When the Sambashivans ordered the unsuitable bride and family black sheep back to India, the couple had to obey, tumbling from their brass bed on the appointed morning to dress in love beads, batik, and peace- sign jewelry. Once aboard the plane, Ramesh kept yanking his ponytail as if it didn’t belong there, while Alice twisted her diamond ring, silently chanting the four stages of a Brahmin’s life like a mantra: childhood, student, householder, the renunciation of the world.

       The couple de-planed eighteen hours later and Alice slid backward into Ram’s arms with the unexpected force of the heat. Gasping for air at the plane’s top step, she windmilled her arms at the dust.  By the time Ramesh deposited her on level ground, her eyes oozing tears, her lids had swelled nearly shut.

        The couple made their way toward the gate where a crowd of people vibrated in dazzling sun.  Clutching at Ram’s sleeve with one hand and shielding her eyes with the other, Alice tried to warn him that she might faint, but her words hung suspended in the oppressive air.

          As they neared the gate, Alice could feel Ramesh’s excitement mount. He tugged her toward the crowd that pummeled them with noise. One woman’s shrill voice rang out over all the others.  Her howling was anguished and theatrical, isolating her, and Alice easily picked her out of the crowd. The woman strained against the rope, held back by a knot of sons.  Her arms, encircled with gold bangles, sliced at the air.  She wailed and shouted and pointed in the direction of the passengers.

        Suddenly, the woman broke away from her children and hurled herself at Ramesh.  Stunned and stumbling, Alice challenged the assailant.  But Ram had already swept the woman into his embrace. “This is my mother,” he explained over the top of the sobbing gray head.

        Alice nodded as if she understood, once at Ram, and again at the brothers who clustered around them. She tried the Tamil words of greeting she had so carefully rehearsed; they came out garbled. Her cheeks ignited at the appraising looks from the brothers and the absolute rebuff from the mother. Alice swung her long, loose blonde hair to cover as much of her blush as she could.

        The family made its way down the street to hail a taxi. “Ay, Auto!” cried one of the brothers, gesturing at passing drivers. One after another passed them by, and the brother complained, “Pyune! Pyune!” He clutched his head in exasperation.
      
      Alice pulled at Ram’s sleeve until he looked down at her. “What’s Pyune?” she asked Ram. She ignored the scalding look from his mother. 
     “Oh, that means Peon,” he answered. “That’s what we call the auto- rickshaw drivers.”
    “Well then, no wonder they won’t stop!” A rickshaw driver halted in front of them at last, and began to negotiate with the brother who’d hailed him. Alice looked at the narrow seat. “How will we all fit?” Alice wondered.
    
      The driver whistled for two more drivers. Both appeared dressed in uniforms, khaki
shirts and trousers. An undetermined number of hands hoisted Alice up. A brother slumped beside her into the seat, folding his arms so that Alice was not pushed flush against him. “No touching!” the mother scowled, still glued to Ram.
    
      To attempt conversation above the noise of the scooter was futile, so Alice stared straight ahead, hands folded on her lap, all the way to the train station.

     The old broad-gauge train announced itself with a shrill whistle and creaking brakes. Alice fought to stay upright in the crush of travelers as they hauled her into the stinking body of the machine like so much luggage. She searched anxiously for Ramesh. When she spotted him, he smiled at her over the top of his mother’s head, still attached to his shoulder. 

      The brothers gently steered Alice toward the reserved compartment, careful not to touch her.  The thick air was choked with passengers who stared at her with curious or openly hostile eyes. Men with bare torsos muttered as she passed by, and some of the women reached out to touch her gold hair, although it meant risking their places on the benches. Young boys who had scrambled onto the roof a few minutes before now dangled like monkeys outside the windows, shouting obscenities muffled by the glass. The brothers retorted with threatening gestures, balled fists, bared teeth, rapid guttural speech.

        Many minutes later, a waiter opened the door to take the dinner orders for the next stop. Alice, who had fallen into a shallow sleep, briefly stirred as the rise and fall of countless dialects surged into the cabin. She struggled to awaken. Some creature pricked her shoulders—a swarm of insects trying to nest in her hair? 

       The brothers touched her roughly and she drew back, appalled.  Her eyes sought out Ramesh, who pantomimed the story his brothers were trying to tell her—a group of small children were crouched low behind her, popping up one at a time, giggling as they touched the unlikely yellow hair.  The flies!  Alice laughed aloud and smiled at the children. At once, they dispersed as if a spell had been broken.

        At once the foul breath of the train was swept away. Exotic odors rushed ahead of uniformed waiters bearing ornate tin trays piled with delicacies.  Everyone in the car straightened in their seats, attentive to their dishes.  Alice looked down at the mystery in her lap.  Her mouth watered, but the only thing she recognized was the rice, although it was tinged orange with turmeric.

        She sopped up her food in a baseball mitt of bread. One of the brothers nudged her arm and smiled a cordial, gap-toothed smile.  “Food OK?” he asked carefully.  He waggled his head with a simultaneous yes and no. 

      “Yes, excellent, very fine food!”  Alice mirrored his head-waggle.  Ramesh caught the gesture and the bottoms of his ears turned red. She flashed him a brilliant, hard smile.

       After dinner, the family closed their eyes to nap. Alice watched sunlight slant through dirty windows for a moment before she too succumbed to the relentless motion of the train. 

        When the machine finally chuffed to a halt, Alice awoke panicked by the chaos all around her, another rude, sweaty obstacle course. The men collected the luggage and trudged down the road with their burdens. Ramesh wrapped a protective arm around Alice’s shoulders and marshaled her through the short-tempered horde.  She could feel Amma’s stare boring into her back as Ram tightened his embrace. Amma hopped beside Ramesh, nattering in Tamil, but Ram’s gait remained steady. Alice noticed that with every word his mother hissed, he gripped her shoulder more tightly until Alice had to shake him off. Amma relaxed immediately.      

        They all boarded a taxi and when it had pitched and rolled to a full stop, Ramesh nudged Alice out of the cab. “We’re nearly home.” She peered out of the window and saw a house floating in haze. It rose up over the car, its shadow stretching like greedy fingers. The white stone building could only be reached by a narrow walkway with an auspicious number of steps leading to the heavy teak door.

         The family trooped past damaged beggars sprawled along the thin dirt road. The panhandlers kept their heads lowered, made their imprecations soft and themselves almost invisible. When each, one after another, raised anguished black eyes to Alice, she was at a loss about how to interpret such large-scale misery. She tried to get Ram’s attention. He could tell her how to feel about it.   

      “Hell can’t be hotter than this,” she muttered as she slapped a small winged creature on her arm.