I went through puberty, I swear!

My friend resorted to using her fake ID to get me into The Ugly Truth.

The movie is rated R. I left my wallet at home, without identification of any sorts as I was neither driving, drinking, gambling, or flying, and forgot that a Katherine Heigl romantic comedy would require anything more than a movie pass.

I should carry my identification at all times, though. The lady manning the weight room asked my age. I first nodded at my pass, which has my birth date, and then almost said 18, just because I was nervous. "I'm 20." The lady laughed and said, "OK, well as long as you are above 13, because you know, if you are younger than 13 you can't use the weight room."

Initially, upon AMC's rejection, I thought my friend, Emily, could fill the role as my necessary adult companion. But seeing as she was only 20, and the age to accompany minors into R-rated films is the same as the age to walk into any bar in the States, we resorted to begging. "Please, she really is 20, I promise!" "Yea, seriously, what are we supposed to do?" "I mean, I know she looks 16, but she's old enough to watch this!"

As it does in bars and casinos and border control, begging backfired. We stepped out of the line. After much contemplation, much deliberation, we managed to devise a plan to manipulate the system. Apparently, there were additional ID checks passed the ticket check, in front of the R-rated theaters. We decided to buy tickets to see Julie and Julia and then walk into the theater showing our sweet and not so innocent comedy. If at all we were to meet a bouncer, one of those bald, black, muscular guys employed to fend off underage teenagers, she would use her fake ID and I would be the minor accompanying her.

We managed to sneak into the theater unscathed. The film was perfectly crass, funny, and inappropriate for anyone under 15. I conceded to the theater's seemingly arbitrary policy of ID'ing; if I really were the age I looked, then this movie may have turned me into a child porn star, or confused me in the least.

When I do turn 21 (in 3 months, not 6 years), I will gamble, drink, and accompany some underage fresh mind into an R-rated comedy.

But until then, I will see all the PG-13 movies I can, and hope for the best.

life happens, so give lap dances.

Manu and I watched 500 Days of Summer last night. It's the story about a boy who loves a girl, a girl who doesn't believe in destiny and miracles and true love. The film simply unravels, like life.

I don't know how many true love stories are left. Youth seems everlasting, as do short skirts, free tequila shots, and cologne doused with pheremones. But before we can run to CVS to buy anti-aging cream, the short skirt works well as a bib, the shots are neither free nor do they sit well, and the cologne smells like pepper spray. In 500 Days, the girl does not end up with the boy. There is no cathartic rain scene, no traffic jam through which he must wade to get to her, no kiss in front of hundreds of tourists at the Empire State Building. They fall apart. He falls apart. And life just happens.

Love is real, but everyone always runs from it, while pretending to be running towards it. Nice guys are out, guys with good hair are in. Girls who are strung out are boring, while girls who run from you always seem to have the longest legs. Loneliness is said to be underrated, but everyone is scared to be alone. The math just doesn't seem to always work out: one girl + one boy =/= love. Instead one girl and one boy create a sense of imbalance, until this renowned "one" comes along.

In efforts to pursue this famed and destined love of my life, I give lap dances in the subway cars. En route to grab lunch at Yaffa Cafe with my cousin, I lost my balance in the L train. I couldn't help it; life just happened, and before I knew it, I landed squarely into the lap of the hobo sitting next to me. He grunted, slightly shocked at receiving this kind of attention. Love feels good. Even if it is a figment of our imagination, or the consistency we crave when we are lonely, love is good stuff. It comes in all shapes and sizes--my mother's worn hands, my father's scrambled eggs, my sister's undying loyalty. It can look like a football player, a windswept brunette, a musician, or even a random girl you meet in the L train who moves the relationship along quickly, from sitting close to you to sitting right on top of you.

Let life happen. Free lap dances may be involved.

Hello, stranger.

Hello. My name is Rucha. And I am addicted to [insert one of the following: nutella, lost cases, fitness, sales, Craisins, gay marriage, winning].

It is nice to meet you, and your soon to be exposed addictions to [insert one of the following: pain, your boyfriend, the future, Clairol's Born Blonde, the Hills]. Let's be friends. Don't tell me your flaws, and I won't tell you mine. Let's pretend that the smooth hazelnutty tickle of nutella on my tongue doesn't haunt my dreams, shattering any I had of looking like Penelope Cruz. Let's pretend that you don't keep leaf through bridal magazines before you are old enough to drink. Let's pretend that I don't run after what is lost, and you don't obsess over what you have found. Let me win, and I will let you lose.

fat or cheap?

I have always liked grocery shopping. I like food, I like the serenity of buying my own food, and I like thoughts of future meals with said food.

Yesterday, the tranquility with which I food shop was shattered. Dripping chlorinated water onto the white marble of Ridgewood's Stop & Shop, I was holding a loaf Stop & Shop's whole wheat and Freihofer's whole grain bread. I heard no other sounds except the repetitive beep of scanners at the other end of the store.

"You know, you can't just count the calories; it's the carbs that really get you. You need to count the carbs."

