A Novel

© 2025 by Ashok Shenolikar

All rights reserved

This is a work of fiction. The storyline, names, characters, events, and places are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to persons living or dead or to places or incidents is purely coincidental.

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Synopsys

Vijay, a first-generation immigrant from India, is a professor of Engineering. His wife, Sharada, is a stay-at-home mom. He has a strong belief in a specific career each of his children should follow. When his elder son, Krishna, decides to be a doctor, Vijay is ecstatic and promotes it among his friends at every chance he gets. Upon the recommendation of his brother, Mayur, Vijay encourages Lakshmi, his daughter, to befriend a young Indian doctor intern from India, Akaash. Vijay expects his youngest son, Arjun, to be an Engineer.

Born in the United States Krishna, Lakshmi, and Arjun struggle to find their identities within the bounds of contemporary American values versus their father’s traditional East Indian values. Arjun is a story of challenges of assimilation in a foreign culture, maintaining cultural traditions, and ultimate reconciliation.

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Part 1

Chapter 1

Spring 2005

My dad wants me to be an Engineer. I want to be someone else. I don’t know what. As a ninth-grader at Fairfax High School, my current interests are in baseball and music.

Spring is my favorite season. That’s when I get to play baseball. I’m the cleanup batter for the Fairfax Lions. That means I am the fourth one in the batting order after Jamal, Robert, and Dan. Today is our home opener against the Oakton Cougars. How we play today will set the tone for the rest of the season.

Oakton is well known for its pitchers. It will be a challenge for us to score any runs, let alone win big. I am nervous. I get up early to face the big day. Mom makes a breakfast of pancakes, scrambled eggs, and sausages—all the things I like. Dad is reading the Washington Post. He’s a strict vegetarian and eats cereal, a banana, and drinks masala tea, a concoction of regular tea with cardamom or cloves, yuck!. He looks at my plate and frowns.

“How do you feel?” Mom says as she places plates on the table.

“Wish me luck.”

“I’ll offer a prayer to Lord Ganesh.”

Mom keeps her favorite Indian idols in a kitchen cabinet. She prays regularly and invokes them to give us the courage to get over difficult times.

Dad doesn’t even look up to ask what we are discussing.

“I’ll take you to the game. Do we need to pick up Dan?”

“No. Dan’s dad is giving him a ride today.”

Dan is our catcher. His dad is a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army. He is deployed out of town mostly, visiting exotic places and talking to dignitaries. I have seen pictures in their living room when I go to his house to practice before our band performs. His mom is a nurse practitioner and has an odd work schedule. My mom often volunteers to take Dan and me to the games. They don’t live too far from our house. Dad never attends. He always has papers to grade or has to go to the college to advise graduate students. He is a professor of Robotics at George Mason University. His name is Vijay, or I should say Dr. Vijay Goré. Sharada is my stay-at-home Mom.

“Will you be able to come, Dad?” I ask.

“Come where?” he asks, flipping a page from the Post. He only reads the Main and the Style section. He sets the Sports section to the side.

“My game. Today’s the opener.”

“What game?”

“My high school baseball game, Dad.”

“Oh. Okay. I’ll see if I can leave early.”

“That’ll be great, Dad. Don’t be too late.”

“I’ll try.”

Dad doesn’t know much about baseball and thinks it is a boring game. He thinks cricket is much more exciting and stylish. He subscribes to a channel that shows Indian movies and cricket matches. Sometimes they are shown at night because of the time difference. But he stays up late. Dad and his Indian friends sometimes have a cricket-watching party, mostly in the house of Uncle Raj, who is also a professor of computer science at Mason. Such gatherings are strictly men-only affairs.

We arrive at the field. Mom drops me off by the curb and says she will be back after parking the car. I run to where the rest of our team surrounds Coach Corrigan. Mathew, our first baseman; Ernie, our shortstop, and I have been in the same class since fifth grade. Dan is sitting on a bench, punching the glove on his left hand with his right fist. He waves at me, and I wave back, smiling. The bleachers are full of kids. All decked out in school colors.

Corrigan wants us to huddle around him. Knowing that Oakton’s pitcher, Kyle, is an ace, he wants us to concentrate and be positive. “We are as good as anyone, or even better. We can do it. We are going to win today,” he says. We raise our hands to a hoorah. I have my doubts.

We are the home team, so we bat second. When I look up at the bleachers and don’t see Mom, I wonder what has happened. It shouldn’t take this long to park the car. The game is about to start.

Oakton scores two runs in the first inning. I hope our pitcher, Sam, is not discouraged. He needs time to settle down, we tell him. Oakton doesn’t score until the top of the sixth inning, but neither do we. We are down by two runs.

I see Mom, but not Dad. It is better, I think, because I don’t want him to see me in a slump. It’s the bottom of the sixth inning, Mathew hits a fastball, and it flies high and drops way out in the center field. Mathew starts running the bases. He is fast. By the time the Oakton center fielder picks up the ball, drops it, and picks it up again, Mathew is already at second base and heading towards third. The centerfielder throws the ball toward third base. Oakton’s third baseman misses the ball, allowing Mathew to score.

We come out of the dugout and holler, raising our fists and voices. Mathew has hit an inside-the-park home run. We have some hope, but Corrigan is silent. Oakton scores another run in the seventh inning. Now we are behind by two runs again. So, it goes until the top of the ninth inning. Our hopes are low, and everyone is quiet.

