Sunita

Sunita is my grandmother's Girl Friday, confidante, protector, and best friend. She lives with us, sleeps with my grandma in her double-bed, cooks, cleans, and tells Nani stories that make her laugh uproariously. They've known each other more than a decade and Nani loves to tell of how Sunita warded off a mob of angry village men who'd come to steal her father's land after he died. Her voice filled with pride, Nani often says Sunita is like a man (which means "courageous" in Nani lingo).

One of Nani's and Sunita's favorite past-times (when they're not telling each other wildly hyperbolic stories about their respective childhoods) is religiously watching Hindi soap operas. Every evening starting at 8:30 sharp, they both sit side-by-side, unmoving, in front of the T.V. From what I've been able to piece together, their favorite soap involves a young lady who is pushed off a mountain by her wicked friend (the friend is in love with the lady's fiancé). The lady miraculously survives, receives reconstructive plastic-surgery from a famous British doctor, and then, with an entirely new and very attractive face, she returns to her fiancé's house incognito as a maid and discovers that her friend is engaged to her fiancé. Nearly every episode for the past year is about the incredibly slow process of it dawning on the fiancé that the maid is in fact his "dead" lost-love and each show ends with him almost finding out... and then not. I'm embarrassed to admit this, but it's riveting stuff.