The Amazing Origin Story of Padma the Submariner!
Padma had the type of childhood injuries one associates with a much more confident youngster. At home, she was always very shy and polite, taking care of a spoiled little brother with little complaint. When she got a few minutes to herself, however, she found new and creative ways to end up in the hospital. At four, she jumped off the roof of the house, confident that she would end up in the air rather than on the ground. She suffered a broken wrist. When she was seven, she came very close to drowning in a friend's wading pool, as if she'd been unaware that one had to come up to the surface to breathe. She caught pneumonia and spent a week in bed. At nine, she'd decided that she could move all the furniture in the living room on her own, and apparently it was only the fact that her brother had started crying for her that she'd avoided being crushed by the television. Despite this, she had only two scars on her body: a mark on each ankle, nearly identical, where some birth defect had been removed.
Her youth had been spent doing her best not to ask questions. She didn't ask why her brother was allowed to go places she wasn't. She didn't ask why she had to be so modest about her body when other girls could bare as much skin as they liked. She didn't ask why she couldn't major in Political Science in college. She didn't ask why she couldn't even go to the college she wanted: Stanford promised a full ride, but she couldn't leave home. Columbia was probably just as good, right? She definitely didn't ask what her parents expected her to do about their subtle hints of marriage when she had no illusions about which gender she'd prefer.
Padma lived a life of second choices. And one day, when she came home from school and her parents told her that she would be married to the Fuhr's youngest boy--"You remember him, you saw him when you helped your father at work last summer,"--that wasn't her first choice, either. She would probably even be allowed to finish school, maybe even medical school. But, of course, why bother, since she was going to be a wife?
The day before her wedding, she went to bed early. When she woke up, nothing had changed, but she felt like it should have. There was something in the back of her mind, distracting her even from thinking about her wedding. Her mother and her aunts fussed around her, styling her hair and making last minute decisions about her clothes with little input from her. "No time for a shower, you overslept!" "You can't have a glass of water now, wait until your hair is done!" "We have to leave, drink when we get there!"
The wedding was to take place in the garden of the Fuhr's house outside New York City. Her brother was driving her and her mother, as her father had driven ahead. It was hard to focus on much. The feeling in the back of her mind had gotten stronger and more insistent, like a voice screaming at her in a language she didn't understand. Padma pressed her forehead against the window and watched the familiar buildings pass for what felt like the last time. She tuned out the noise around her: her brother's questionable taste in music, her mother's constant chattering, the soft hum of tires on pavement became white noise.
She snapped out of her reverie when a new noise pierced through her distracted fog; it had begun to rain. In fact, it had begun to storm, the kind of quick summer storm that descended on the city with no warning but a smell on the wind. "Stop the car." Her voice was soft but firm, but she hadn't even been aware that the words were going to come out of her mouth until they already had. Louder, she repeated, "Stop the car, Kumar."
Kumar looked at his mother, who shook her head. She tried to calm her daughter a bit. "We'll be there in a few minutes, Padma--"
"Don't look at her, look at me. Stop the car!" It was mostly shock that got Kumar to pull over. Padma had never so much as raised her voice before, no matter how impatient she got with him. She shook off her mother's hand and fumbled with her seat belt: it was very important that she get out into the rain. Finally she escaped the tangled seat belt and got the door open, only to fall into a mud puddle. She didn't care enough to let it be anything other than a brief distraction. Padma climbed to her feet and ran into the rain, letting it soak her from head to toe.
And suddenly, the feeling in the back of her mind filled her, and she knew who she was. She knew why she'd never been afraid of heights or the sea. She knew why, even at her most shy, she'd always smiled at blonde women. And now, she knew exactly what to do about this wedding.
Padma looked up at the sky and gave it a grateful smile. Then she drew in a deep breath and shouted, "IMPERIUS REX!"
A few minutes later, Padma returned to the car. Neither her brother nor her mother had figured out how to react to Padma's sudden personality change, but they seemed relieved to see her come back with a smile on her face. Kumar's smile faded a bit when she took his keys out of his hand and motioned to the back seat.
It wasn't long before the shock wore off enough for Padma's mother to start talking about how she had ruined all their hard work and that she could only hope that Mrs. Fuhr would have something for her to wear. "I don't think it's going to be an issue, Mom," she said, not taking her eyes off the road.
The rain stopped no more than a minute before they arrived. The wedding party hadn't assembled completely yet by the time they got there, but Padma didn't care. The groom was there, her father was there, and she didn't need anyone else. Her mother tried to steer her away, towards the house. It would have been easier to change the tide than to stop Padma. She shrugged off her mother and stood in the center of the few guests that had already shown up.
Sanjay Fuhr was a nice boy. If she had been straight and interested in an arranged marriage, he probably would have been one of the better choices. Of course, he could have been a boar with a face like a dog's rear end for all her father cared. It was business. That made it easier.
"Excuse me, everyone!"
Padma's guests looked more surprised than Sanjay's guests, mostly because many of them had never heard her voice loud enough to be heard this clearly. "What are you doing?" hissed her father. He tried to storm over to her, but it's difficult to storm properly when you're being held back with one arm by a 120-pound girl.
"Excuse me! This wedding has been canceled. Repeat, there will be no marriage today! Anyone wishing to see two strangers joined against their will, well, I'm sure someone has a daughter for Mr. Fuhr to set his son up with. He's probably taking applications." To Sanjay, she added, "It's not me, it's you. You're not a woman."
"You--!" her father began, but Padma had already built up a lot of steam, and eighteen years of unheard complaints were coming out with the full force of the Avenging Son.
"And you! You knew full well who I was. Who I am. It was just another thing we didn't talk about. I was interested in politics? Push me into medicine, it'll get me married off quicker. I wanted to go to Orlando with my friends? Better get me a job at your office, I don't want to get too distracted from family life. Besides, I might learn bad habits. I like girls? Marry me off!" By this point, her voice had gotten loud enough to attract the neighbors. Of course, for all they knew, this was how Hindu weddings went. "But in your defense, the office wasn't that bad. I know I didn't want to do it at first, but I want to thank you for that opportunity. I spent most of it fucking your secretary. Every late night, every lunch meeting, every hour-long trip to the office supply store, my legs were wrapped around her head!"
Her mother screamed, and Padma felt the first twinge of regret she'd had during her entire tirade. The guilt faded when she saw the look on her father's face. He was so angry that he had seemed to swell up, which just made Padma want to yell some more. She held back, but only just. "I'm done." She gave him a little shove, just enough to give her enough space to walk away. He tumbled to the ground. He was shouting in Hindi that she had shamed him and that he had no daughter, but by this point, she was already walking away.
Kumar had had the good sense to wait by the car, but he had obviously gotten an earful. "I'm borrowing your car," she told him.
"You're not coming back, are you?"
"No." She gave him a sad little smile. "Never thought you'd have to be the good one, did you?"
"What are you going to do?"
She sighed. "I didn't want to be a doctor until they started telling me that I couldn't. Now it's all I want to be." She snatched the keys out of his hand again and kissed his cheek. "See you around, little brother." She hopped into the car and paused. "Be a good boy for Mom, okay?" With that, she drove off.