Padma Lakshmi - That Thing on My Arm

 

People often ask me how I got the scar on my arm. And what happened was, when I was 14 years old, I got really sick. And no one could figure out what was wrong with me. I was very ill. And finally, after a week of not getting better, my mother took me to the hospital. And I, after many tests, was finally, days and days later, diagnosed with a hyper allergy, something called Stevens-Johnson syndrome. And once they finally found out what was wrong with me, they treated me for it, but not before I had spent weeks in the hospital, weeks blind and mute, as well as being fed by tubes and having to sleep sitting up, so that I wouldn't choke on my own saliva. 

 

My mother, in her fashion, moved into the hospital to be by my bedside and slept every night in the hospital to take care of me. She wouldn't leave my side. And finally, when I was released on February 1st, I remember it was a Friday. As we were riding home in our car, she said, “I've made a promise to God that if God delivers you safely out of the hospital, that I would go and I would do a penance and I would go to the temple and make an offering to give thanks for delivering my child home safely. So, I know you're really sick, but I'm going to see if your stepdad can drive us on Sunday to the temple.” I just nodded in my very ill way, and I said, “Okay.” 

 

And on that Sunday, February 3rd, my stepfather and my mother and I drove in our red Ford Mercury car with the black interior to the Hindu temple. I was very ill. I was very, very weak and frail. That was long enough ago, I was 14, a long time ago when they still had the front seat that was a couch seat. So, my mother wedged me in between her and my stepdad, because she wanted to take care of me. I was still really sick. I could barely hold my head up. I had lost a lot of weight. I was so weak that she said, “You stay in the car. I'll do the offering.” She went. She did the prayers, she did the flowers, she rang the bell, she got the food. They came back in the car, and she handed me this squeaky round Styrofoam plate with a bunch of yellow rice on it and some vegetable curry or whatever it was. 

 

Off we went back down the highway. I remember thinking what a beautiful sunny Sunday it was. I was trying desperately to concentrate on this plate of food, and my mother said, “Just try and have a couple bites of it. It's blessed. It's from the puja we did.” As I was eating this rice, suddenly I heard a loud bang. I looked up and I can remember the plate flying and yellow rice everywhere like confetti. As the rice came down, all I could see was this beautiful blue sky, this crystal-clear blue sky. No clouds, no cars, no road in front of us, no trees, nothing. Just endless, miraculous blue sky and these yellow grains flying all around. 

 

And then, all of a sudden, I heard another thud and then I kind of [onomatopoeia]. And it was us. We were flying, and then were airborne, I realized. And then, what stopped our fall was this tree and then we went down further down this embankment and then finally came to a last thud. And there was just stillness. I strained my neck and I could see my mother to my right. We were all pinned very closely together. My mother had her eyes closed, and her mouth open and blood was trickling out of the side of her mouth. And to my left, my stepfather was saying over and over again this mantra of, “Where are we, Vijay? What happened, Vijay? Weren't we driving, Vijay? We were at the temple, Vijay.” “Vijay, Vijay.” My mother. 

 

And from my mother emanated this profound and nauseating silence. I started to scream at my mother, I started saying, “Mom, are you awake? Are you awake? If you're awake, say something. Say something, please. If you're not awake, I love you, Mommy. I love you. If you are awake, I love you, but please say something.” And in the back of me screaming was this chorus, this nonstop loop of my stepfather. Almost like that cliche image or track that-- You know, the cartoons, when a bird or a cartoon character is hit on the head and they say, “Where am I? What's going on?” That was exactly what he was doing. And he just kept repeating this. 

 

It was all of a sudden, I started feeling things. I started feeling hot, and cold, and wet, and sticky, and itchy and burning. All I could feel from my mother was this silence emanating from her that kept getting louder and louder, this silence. Then, I finally heard a man call down to us and say, “Are you okay? Are you okay?” I said, “Yes, we're alive. We're alive. Please get help. Please, please get help.” And then, a bunch of firemen came and I remember hearing the crunch of their boots down the leaves, on the leaves, down the embankment. And they came and they got-- I heard chainsaws. I heard a helicopter in the distance approaching. I heard blowtorches. I would later learn that they had to use these famous things called the Jaws of Life to cut open the roof of this red Ford Mercury Zephyr. 

