August 2017
The blueish black night hung above me as I inspected every step on the cobblestones. The faces of tall Italian women, laughing and chattering away with their bold lipsticks, lit up with gold from the streetlights. The chill slipped into the sleeves of my plain hoodie, and I quickly zipped it up. Behind the Mediterranean pines, tempestuous, rhythmic ocean waves struck the beach. I was 13 and we’d—my parents and two cousins—visited a small market in Sardegna, Italy. Accessories like sunglasses, handmade bracelets, keychains, and bandanas decorated the stands.
While my mom rambled on about the history of a tower on the beach to my dad, I eagerly ran to the stand with woven charm bracelets. My fascination grew stronger as my little hands traced the woven patterns. While I wiggled my hand through a bracelet, my gaze traveled to my cousins standing a couple sections down. They talked (or bickered?), their words flying out at lightning speed. Giulia, 16, wore a tight-fitted, black leather skirt which perfectly matched her 4-inch heels, along with a low-cut top, while 14-year-old Clara dressed in a sky-blue hoodie, shorts, and flip flops. I approached them and stood off to the side as they towered over me. My eyes bounced back and forth between them, I tried to distinguish their different tones and imagined what they could possibly be saying. They were a duo, and as always, I stuck out like a third wheel. We weren’t friends, we barely even knew each other enough to be considered cousins or family. And all I wanted to feel was a sense of family.
2009
My first concept of family formed around a yellow wooden table in a kitchen. The table was a center point in the kitchen and focal point in the living room because of a dependency. Every day, all 20 kids ran to the table, finding their assigned, unassigned seats. They stuffed their mouths with dal or lentils or roti or rice or spices. The table was an escape, a haven for connection. There were no tablecloths and we existed in our truest form. And I had a seat at the table. I was five, in India, in an orphanage. But the orphanage taught me everything I know about family and togetherness. That togetherness sewed itself into the long cinematic-like patterned skirts that all of us girls wore. It poured into the rinse and repeat routine of scheduled breakfast, lunch, and dinners. It celebrated Diwali with us, where we’d dance around spinning fireworks in our lehengas and bangles on top of a roof.
Togetherness tied the simple scenes of a group of four/five-year-old girls, in their navy blue, thick school uniforms with slicked back, oiled ponytails. We tracked basically every single part of our school, from the long millions of steps to the short singular vending machine. Laughter flew out of me and synchronized with theirs as we huddled together by the steps and munched on our damp ramen noodles. The click-clack of our glossy formal loafers created a unified beat as we headed to the riksha to go home.
August 2017
In Italy, a couple days later after the market, we went to a restaurant, and I groaned in my head and thought of some excuse to get out of it. But I sat there, with cold steel beneath my thighs. I went through all the different postures, from the casual upright position to the etiquette-like position of crossing one leg over the other. They all felt wrong.
All nine of us —Mom and dad, aunt and uncle, two cousins, and grandpa and grandma—created a tight circle around the table. It made it so I was constrained, forced to be sandwiched between my mother and aunt, unable to escape. My aunt tried small talk with me in her broken, hesitant English, asking about what I learned in school and what sports I played. I replied for the sake of politeness. But the clanking of silverware and the woosh of napkins cut conversation short. The table felt endless. Plates and glasses and phones and keys lined every inch of it. It was too much all at once. The black table cover left no room for my dissection of its colors or texture, I had no truth, no authenticity. Multiple arms hovered over the table looking for bread and wine and sparkling water. It surprised me to see that the water came in a bottle rather than just a waiter coming to fill and refill it.
The familiar, unfamiliar, recurrent pronunciations and sounds mixed in with irritable tones and hand gestures flew around. My father, while born and raised in India, conversed easily in Italian with my grandfather, sharing their similar experiences of growing up. My mother grew up in a small town called Nuoro. She of course spoke fluent Italian and knew the culture, and therefore, fit right into the crowd. She translated it for me when my uncle, with a mouth full of meat and flat bread, asked about my interests. He tried making me laugh, joking about how my mother was such a Scrooge because she didn’t like spending a lot of money. But his attention turned to Clara because she complained about how the water wasn’t cold enough and they argued back and forth for several minutes.
While my relatives went on and on about the latest news and presidents, I observed every single person that wasn’t my mom or dad. Unlike them, I stood out like an apple in a group of figs. As I looked around the table and, except for my parents, all I saw were strangers and strangers and strangers. I mentally couldn’t grasp that this is my family. Their pale, sun marked skin, with their hair shades ranging from blond to dark brown stood in contrast to my deep, tanned skin and straight, jet black hair. I listened to their conversation change from one topic to another and I felt the loneliness sink into me. How ironic was it that so many people that I should’ve had some sort of connection with surrounded me, but I never felt more isolated? Maybe the emphasized differences between our physical attributes made it impossible to unravel the loneliness.
