My Basmati Bat Mitzvah

by Paula Freedman

October 1, 2013 · Amulet Books

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In my local public library in the children’s section, there are computer terminals in the shelves where you can look up books in the catalog. Above the one I used most frequently this past year was this book, My Basmati Bat Mitzvah. It sticks out on the shelf because the spine is bright yellow and the writing is curly and blue, not to mention that words like “bat mitzvah” jump out at me already.

I kept picking up the book and putting it back after looking at the cover because I thought it might be too middle-grade for my reading tastes. Why I didn’t open the book and read a few pages is beyond me but I suspect it has something to do with being in the library with my kids, whose attention spans fragment in sixty different directions when confronted with the possibilities of the library: video games?! Movies?! DVDs?! Comic books!? Manga?! AND BOOKS LIKE REGULAR BOOKS OH MY GOSH.

Eventually I had three moments to inspect the book yet again and read a few pages. Y’all. Y’ALL. THIS BOOK IS ADORABLE. I finished it and hugged it and made happy sighs and Good Book Noise®. There are so many little moments that are memorable and beautiful, and oh, it’s just terrific.

Tara Friedman is in Hebrew school preparing for her bat mitzvah. Her father is Jewish, and her mother is Indian American, and converted to Judaism before Tara was born. Confronting her bat mitzvah causes Tara to confront a lot of things about herself that she isn’t sure she understands entirely. Is she Jewish? Is she something else? Does she want a bat mitzvah at all?

The simple plot summary would be: Tara isn’t sure about her faith or her bat mitzvah. But questioning both of those things means that a lot of things happen. There’s a horrible girl in her Hebrew class named Sheila who says she’s surprised Tara is even considering having a bat mitzvah at all since she wears an om pendant. Sheila then tells Tara that because her mom is Indian American, she’s not really Jewish and neither is Tara.

Tara gets in an actual fight with Sheila for saying that, which made me like Tara immediately. She’s taking no shit from Sheila.

The arrival of a bat mitzvah means a lot of planning, studying, and change for any Jewish kid. For Tara, it creates a lot of changes, some of which she doesn’t think she’s ready for. As it says in the cover copy, “it feels like her Jewish side is taking center stage,” and with all the preparation and lessons, she worries that maybe she’s turning her back on her Indian side.  Her best friend in her apartment building, a boy named Ben, seems like maybe he has feelings for her, and she’s not really sure what to do with that change, either. Everything is changing around her, and she doesn’t know what to do.

Mixed inside all those changes are a lot of cultural challenges that were always there, like the somewhat prickly relationship between her mother and her father’s mother, and the also strained relationship between her mother and her aunt, Meena Auntie, who brought Tara’s mother to the US from India and raised her. Tara’s father’s family is culturally Jewish, and her mother’s family is Punjabi, and Tara isn’t sure how she’s supposed to balance those two massive cultures without letting anyone down. She has no idea, as she puts it, how to be Indian and Jewish at the same time.

When Tara accidentally ruins the sari her mother brought with her from India, the only remaining item of value that she has from Tara’s great grandmother, she’s horrified. She’d wanted to wear it to her bat mitzvah, a plan her mother disliked immensely, along with Tara’s suggestion that her bat mitzvah openly acknowledge her dual heritage. Tara’s mother is the source of the title of the book, as she rejects the ridiculous idea of a “basmati bat mitzvah.” Tara’s gran, her father’s mother, helps her figure out a solution, and Tara begins to realize that she’s in charge of her life, and has to figure out solutions to her other problems, big and small.  Tara figures things out, but it’s not an easy process, and along the way she learns that not knowing the answers is ok.

I loved a number of things about this book. I loved Tara’s narration – it’s first person, for those of who you dislike that – and I especially liked that Tara was trying her hardest to be a good person while struggling with trying to balance people’s expectations and her own happiness. She also learned that ignoring a problem makes it worse, and that friendships change.