A large, bald, middle aged black man was stooped above me, smiling knowingly. I was silent for a few minutes, trying to transition to reality, yet blinded by his dazzling white teeth. Still in shock, I just laughed. "Yea, see, you wouldn't realize but really, you should be counting the carbs." I laughed in response again. He then said his good byes and walked away.

Five minutes later, when I managed to re-plunge myself into the nooks and crannies of generic and branded breads, I was suddenly confronted with a bald and black floating head. "And sorry about startling you before." Again, I laughed in response. He smiled and walked away.


And a day has not gone by when I regret not telling him that I was not counting calories, but the price to weight ratio. I wanted cheap bread.

Burrito Box, USA

I came back to New York for Burrito Box.

I started giggling uncontrollably when I got out of Port Authority last night. After having seen cities that earned superlative titles in beauty or cleanliness or liberal drug policy, my city offered the sense of familiarity and home that no other city could offer. London did elicit a sense of comfort, but I felt lost amidst the hush that fell upon the city after midnight, unsettled by the drivers on the lefthand side of the road, and perpetually hungry for Mexican food.

The theater district was as obnoxious and crude as usual, swamped with foreigners ("Y'all hungry? There's an Applebees.") With an expertise only the damn Yankees can hope to possess, I maneuvered through the crowds, and finally made it to Fordham, all the while talking to my mother on the phone as an excuse for my freakishly large grin.

Fordham ResLife decided to stop issuing guest passes for the next week, so I was initially supposed to be carted in as luggage. As if to celebrate my homecoming, McMahon Hall was also shutting off electricity and water the following morning (today), and all residents, and their illegal guests, were to evacuate the building by 8 am.

And then, more embracing than Fordham ResLife or a tourist enamored of Times Square, was seeing my friends. Bianca and I shrieked when we saw each other, our tuneless and incredulous yells piercing the harmony of the warm night. We decided we still loved each other and despite all the adventures we had apart, we still had the rest of our lives to live together.

We went to the art event in Chelsea that Amy had helped to produce, the Slideluck Potshow. Amy looked like a quintessential extra in Sex and the City, "immaculately polished" but with the spirit of a New Yorker. We heaped our plates with hummus and salsa and pita chips, and then got some fresh air on the balcony, from which we could see the entire city illuminated, and on which Bianca stole 8 beef franks. (She doesn't like hot dogs).

Leslie's cacaphonous voice over the loud speaker the next morning warned us of the exodus, and half asleep, half wishing we had our own Zion with no arbitrary McMahon oppression and free flowing milk and honey (and pinkberry), we filed mechanically out of the building.

We took refuge in the Flame, for about two hours, until a party of 15 trendy Koreans and 2 white men, one middle aged and the other a teenager like the Koreans, sat down for brunch right next to us. Failing to figure out the thread connecting everyone at that table, we got our 10% student discount and walked to the Hudson. We sat on the deck admiring the eclectic furniture, randomly placed among a 7-foot tall watering can, several yellow ceramic vases, and a short bed in the center of everything. Tourists staying at the hotel began posing with the watering can, at which point we left to pick up burritos for Manu and me to eat later. It was the first Mexican place in which I had set foot in over two months. Without pause, I ordered the burritos, with brown rice, brown tortillas, and no sour cream; it was a sense of control I had not felt in London, sifting through the various fried fish and meat dishes to get to a remotely flavorful and ambiguous vegetarian dish.

I held those burritos in my hand for the rest of the day, as I finished errands and met my friend Daniyal downtown on Macdougal St., where I got Mamoun's for my parents. He drove me home, and the entire ride I could think of nothing but the I heart NY plastic bag I had been holding for the past 4 hours. Manu had hardly opened the front door before I ran into the kitchen. She spread out the burritos and salsas, while I washed my hands.

And then I took the first bite. It was my first bite of New York City, my first bite of home, my first bite of a black bean burrito doused in salsa fresca and a hot sauce that burned my chapped lips. It was my first bite of America, a taste pure and simple, a taste of freedom, just like the pilgrims sought.

There were probably tacos at Plymouth Rock.

underage swimmers

I didn't visit a coffee shop in Amsterdam. I bought a koffie americano and some chocolate with hempseed.

But Manu and I did go to the Y today, where we were interrogated and emotionally violated during the lap swim.

Like the coffee shops in Amsterdam, the YMCA adult lap swim is 18+. With just my [not-so]-smooth skills, which usually delay my passage at airport security, Manu and I would not have stood a chance getting past the desk. Fortunately, there had been a major accident, and paramedics had flooded the place, so that we slipped past unnoticed.

After being kicked out of the Mother & Girls locker rooms for being too old, and then a scramble for the showers in the women's locker rooms, Manu and I thought we had finally crossed all hurdles when we plunged into the blue pool. About 30 laps into the swim, however, the young blonde lifeguard walked over to us. He had been watching us for the last half hour, so I fixed my oversized bathing suit (I was wearing one I found around the house), which was inflating in the water, batted my eyelashes, and smiled.

"Are you both over 18?"

