New York, you make my heart feel full.

I fell in love with New York all over again this weekend. As more of my friends and loves grow up, grow fast, and grow out of this beautiful island, I find myself fervently defending the one place that has always been good to me, that still nurtures and teaches me, that still cherishes me, as if it's still the first three months of our relationship, not the first seven years.

This weekend was the first in almost two months that Vin and I could explore our city--without phones, impending deadlines, or any thoughts at all, actually. My mind was finally blank, and I wanted to go to Brooklyn.

I had not been to DUMBO in years. In college, Manu and I used to eat spoonfuls of Nutella on the rocks looking out over the East River, giggling about all of the nothingness. Now, Vin and I took the A to High Street, and I immediately felt transported to seven years ago. I directed him down towards the river, and walked by construction enclosed by artistic pictures with captions that made no sense. It was lovely.

This caption was for an unrelated picture. We decided to justify it.

While blank and blissful, we were also desperately hungry. We decided to turn left, to Gran Electria, so that I could finally cross it off my bucket list. We walked past the bar in the front and through the small dining area in the back, amid the quirky black and white wallpaper, and into a beautiful garden, outlined by a string of lights. Couples were sitting on the same sides of tables, hand in hand, and waiters of all genders were wearing incredibly short shorts. The brown paper menus explained the various local farms and vineyards from where the organic ingredients were hauled. I smiled. We were in Brooklyn.

I am not proud of taking pictures at lunch. But, I did.

The drinks were made with fresh, whole, colorful ingredients--entire jalapeños, cold cucumbers, bright red pepper--creating exciting, earthy flavors that turned our drinks into true bebidas.

We ordered the setas quesadillas with quesillo cheese and oyster mushrooms (another thing I've fallen for over the last year and a half), and I got the rajas tacos.

Everything was clean, and delicious.

After lunch, we headed back down towards the river. We walked by the long Grimaldi's line, snickering at the visor toting tourists who waited on this excessive queue, secretly wishing we had the courage to do the same. I then wanted to ride the merry go round by the river with the other kids, but the line was just as long as the one for pizza,  and we instead walked to the water and watched the boats and the dozens of wedding parties posing for East River photo shoots.

Vin wanted dessert. We ventured towards the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory, where we met yet another line. "What is everyone doing on line?" Vin shrieked in desperation (he has a sweet tooth). Though the afternoon had been filled lots of lines and lots of waiting, I felt actually grateful for a prolonged quietude. It was our last summer weekend together, and I had become incredibly sad.

But Vin was thinking about cookies. "Let's Yelp this." And then he listed the various places we could walk to for dessert. We got one thick, creamy hot chocolate from Jacques Torres to share, and then walked through Almondine and One Girl Cookies to make sure that we didn't want (or couldn't stomach) anything else. We sat on a bench, staring at more wedding parties (specifically, at brides in bedazzled, hot pink wedding dresses) taking pictures on the cobbled streets in front of Galapagos, and noticed a dark green, fully functioning trolley, with tracks that literally led to nowhere. We didn't question it. We smiled. It was Brooklyn.

After dessert, we wanted appetizers. We saw a chalkboard sign for $1 oysters at the cafe next door, Atrium, and swiftly welcomed ourselves. We ordered more bebidas, potions comprising ingredients we had never before heard of (what the hell is velvet falernum?). We also ordered a side of roasted kale (Brooklyn delicacy) and potato bread that was so hot that it steamed (and burned tongues) when we sliced it open.

We walked back towards the East River Promenade, where Vin got excited by a poster advertising a pool. He had actually been wearing neon pink swim shorts all day, instead of pants, since our weekend plans initially involved the beach. He looked at his pink shorts and then to me, in anguish. "I could have totally gone swimming today. Let's go see this pool."

And so, we walked through the entire promenade, by the construction of the new apartment complex, the roller rink, kids racing on scooters, and the many bright wildflowers and posies and petunias that littered the edges of the walkway, flush against the horizon. Vin walked on towards the pool, and I sat down on the ledge, staring into the glowing sky.

Summer was coming to a close. We could not find the pool, and the sun was soon setting.

We had to get back to Manhattan. Of course, the freest way to do so was walking the Brooklyn Bridge, and so, like I first did when I was 18, we strolled across the bridge, bumping into tourists posing for selfies and cyclists trying to kill everyone. We left our day in Brooklyn behind us.

On the other side, we ventured to Beekman Beer Garden, through an outdoor movie in a brick alley, only to find the garden had closed, permanently. Nervous about ending the night, we decided to watch The Most Wanted Man, feeling as though a celebration of one of our greatest artists was the only other activity befitting of such an evening. We waited for the movie at the nearby Pierre Loti, where we tried their famous haydari with warm pita (and loved it). And then we went to the theater, where a satisfied Vin fell asleep with his mouth open, and I discovered old gummy bears in my purse (win-win!). The film was tragic.

