Longlist – 2026 Gooseberry Pie Annual Writing Competition
by Nina Miller
If going to a family wedding wasn’t totally bogus to begin with, now the Indian outfit mom packed for me didn’t fit, and I could see by her furrowed brow how my growing brought her pain.
We’re in London so there had to be shops to visit or other teen cousins to loan something suitably Indian-ish, or better yet, I could offer to stay behind in my sweats eating crisps and Cadbury’s, like I’d once been promised, yet dragged to every function since arriving, surrounded by Aunties in saris saying, “Sorry, not that bachcha, you need to eat healthy to find a husband,” perpetually tsk-tsking my American appetite.
Hearing me groan and my stomach grumble, Mom handed me sneakers, her pinched face would be permanent unless we found a suitable outfit, by anyone’s standards but mine. Too young for borrowed saris, too big for anything else, and tomboyish for years, my hopes for a totally bodacious tracksuit were soon dashed along the posh shops of Mayfair where the ladies in waiting took in my pubescent brown body with widen eyes, as they said, “We’ll find something, don’t you worry,” breathing hard to stuff me into one thing or zip up another, until the final choice of a Laura Ashley pink, floral-print dress with poofed sleeves was declared the winner, “So, perfect for a proper British wedding,” and bibbidy-boppity-boo I’d been approved to wear their culture as my costume.
At the hotel surrounded by sapphire, ruby and emerald cloth that adorned my extended family, I saw my father’s clenched jaw, my Uncles’ slacked ones, and the urge to hide like I was eight behind my mother’s sari called to me as I was again all wrong, too big, too strange, not fitting in to either world at my disposal, never being asked who I’d want to be, each look a judgement, each shake of a head and stiff smile brought the weight of those fabric flowers to press against my chest like a corset, my head slung low, my eyes teary.
Then entered the bride, beaming joy, confidence, and resplendent in, not red, but a funereal white sari shimmering with gold embroidery, her husband attired in British morning coat with top hat, their own perfectly bespoke melange of cultures, shattering tradition for their own making, and as our eyes met, we acknowledged our shared breaking of cultural norms by laughing.
Nina Miller is an Indian-American physician, epee fencer, and creative. She loves writing competitions and nursing cups of chai. Find her @NinaMD1 or ninamiller.bsky.social. Read more at ninamillerwrites.com or substack.com/@ninamiller.
Photo by Khadija Yousaf on Unsplash
