The ultimate sale

I had just reached the US and barely understood the drawl. Of course, by the time I left the place three years later, I had wised up enough to know that “Quarteret” is actually “Carteret,” but not so in those days. Whenever the phone rang, I would literally start sweating. Trained completely in a rather neutral Indian English accent, I was forced to do a gal-from-the-hinterlands-act asking those American voices to call back with a, “husband not home” lame-dame excuse. They must’ve conjured up visions of a large eyed innocent-looking village belle in a bright coloured ghagra choli (modeled after some 1960s Hindi movie heroine, of course!) who has come to visit her Pardesi ilk in New Jersey!

One day, the phone rang. I groaned…oh no, time to put up yet another of those wide-eyed village belle acts! But that call was like no other. A deep somber voice at the other end spoke up…I could figure out that he (I think it was a he) wanted to sell something to D’hanesh (that’s Americanese for Dhanesh, my spouse). Then it became kinda deadly serious. In between rolling r’s and swallowed t’s I could hear him rasp about graveyards and tombs. By then, I had become nearly hysterical. Call later, call later…husband not home…husband in office…I blurted and slammed down the offending instrument. My heart was thumping…now what on earth had all that been about? I had heard about the Great American Salesman and had answered many a call for donation to the friendly neighborhood police force and such, but who on earth would want to sell…a...a.. grave? The spouse enlightened me in the evening that the caller only had my best interests at heart…he was just trying to secure a comfortable post-life abode for me in a nice, wooded, iris-filled cemetery down the road…the ultimate sale, indeed!