The emphasized differences in food also created a divide. My grandmother enjoyed a dish called prosciutto e melone (sliced ham and melons). I never found the appeal of having two such different tastes and textures mixed. The food I had in India felt more unified and the tastes always melted well together on my tongue. My Italian relatives used forks and knives (even with pizza!). In those moments, I thought about pinching roti with all 5 fingers and scooping up chana masala, letting the sauce drip down my chin. And I wondered what their reactions would be if they witnessed such a thing.
September 2011
The coolness from the AC in the car protected the 7-year-old me from the hot sticky night. After being adopted, with my new family, I approached my dad’s brother and sister’s home in Bangalore, India. A porcelain Santa doll with a yellow glow light inside caught my eye first. After meeting my relatives, all I remember was their smiles. And this, till this day, is all I know about them; their polite smiles. What I miss from those days is the possibility of a connection. Like that time my uncle took me on a motorbike ride to pick mangos and pet cows. Or that other time my older cousin wiggled my nose to make me laugh. But my memories with them felt as scarce to almost non-existent as our conversations.
August 2017
One day in Sardegna, when the sweltering heat was too much, we took shelter under the patio at my grandparents’ summer house. I lounged around on the lime green sofa swing, pushing my feet against the floor to rock back and forth. I saw my grandma push her glasses up and lick her lips as she played a puzzle called sudoku. At the base of her chair sat a giant weave basket. crochet supplies of large rolls of white thread that connected to an intricately patterned doily filled basket. My grandpa sat by a pole with a newspaper covering his face. Smoke swirled from a cigarette between his fingers. His whistling nicely filled the quiet.
Out of all my relatives, I learned the most from and about my grandparents, making them my favorite. My grandpa would often sit me down and recount fantastical tales and legends. Like the one of a headless man in a river. Legend has it, you can still see his head bobbing around in the river during the winter season. Or another one (based on his own personal experience) about how a strange old man told him his father was dead before the family even had the chance to tell anyone in town. My grandma recounted on her escape from the 2nd world war, and how she had traveled all the way from Milan to Sardegna. I thank them for those folk tales because they fueled my hunger for more tales (I’d beg my mom to tell me three stories each night before going to bed) and eventually inspired me to try to write my own stories.
But even with those evening stories and the addictive card games, there was still an invisible wall. The irreplaceable human experience of understanding, through language and more importantly through silence, couldn’t be created between us because of something as invariable as distance. Now, I look through a lens into all the years and wonder about all the opportunities I missed to learn and speak Italian. My mother always asked me about it, but I never tried learning it. It wasn’t out of carelessness or disinterest, but rather the fact that my whole attention was on my shifting universe, on learning English, learning American culture, and relearning to make friends. And now I wonder how things could’ve been different if it weren’t for the circumstances I was thrown into. What were all the possible combinations of words, phrases, jokes, wisdoms, comforts I could’ve exchanged with each other? How would the relationships differ from one another? Entire years of our lives were forced to be summed up into a couple of weeks. And every time I returned one year older, an even greater distance grew between us.
2019
Language is a funny thing, it’s one of the barriers that severs many ties to my Italian relatives, but it’s somehow not the reason for the barriers with my other relatives, like the ones in India. My father was born and raised in Pune, India. He lived there for almost half his life and is fluent in Hindi and Marathi, and then later English when he moved to the US. Most of his relatives are also trilingual like him and speak English.
This was the easy part about them that we could converse. We understood each other just fine during our rare visits to India. But there was a lingering awkwardness when I stood in proximity with them at weddings and house parties. The awkwardness came from a lack of knowledge of each other; knowledge about our lives and dreams and thoughts and fears and stories. But how could we know each other? Since getting adopted in 2011, I have visited my Indian relatives a total of three times, significantly less than my Italian relatives.
August 2017
One day in Sardegna, bright and somewhat early, my parents and I took a trip to La Spiaggetta (Little Beach). A cool and refreshing atmosphere surrounded us. I brought all my essential gear: giant blue snorkels, a bright Barbie pink mini surfboard, water shoes, a large SPF sunscreen bottle, and some small snacks like chocolate-filled croissants along with some caprese sandwiches and pears. The crowds made it hard to find a spot to sit. We planted our umbrella just a little above the small hill separating the shores and the actual beach.
Over the next hour I swam around, my body easily got used to the change in temperature from land to sea. I snorkeled but only saw a few schools of fish because we weren’t near the big rocks. I caught waves with my surfboard, accidentally gulping in what felt like liters of salt water. When my ability to entertain myself had reached its peak and my legs felt heavy, I trudged my way back to the umbrella.
I sat crisscross on my towel and watched the other kids. They played racket ball or volleyball or soccer with each other. Their gleeful smiles and hearty laughs annoyed me to no end. The luscious greenery of the surrounding mountains, along with the sapphire sparkles of the sea and the crystal-clear day made it all worse. I felt like I was on a rather expensive, tropical vacation that millions of people dreamed about taking and still felt dissatisfied.
