Memories of an Indian upbringing - The Keys to the Garden: Israeli Writing in the Middle East

Literary Review, Wntr, 1994 by Ilana Sugbaker, Ammiel Alcalay

My sister Sarale, the oldest, was born there, in India. In the kibbutz, the "le" was appended to her name. She and her friends aroused jealousy when they wore fluttering skirts and bright scarves. In protest, I stuck to boy's shirts and jeans. A protective wall between me and the world. To be "modern" meant to look like someone from the kibbutz. I didn't want to look trashy, like a cheap slut, giving her body away to everyone with a thin blouse, a mini-skirt and high-heels. But Nissim Sarussi was a heartbreaker:

I can't bear to see them go

hand in hand anymore

while she left me here alone,

Oh, why did she leave me so?

And Aris San and Aliza Azriki and the Oud Ensemble . . . Wrapped up in a man's shirt. Cheap imitation of a kibbutznik, it seemed like I had turned into an "Israeli" everyone could recognize, even my parents, maybe even out on the street.

The annual gathering. Tables spread out with all kinds of artwork made by the community's sons and daughters. Drawings, tiny dolls dressed in the choicest Indian apparel. Different kinds of saris, styles from different regions of India, and the colors! Deep, warm, impeccable combinations of violet and red, dark green and bright pink. They weren't satisfied with the six basic colors there! All the colors were respected, even those unfamiliar to the West. In the middle of the display area there was a small table with a reduced model of a map of India on it, done up in the colors, so familiar to me, of the Indian flag. To the side of the flag, two dolls dressed in saris woven of the same colored cloth grip flagpoles with tiny flags. Between the two dolls, "Blessings Upon the Indian Nation On Their Day of Independence?" is written. I bump into Hilda, my cousin from Dimona. She's wearing a violet sari with red embroidery, pure silk. Spectacular. Hilda had been an excellent dancer, she'd even danced in the movies. How jealous all the girls in the Moshav were of me. Hilda, my cousin. She got to the country at the beginning of the '60s, ten years after us. Silently laughing, she and her sister Edna, may her memory be blessed, adorned with incredibly styled, golden ornaments, exuded magical scents, beauty and brightness. Her weight had gone up since then. She stopped dancing on her wedding day, and she was already a grandmother.

A girl in a sparkling pink sari was onstage, happy to be dancing about the love of nature. Members of Parliament are there too. Women wrapped in saris or Punjabi-daras embroidered in gold, men in Punjabi shirts, custom-made, brought in directly from the finest shops in Bombay and London. There are also more than a few long braids, "ambra"; and, here and there, smooth black hair as well, proudly flowing down to the hips. And some are dressed in the elegant, sporty style of Zahava or Ophra Haza. Not Margalit Sanani, though, or hardly at all.

And there are members of Parliament. My mother says again and again that, for an evening like this, the little girls are really superfluous. The kids should get their time on Hanukkah or Sukkot. But not at a gathering of grown-ups. Asher, my brother-in-law, gets fed up looking at five-year-olds. The little ones arouse the amazement of the Minister for Religious Affairs who had come to make a blessing. Avner Shaki, a member of Parliament, says that it's fine to continue being Indian as long as you remember that you are a Jew. Ah, I say, Judaism, again it comes down to whatever suits them. Let me be, it's not my problem, I'm Israeli through my Indian culture. The five-year-olds haven't been forewarned: all over the country they've got classes in Indian dance: in Or Yehuda, Ashdod, Dimona, Lod, and even Petah Tiqva.