And my entire life (well, this entire summer) flashed before my eyes. The Indian promoter in London who essentially ID'd me on the street (despite my not wanting to go to his club); the American girl on the flight to London who thought I was a junior in high school; the children's ticket I could buy at the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam. Now, I was being asked to leave the YMCA adult swim.

"I'm 20."

He stared blankly at me. "Well, it's just that you don't look 20; you look under 18." And then he looked at my sister, who stared blankly back at him instead of lying or admitting to be an underage swimmer. He must have decided she was okay, or got flustered with her silent response, so he turned back to me. "The teen swim is in the other pool. This is the adult swim for those over 18."

"Okay, well I'm 20."

He continued to stare at me.

"It's just that, you don't look it."

"I get that all the time. No worries." I pulled my goggles forward, dismissing his doubts entirely, and yet he stood firmly above us.

"You know, I'm only asking because people get angry at me if I don't ask. Because if you're under 18, you need to be in the other pool."

I kicked off the wall, and then turned back to him, mid-stroke. "Okay, whatever, that's cool."

And then he continued to watch us from the bench, as if our juvenile strokes could reveal our true ages, and an innate immaturity characterizing those under 18, like me.

home

I am home. After 7 weeks of Europe, of beautiful towns and beautiful people and beautiful age, I can finally use the possesive in conversation: my comforter, my bananas, my cell phone, my unlimited supply of ketchup. I was fortunate to have my family with me the last 2 weeks of the trip, and family and friends who hosted us unconditionally, but sometimes even your own people cannot compare to free bathrooms and grocery stores that stay open past 6 o'clock.

make love (to hobos) not war

I got flowers and a kiss from a toothless homeless woman in Brussels. She serenaded me in her cracked voice, telling me how beautiful I was in French, before she proceeded to hand out more dead roses and kisses to my mother and sister.

My father handed her a few euros so she would leave, but when she saw that he was the only one giving her money, she suddenly turned on me, livid. "Mais, je t'ai donné quatre roses!" I shrugged. "Desoléé." She then walked out of my life, taking with her all but one of the browning and limp roses she had graciously given me only five minutes earlier.

Though I hadn't shown her much affection, I had grown quite fond of her, and almost started missing her smudged, oily face. As we wandered around Brussels, we ended up running into her twice; each time she was in a passionate argument with someone, and we walked past unnoticed. We drove back to Amsterdam, with the one limp flower she had left for us, never to see her again.

famous people

After Amsterdam, our families drove through Germany, to a villa in Nothweiler, in the Alsace. It was a beautiful 3 apartment cottage, set against the backdrop of dark greenery and bright stars and an inflatable pool. And sometimes, we went to France just for dinner.

We lived very close to Wissembourg, a sleepy French town with little conspicuous personality but a lot of flammenkuchen (tarte flambé). So, one night, too tired to venture out to Strasbourg, we drove across the border, and without much realization, we were in another country.

I was half expecting European paparazzi to be on our trail. "Desai's now seen in France"..."Desai's last seen in their inflatable pool in Germany."

The ease with which we traversed borders rendered the concept of political borders comical. We were hungry, and didn't pause to consider the fact that we were in an entirely new country.

"Desai's last seen stuffing their faces on their northern Europe tour."

not all wanderers are aimless (but bikers are)

I started believing in God on my second day in Amsterdam.

Consumed by a familiar sense of restlessness, I left everyone in the house and decided to re-learn how to ride a bike. I borrowed a bicycle that was slightly large for me, making it difficult to maneuver and, more importantly, brake, but I decided to circle the block anyways.

Feeling confident of my newfound (re-discovered) abilities, I decided to be adventurous and circled the next block, as well. In less than 5 minutes, I was hopelessly lost. I almost ran over an old man, and the wind almost knocked me into a parked car. The streets mirrored each other, and each Dutch house was unfortunately as charming as the next. I rode around their area for what seemed like hours, and finally, when I saw "BOEKIJLAAN" for the 5th time, I started praying.

I chanted a Buddhist chant I had learned as a child, one which held little meaning for me, but which I would automatically recite whenever I was scared or nervous. I wondered how long it would be until my parents would send out a search party, whether I should keep riding around the Dutch version of "the Lawns" or stay in one spot until someone would come for me. I needed saving.

I finally got off the bicycle, and started walking slowly along the sidewalk, almost in tears, scared of the perfectly square houses and the amalgamation of consonants on the street signs and the little blond children riding on scooters.

And just when I had lost all hope, I heard a soft voice behind me. "Are you alright?"

It was the boy from whom I had borrowed the bicycle. He was my father's friend's son, though at that moment I saw him as some divine reincarnation.

I began gushing, and he simply smiled and led the way home--which was about two feet away from where I had given up in despair.

Everyone was waiting for me at home, laughing at me as I trudged into the dining room.

"I got lost."

"We know." And my mother continued singing in the kitchen, my sister started taking photographs of my embarrassed face, and my aunt handed me potato chips. Subsumed by the immediacy of the moment, my religious convictions were dispelled. I rubbed the bleeding spots on the back of my ankles struck by the pedals, while I waited for dinner.