I also appreciated the honesty of the scene where she’s at Sheila’s bat mitzvah, and notices that everyone in Sheila’s family resembles one another. Tara says:

The thing about being mixed is that nobody ever says I look like this or that relative. And since I don’t have any brothers or sisters, nobody looks like me, either. I look at Mum and Daddy and I try to see a resemblance, and it’s as if I’m some kind of third species, not related to either of them. …

I’m kind of like a vanilla milkshake with one pump of chocolate syrup – compared to white people I look brown, and to brown people I look white. [My hair is a color] so boring, there’s not even a crayon for it. Not even in the sixty-four pack.

Tara struggles with feeling like she doesn’t belong at an age when belonging takes on huge levels of importance. She’s not sure if she believes in God; she’s not sure if she’s entirely Jewish. She’s the only Jewish person she knows with a statue of Ganesha in her room – which the lovely Sheila calls a “false idol” – and she’s the only girl she knows who spices up her popcorn with a hidden jar of chaat masala that she hides in Ben’s kitchen for their weekend movie night.

Speaking of, I also loved all the food. Do not read this book while hungry. There’s a scene where her aunt hosts a Diwali potluck, which Tara calls “Diwalikkuh” because the holidays were close together, and the descriptions of what they ate nearly made my eyes roll back in my head. Tara also really likes spicy food, and feels disoriented when she’s eating too many things that are bland to her palate. Food is a crucial part of both of her cultural identities, and there’s plenty of it in this book.

During the potluck, Tara mentions a few of the differences between her Punjabi family and the Bengali Muslim family whom they invite for Diwali – “the only place in the world where Diwali is celebrated with a vat of matzoh ball soup. Gran makes it for all special occasions… [and] twice in November — once for Thanksgiving and once for Diwali, because Meena Auntie loves it so.” (And of course Meena Auntie doctors the soup with hot pepper and onion when Gran isn’t looking.) Tara is very happy that her aunt is friends with her classmate Aisha Khan’s family because according to Tara, “Mrs. Kahn makes the best Bengali sweets in all of New York.” Tara is all about the food in this book, and that made me like Tara even more.

But the best part for me was Tara’s bat mitzvah speech, where she draws together everything that happened during the book and identifies the significance of all the choices she’s made. She figures out who she is, and what she wants, and how she wants to be, while acknowledging that the culture and heritage she received from her mother’s parents, who are both deceased, are deeply important to her, as important as those of her father’s mother, who is a near-daily part of her life.

Tara’s memories of her grandfather also help her identify her spirituality, which happens late in the book so I’ll drop it inside a spoiler tag, even though it’s not really a spoiler:

I wanted more about her feelings about Ben, her best friend who seems to have romantic feelings for her. She seemed ambivalent most of the time, and I wasn’t sure if she had feelings for him or if she didn’t know what to do with him or with herself and thought she did. That relationship could have been more developed.

I also wish that there had been more exploration of Tara’s relationship with her parents, especially her mother. Her mother is most often distant, and sometimes seemed very rigid and insecure, and Tara seems to accept that, as she does her mother’s awkward relationship with Meena Auntie. But occasionally her mother is warmer, such as one scene where Meena Auntie and her mother are decorating Tara’s hands and feet with mehndi (henna) for her bat mizvah. Tara’s mother draws stars of David on her hand while her aunt covers her arm with swirls and vines, and then they switch, giggling and talking to one another. I loved that – and I wished more about the complexity of Tara’s relationship with her mother had been part of the story. Her father, too – all the other characters were tremendously vivid, especially Tara’s rabbi. Her parents seemed less so by comparison, and I wished for more about them.

Even with the relative lack of interaction with her parents compared to the rest of her family, I liked Tara, and I really liked this book. I’m glad it was hanging out above the catalog terminal, and I’ll definitely smile every time I see it on the shelf. I haven’t read many books that speak so clearly and emotionally about how one person can blend two very strong and different cultures. The fact that Tara figured out how she could do that while being true to herself is the best part of the story, and made the ending so satisfying.