandan Indians, Vietnamese boat people, Hmong hill tribes, Ethiopian, Eritriean and Oromo refugees in the USA, and the Srilankan Tamils in Canada to know that his life was smooth in comparison. And he remembered Benny's advice: in a few years, if his luck held out, he might have the nice girl for ever and go on to live a life he didn't think he deserved. Besides, he had his own dream to work on: study, graduate, work, save money and eventually build that house with a mango tree. Life was purpose laden.

When Ana graduated from college, Kamla had an open house in her backyard. Many of Kamla's desi friends had come. There was an open bar in the gazebo and appetizers were catered from a desi restaurant in town. Both Kamla and Ana were wearing indian silk outfits. Even Benny was in a nice suit and wore a flower on his buttonhole. Reddy wore a dark blue jacket over his jeans and shirt. There was a lot of photo taking. Reddy was standing to the side of the large tent they had in the back yard lawn. He didn't know many in that crowd. A few men came over and congratulated him…one of them went as far to mention "the knockout wife". There were many desi and some non-desi women in that crowd. Some of the women too came to him and shook his hand; a few pulled his face down, and kissed his cheek as well. He took all of that with a benign smile. He and Ana took photos together with many others he didn't know. 

Ana asked Reddy to go with her to Niagara Falls. They went a week after that party, because Reddy had to work with school and work schedules so that he can get a few days off. That was the first vacation they had together, much more than a year after their marriage. Reddy felt very good that he would finally have a lot of time with Ana. However, they had both brought their laptops and Ana ended up spending much of her time with friends on Skype and Reddy did some school work and browsed the internet. They went out for walks and Ana took Reddy to a shop that served high tea and talked about how it was different from the Russian Tea Service. That reminded Reddy that in all that time, he had never fulfilled his resolutions about the samovar or the irani chai. He didn't get the samovar converted to 110V or made any attempt to learn to make irani chai for them at home.

The High Tea

Reddy thought that he had become a a good Benny in the first year of his marriage; in being nice and taking care of his wife. At the same time, he also worried about the future; he wondered if Ana would get a job and move to another city, may be to the SFO bay area, where many of the good jobs were. She had already been to some of the on campus interviews at the placement center. And she has had many telephone conversations and a few interviews on the phone. She wanted to get a job where her Russian Language skill would be an asset for the company and she'd be able to travel to Russia if possible. Reddy often wondered how much the married life with him, higher salaried work in America, freedom and ease of travel from America on a US passport, would all stack up against Ana's dream of a Sankt Peterburg Life. He didn't know what could happen after she saved enough money to afford to go to Russia and stay there for good. And besides, Ana had a mother in Russia she wanted to support, and perhaps even live with in her mother's retirement years.

On the first birthday after the wedding, Ana gave Munni a "Teach Yourself Russian" book and CD. He didn't know if that was a gentle hint for him to prepare for a life in Russia. She had lots of internet friends as well as Irina in New York that she spoke to in Russian. Very often, she'd come into the living room or kitchen with the remnants of the laughs she had had with her friends. She could never explain the laughs/jokes to Munni. 

To Russia with  OR 

As a browser-reader in the R2I Club forum, he was often reminded of things like "Taking Care of Parents" and why shouldn't a man live with his in-laws and support them in their old age. However, after the first week of riffling through that book and listening to the CD, he never went beyond hello, thank you, my-name-is-Reddy, do-you-speak-english etc.. Once he googled to see if there were any indian restaurants in Saint Petersburg, Russia; he got quite a lot of confusing links, because of that namesake city in Florida. He gave up. He did not seriously imagine he'd be asked to go and live in Russia. When such things sloshed about in his mind, Reddy would shake off those thoughts with "I'll deal with it when I get there" and move on with whatever he had to do for the short term. He had classes to attend, papers to read or write, codes to fix, tenants to help, job-to-go-to, and in the middle, cook, do house chores or get some sleep.

Ana's departure came much much sooner than he had imagined possible.
Neither of them had planned for that.
Munni ended up being very responsible for what had happened.