 

And so, I got taken to the City of Angels and my parents got taken somewhere else. Because were pinned so tight, my arm had flown across my mother's chest. And so, my arm was just shattered in many pieces. I lay there for hours and hours not knowing what happened to my parents, not knowing if my parents were okay, if my mother was alive. I remember being incredibly uncomfortable in a cold hospital bed with glass everywhere in every crevice of my body, under my nails, in my hair, in my ears, just shattered glass everywhere and I remember-- 

 

In the emergency room, I remember vague bits and pieces of what people said like, “Well, I don't think it's worth doing, but I question the mobility of that arm or well let's leave it alone,” whatever. And we were home. It took us a long time to heal. My stepfather broke his leg, his left leg in four places, his hip in two. My mother had to come home and still have a hospital bed at home for weeks and months. We had one-to-one nursing 24 hours around the clock at home, because of course, my mother this time could not care for me, could not be by my side. Indeed, she had her own hospital bed. But my mother was determined. 

 

They said that they weren't going to do any surgery on my arm, because they thought it wasn't really worth it, that it would probably be dormant, be semi lame at my side. I was so young I could learn to do everything with my left hand. And so, my mother was determined not to let this happen. And so, she, from her hospital bed at home, ordered me to go to another orthopedist whom she had found on the phone through colleagues. And he said, “Well, she's so young. We should do it.” He decided to do surgery on my arm. I got this very beautiful thin scratch of a surgery incision, and there was a cylindrical metal plate that was put on. As my arm got better, the scar got worse. 

 

I was very awkward to begin with and I was feeling-- I was 14, I had all these hormones and feeling off about my body. I knew that the scar on my forearm was looking bad. And so, I knew what was to come with this scar. And so, anyway, years go by and I had to have multiple surgeries on the arm, every time the arm got more and more better and every time the scar got longer and thicker and ropier and darker. I found ways to look normal while hiding it. [audience laughter] I would go on dates in college, and I would have to really about whether I was going to wear a short sleeve blouse or a long sleeve blouse. 

 

And then I was studying abroad and I started modeling, of all things. I wasn't a fancy model. I graduated from college and then I really started modeling to pay off my college loans. I was a fit model, a workaday model. And then, this weird thing happened. An agency called me and they said, “Guess what? Helmut Newton wants to shoot you.” I was young and I was like, “Who's Helmut Newton?” They said, “You know, Helmut Newton, the guy, he's great. He does these beautiful, sexy, dangerous, edgy pictures of women and he wants to shoot you.” [audience laughter] So, before my agency would--

 

When they were calling around so they would get comments like, “Yeah, she's pretty, but that scar.” Those same people were calling, going, “Can we book the girl with the scar?” It's amazing that somebody else thinking you're cool can make you think differently of yourself. So, all of a sudden, I was doing all these runway shows. I was doing Alberta Ferretti and Hervé Léger and all these great. And so, my salary went up. And all of a sudden, I was the girl with the scar. So, maybe the scar was this mixed blessing in a way, because it paid off my college loans, it bought me an apartment, paid off my mom's mortgage, a lot of cool things. So, I thought that was great. 

 

I was thinking about all of this recently, because I found myself on my back in another hospital bed staring at another white ceiling. I was told that I would probably never have children, naturally. And that was very upsetting, as many women can understand, and men too. And then, I got pregnant, which was a real surprise, but a happy one. And then, I was told it would be a difficult pregnancy. And then, it was a really difficult pregnancy. I was ordered on complete bed rest the last trimester of my pregnancy. And my mother, in true fashion, moved in with me the next day. [audience laughter] Yeah, it's true. When your mother moves in with you at 39, it's a completely different experience. But there she was valiant in her nurturing. 

 

It was a very scary last few weeks of the pregnancy. I wind up going to the hospital more than once before I had the baby, and one time for five days with a fetal heart monitor and tubes everywhere and staring at the ceiling and thinking to myself, God, please get me out of here. Please deliver me and my child intact and healthy out of this hospital. I recently, miraculously found myself again with my mother in an another car, this time going to fly Flushing, Queens [audience laughter] to another temple, but this time [audience laughter] to give thanks for the safety and delivery of my daughter. Thank you.