A Small World

Being an immigrant has its benefits. Hipsters feign interest in my life, I don't have to worry about being President, and I got free munchkins and coffee at Dunkin Donuts today.

I usually get coffee from the cart, but today I was in the mood for something commercial, especially with a 10% student discount. I ordered a small coffee with skim milk. The Indian teller grinned. "No sugar?" I nodded, motioning with my index finger and thumb that I wanted only a little bit.

He rang up my order. "Oh, I'm so sorry I forgot to tell you I was a student." I fumbled around my wallet for my Fordham ID. "Oh, you are a shtudent?" He looked me straight in the eye, and then grinned again. "Wow. Oh, Rucha Desai. You are Indian?" He looked shocked. Somehow, while the entire world can see that I am Indian, from my prominently Indian features and dark skin, Indians themselves, especially Gujaratis, always fail to acknowledge me as one of them.

"Where are you from?"

I almost answered Jersey, hoe, but recovered. "Gujarat."

"Oh! Me too! Shame shtate. From where?"

"I'm from Ahmedhabad."

"Oh! I am too from Ahmedhabad. I am here two months."

And then I genuinely got excited. We were from the same hood. I asked him if he knew my grandfather, Dolar Vasavada, a well-known advocate or judge or politician (no one in my family, including my grandfather himself, is sure).

"What? I am not understanding."

"Dolar Vasavada. Do you know him?"

He continued to look quizzically at me while I continued to chant my grandfather's name. The Indian cashier next to him shook his head and smiled at me, as though we were both in on some joke, as though he too found ridiculous this scene in which a small pseudo Indian looking girl was ceremoniously repeating an foreign sounding name to a dark, grinning, seemingly deaf man against a backdrop of donuts and muffins. For a moment, I thought I had found solace in him.

"She shaid do you know her grandfather? He is Basubhai." The moment was gone. I was alone.

"No. Dolar Vasavada. Vasavada. He is an advocate."

"Oh! Vashavada! No. I don't know him. Do you know how to speak Gujarati?"

I wanted to respond in Gujarati. In fact, during the entire dialogue (my yelling, his not hearing me), I wanted to just relay the message in Gujarati; for some reason, when I most needed to use the language, it completely escaped me. I could think of all these filmy Bollywood lines, lots of Hindi responses to his questions, but not a single word of Gujarati.

"Yes, but not well." He looked disappointed. And then he attempted more conversation.

"I am going to Ahmedhabad for a wedding."

"Oh! When?"

"In Ahmedhabad."

"No, when?"

"In India!" I could have easily resolved this miscommunication by saying "kyare?" but the word eluded me.

"No, I am saying when?"

And then the other cashier once again provided his version of help--"She is saying who!"

"Oh, it is my sister."

"NO! When is the wedding?" And then it clicked. "Tueshday."

I smiled. "I am going in November." He looked surprised. "Your wedding!"

Once we clarified that I was not getting married, that I was a Nager Brahmin, a title I have never truly understood but emphasized with great passion in Dunkin Donuts, and that I live with a Goan roommate, not my parents, he finally handed me my coffee.

The other cashier, who during this entire exchange neglected his own customers as he watched us, stopped me before I could pay. "She's your friend. No paying." And then he handed me two free munchkins. "Okay, you are a friend."

My eyes were brimming with tears of joy, of relief, of gratitude. Free country, free friends, free food. God Bless America.