And our summer officially ended.

In his latest memoir, Joseph Anton, Salman Rushdie explains that the questions of life he knows how to answer are only those of love: "Who do you love? What can you leave behind, and what do you need to hold on to? Where does your heart feel full?"

For me, the answer is, and always has been, and always will be, New York City.

Though, someone who crosses the Brooklyn Bridge with me, hand in hand, into the sunset, in utter silence, is a close second.

good bye, summer.

My Mother's Daughter

When my mother was 25, she had already had her first daughter--a shrill-voiced, underweight one-year old, who was desperately attached to her. Together, they explored a new city, Delhi, traversing the paved and not-so paved roads in search for nothing else but ice cream, because in each other they had found the whole world.

24 years and several cities (and countries) later, I find myself in the same position. My voice is embarrassingly high-pitched, and my partner even finds my bony shoulders too fragile (read: "creepy") to touch. And, still, when I'm with my mother, I have everything.

As a transplant from another country,  I have struggled much of my childhood to find solace. I felt compelled to construct an identity that was digestible--a Hindu, an Indian, an American, an Atheist, a hipster, a conservative, and, my least favorite, the exotic girl (both in "Indian" and "American" circles). I was none of the above. Rather, I was in a state of constant recalibration, determined to figure out how to present myself, not only to the world, but to me. The only place in which I found a sense of home was in my mother. Her stories, her wisdom, her raw and authentic and brilliant sense of humor transcended the stark lines in which I was trying to color myself. My identity was simple, clear: I was my mother's daughter.

As I grew older, however, I thought to craft my identity against that of my mother. Unguided, lost, I began to reject much of which she taught me. I rejected the sciences, convinced myself I was bad at math, had boyfriends, had my heart broken. I wanted to be a world famous journalist. I told her I did not believe in marriage, that my husband would be a renowned chef so I didn't have to spend my time cooking (yes, ironically, those two ideas in the same breath--I might also add I rejected her sense of logic). I wanted to model, to act, to dance. I did not want to have children at 24 (and that ship has sailed now anyways).

And, the worst part of it was, she fully supported me in everything I did. As long as I was happy, she would say, she supported me 100%. My need to create my own self, in the interstices of what she had instilled in me, could only ever be superficial--there was nothing I did that was not inevitably a byproduct of my mother. My dreams, my restless need for adventure, my rejection of convention (if worth rejecting)--though she might not even realize it-- comes from her.

Through the years, I have also found her to be absolutely correct about, well, everything. She grounded my restlessness, stilled my racing mind. I sometimes find myself still seeking her approval, even when she is not around. I find myself excited to make Vin dinner, eager to decorate my new home, motivated not to just do well in law school, but to make it the best three years of my life. The older I get, I feel myself growing--not up, but into, into a woman who found joy in her family, in her home, and who did her work not out of obligation, but out of love for everything she ever did.

I can only hope to grow into the woman who not only gave me life, but taught me how to live it.

I am my mother's daughter, and nothing else.

don't even blink.

I know someone who died yesterday. He was the husband of a friend and mentor of mine. Last year, she would tell me about their vacation together; and now, he's gone.

It's palpable. We're cursed by a sense of invincibility, forgetting how easy it is to fall prey to the vicissitudes and misfortunes that asphyxiate us. I am one of those people, wasting a wealth of moments in triteness and petty miseries.

I was sitting on a stained, dark green futon in Flushing, Queens when I found out. Vin and I were watching House of Cards and eating naan and Valentine's day cookies. My hair was (still is) greasy, I was (still am) wearing my glasses and male athletic shorts, and I was licking spilled palak paneer off my left thigh (that's a truth). The world had slowed, and it was just the two of us, comfortably smelly and content, needing nothing and no one else.

And then I happened to glance at my email.

I felt a nauseating, tangible loss, a vacuity I could not fill with a few tears or phone calls to my mother. Dead is final. There's no way to backspace, erase, stop recording. It's the finality of the decision that shocks the core, and it is this troubling irreversibleness, one over which we have no control, that compels people to look for hope in God or heaven or whatever illusion can offer comfort in the face of such a stubborn conclusion.

It is moments like the one on that forest green futon that I would miss the most. Unassuming, unplanned, unpretentious moments that I forget to acknowledge, forget to cherish. It is a moment like this that my friend will never again have with her companion.

In a few weeks, when the sadness and shock subside, and I may resume my concerns about quotidian angers and insecurities. Today, however, I am still. I am quiet, and I am absolutely still.

After some tears, I washed my face, sat on the couch, and gave Vin a hug. I love spending time in Flushing. I just don't do it enough.