It’s the bottom of the ninth inning. We have stopped Oakton from scoring more. A do-or-die situation for us. Our leadoff batter, Jamal, gets a hit. He gets to first base, then the second batter, Robert, flies out. We have hope. Come on, guys; it’s not like us, we can do better than this, I murmur to myself. Dan comes to bat and gets a hit and reaches first base, and Jamal moves to second. I’m up next. My heart is thumping, but I try to stay calm. I look at the bleachers. Mom is standing up, cheering, and clapping her hands. Now it is up to me – Ajun the Cajun, that’s what they call me. Get them AC; the coach pats my behind. They have shortened my name from Arjun to Ajun. I see my mom get up and shout something I don’t understand.

I take my position at home plate and scrape the ground with my right foot. Looking at Jerry, Oakton’s closer, I plant my feet, swing my hip right and then left, and wait with my bat raised. He throws two fastballs, which I miss. The third one I foul deep into left field. The count is 0-2. One more strike and I am out. It would be a shame.

Jerry winds up. I see a fastball coming, and I swing my bat — hard, really hard. I hear a thunderous crack. When I notice the ball has gone beyond the bleachers, I realize I have hit a walk-off, three-run home run. I throw the bat to the side and take my time running the bases. As I am approaching the home plate, I look toward our dugout and see everyone on their feet. They are running toward me. As soon as I reach home plate, they surround me and lift me to their shoulders. Coach Corrigan hugs me. I see Mom approaching, and I struggle out of the grip of my teammates and run to hug her. She is in tears.

“Where’s Dad?” I ask.

“Oh, don’t worry,” she says, choking, as she wipes her eyes. “He’ll be proud of you when he hears.” Okay, but shouldn’t he be here, watching me get a game-winning hit?

That night at dinner it’s just me, Dad, and Mom. I don’t know where my elder brother Krishna and sister Lakshmi are. Probably hanging out with their friends. I would have liked them to be at home to give me moral support. I don’t know what Dad’s reaction is going to be about my game.

Mom is talking about our game and how great I did, how Fairfax won because of me, and how proud she is. She is preparing dinner of spaghetti with vegetables. She expects Dad to say “Congratulations” or something; if not, get up and hug me. He is occupied with sorting the mail.

“That’s great, Beta,” Dad finally says. “I’m sorry I couldn’t make it to the game.”

I am not sure if he tried to leave early or not. We are quiet for a while. I am waiting anxiously. I keep rubbing my palms together as I swing my legs under the table. A while later, Dad breaks the silence.

 “What’s so great about baseball? It’s a boring game if you ask me,” he says.

“What’s boring about it? How would you know? You didn’t even come to see the game.” I am looking straight at him. I don’t care if he gets mad.

“Well. It’s boring, and the bowler, or what do you call him here?” Dad says, without answering why he didn’t show up.

“The pitcher.”

“Yes. Why does the pitcher keep throwing the ball so long into the game? In cricket, they change the bowlers. They start with the fast one and then with the one who can spin the ball to confuse the batter. That makes it interesting.”

“It’s the same thing here, Dad. The starting pitcher can throw a fastball, a curveball, or a slider. He needs the stamina to keep throwing the ball for seven innings. That requires remarkable talent and strength. There’s tension and anticipation of what the next pitch’s going to be, a strike or a ball. You never watch it, so how’ll you understand?”

I don’t realize I have raised my voice. Mom stares at me. I know it’s a sign for me to cool down.

“Well. I think baseball players are not good role models.”

“Why do you say that?” I am getting angrier. I can’t help it.      

“Look at the way they behave.”

“Behave, like how?” I shout.

We have finished dinner. I have lost my appetite and don’t finish what’s on my plate.  

“Arjun, that’s not the way to talk to your dad,” Mom interjects.

“They chew tobacco and spit everywhere, making a mess of the—?” Dad continues.

“The dugout?”

“Yes. Cricket players are so, so.”

“So, what?”

“Dignified.”

“Oh, for God’s sake.”

“Sports are good,” he says, “but it’s important to maintain good grades.”

Dad frequently tells stories of how in India, students commit suicide by jumping into a well and drowning if they made bad grades or failed an exam. They are ashamed of facing their parents, who work hard to support their education. I never understood how that relates to us here in America.

Dad gets up and goes to the living room to turn on the news. He sits on the L-shaped sofa in a corner close to where Mom usually sits on a recliner, always knitting something for someone.

I can’t take it anymore. I rush upstairs to my room. Before I can close the door, Dad asks if I have studied for the math test coming next Monday. I don’t respond.

In my room, I can hear bits and pieces of conversation between mom and dad. It’s mostly Dad talking. It’s always like that. I hear him say TJ, Spelling Bee, and Tennis. I know he is telling Mom how disappointed he is that I didn’t even try to take the admissions test to get into the Thomas Jefferson School of Science and Technology, one of the magnet schools in Fairfax for high achievers. It’s a source of pride for Indian parents to have their kids be students at TJ. And of course, Dad reads every bit of news about the Indian kids who win the Spelling Bee almost every year. I don’t understand why so many Indians follow tennis, but not other American sports. I wish at least once Mom would say, Let him be what he wants to be. But that never happens.

I’m not interested in stupid tennis or spelling bees, okay? I want to go to the balcony and shout. But he’s not going to understand. He’s still talking. I am not a bad student. I get some C’s, I admit, but I get B’s and A’s too. Currently, the most important things to me are baseball and my band, which we have named DAN the Band after Dan, Arjun, and Naomi. Dan is the percussionist; I am the guitarist, and Naomi is the lead singer.

Dad wants my brother Krishna and me to get top grades and become a doctor or an engineer. He is not that particular about my sister Lakshmi. My mind still spinning, I doze off.

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To read chapter 2, click here. https://wp.me/p2b25R-fF