I know I should’ve been more grateful at that moment, but a wave of loneliness transported me back to America. Where my small knit of friends and I would glide through the summer days with golden, sunlit bike rides to Oberweis and Walmart. We held in our guts and let out prolonged screams on roller coasters and wind gliders. We would circle a hot tub and talk until our fingers and toes resembled raisins. As the blue ocean, the sky, and beach scene emerged back into my view, I gave a heavy sigh and toyed with the corner of the towel and the grainy sand. We left the beach and relief washed over me.
August 2017
I boarded the plane back from my Italy trip after two weeks. The earthy tones of greens, browns, blues, and the pastel colors of houses in clusters of towns merged into the single island as the plane soared higher and higher. As puffy clouds closed my view of the ground, I laid back and rested my head on the airplane seat. The stiffness and soreness from the 3-hour bus ride from Cardedu to Cagliari, along with the 6 am packing, settled into my body. I didn’t feel a deep-seated longing to continue staying on that island. I had no sense of “missing” or even eagerness to return because this trip and all the future trips felt like the same rehashed shit with the same towns, same restaurants and beaches, and same people, only this time I had gained one more year of maturity.
But in fact, with this maturity came a new sense of perspective about my family.
December 2024
When I was 19, my grandpa passed away. The winter wind hollowed outside our Chicago suburban home when we got the call at three in the morning. All I could recall was my mother’s wailing. As we sat together on the bed, curling into each other in front of the Skype screen, crying into each other’s arms, a ping of guilt hit me. It gnawed at me as we packed our bags, as we drove to the airport, and as we flew to Italy. It gnawed at me because I hated how disingenuous my sadness and crying felt. Was I crying because that’s what’s expected of me, or was it because I hated seeing my mother cry? It didn’t seem to be for the loss of my grandfather.
After the funeral, the seven of us sat around the kitchen table at my mother’s childhood home. As the winter chill sank into the room along with the soft woosh of the wind outside the window, my thoughts returned to India.
July 2024
I visited Mumbai, India during the summer. On several occasions we got caught in the monsoon season as we adventured through the beautiful carvings of gods and goddesses in the Hindu and Buddhist caves. Later we went over to my uncle’s apartment for a celebration. The place wasn’t too big, and I liked the aroma of incense that filled my nose as we entered the place. Shoes piled up by the front door as indistinguishable voices filled the room.
Uncles and aunts and older relatives hugged each other, but I stood there pursing my lips as I tried to get a glimpse of any familiarity from the faces in front of me. No recognition came to my mind. Awkwardly I shook hands and hugged family I wasn’t even sure I had met before. The only semblance of recognition came when I saw my cousins, Rahul and Soniya, who were my age. We sat next to each other and fumbled through the conversation, picking up the most mundane topics of graduating high school and enrolling in college classes.
Small plates of flat bread and dal and rice and samosas and pakoras lined the dining table. The spices hit just the right spot as my cousins as I left the living room to overlook a view of the city by the balcony. The muted oranges and reds of the sky contrasted with the deep greens of the trees. The heat sat heavy in the air and nerves sprinted through my chest as I tried to talk. But as the evening continued to a pitch night, the jitters fluttered away and sereness replaced them. Giggles filled my lungs as I recounted my worst days in high school and relief about going to college.
Returning to the kitchen, music vibrated through the air and feet shuffled around. My very laid-back uncle let us have a glass of white wine. My body floated when the tension in my muscles dissipated as I lingered around. This sort of moment hit me, I finally felt a familial connection, a connection bigger than myself, the way I hoped I would feel in Italy.
December 2024
A tapping on the table brought me back to my mother’s childhood home in Italy, back to hours after the funeral, to the seven of us sitting around a smooth, brown table. A coolness, newness sprawled across the table. A small tablecloth still covered the center of it. But I could finally see the color and texture, a hidden truth, a glaring authenticity. And I felt the chair mold perfectly for my body, it was my seat, and I was meant to be there just like anyone else at that table. We sank deeper into the cushions and leaned back on the bright red headrests. We pulled back our disheveled hair and zipped up our coats.
And at that moment, I felt the bond. Simply born through silence, through the dark circles under our eyes, and through our pure sadness. The dividers still existed, but not for that moment, no detachment, no loneliness clung to my body because we all existed there for the same reason, sharing similar emotions. I’d never felt closer to them than at that moment. I also wished to speak fluent Italian. I wanted to hear from word to word their thoughts. Even if loss formed the bond, I’m still grateful for it because it made me realize how alike we are and that connection comes from more than just speaking the same language.
Rajni Kulkarni is a rising senior at DePaul University, pursuing an English degree and a political science minor. She focuses on poetry and creative nonfiction. She has had several of her pieces submitted in her high school literary magazine called Claw and Quill. In her free time she loves writing and exploring Chicago with her friends.