blessings from my taxi driver

People tend to think of God at three moments in their lives: birth, death, and marriage. I've seen births, I've seen deaths, and I've been to weddings, and yet, still, the only time I think of God is when I ride in a New York City yellow cab.

A few weeks ago, I took a cab to Vin's place. I was in pain underneath the weight of all of my textbooks, all hardcover, all maroon, and all stamped in gold, in an almost imperious, abrasive, unsettling gold. I hailed a cab with my left foot, and one screeched to a halt. I threw my books inside, dove in headfirst (unnecessarily), and yelped, "61st and York." As he was about to leave, I yelled out. "Wait! I think I left something in the vestibule." He hesitated, and then laughed, "I don't mind, I get good tip." I ran back to my apartment, found nothing, and ran back outside.

I sat back inside, letting the ripped, cheap leather and the soft, incomprehensible murmur of someone on his cellphone envelop and immobilize me. I stared outside, watching the city lights blur past me. I thought of my insurmountable amount of homework. I thought of my lost writing dreams and I thought of my friends, and how much I would miss them next year. I thought of how soon my entire life would change. I thought of wedding planning, of the great offense Indian guests take when, well, anything happens, and of the beauty that is in a large family coming together and celebrating you. I thought of my parents' expectations of me, I thought of my parents'  incredible spirit and energy. I thought of how, no matter how liberal or progressive people characterize themselves on Facebook, that at certain points in a woman's life - birth, death, marriage - society bears down upon her with a scrutinizing eye. I thought of Vin, I thought of our busy lives, and I thought of how I had not seen him alone, in silence, for weeks, maybe even a month.

And then I started silently crying in the backseat. 

The driver was off the phone. "So, where you from?"

I knew he wasn't talking about New Jersey. "India," I replied. "I am Gujarati." He asked me if I could speak Hindi, and I told him I understood it perfectly, so he could speak to me in Hindi if he didn't mind that I responded in a very English heavy version of Hinglish.

He was thrilled. He asked what I was studying, if I was married, where my parents were. A sudden anxiety washed over me. "I'm engaged, and I am in law school."

He started, and became very serious. "Beta, that's so wonderful. Please keep studying. Focus on school and grow. Nothing else is important. I hope you are not distracted by all small-small things. We need people like you in the law, beta. You can help us one day. I hope that the next time I see you, it will be on the Supreme Court. Beta, you will be a great lawyer, in the Supreme Court."

I smiled. "Thank you so much." He shook his head. It was nothing, he was just telling me the truth, and he wanted to know I had his blessings and he would pray for me. I wanted to reach out, through the dirty, plastic barrier that divided us, and put my hand on his shoulder, but the cab abruptly stopped in front of Vin's place, and I was jerked back into reality - a reality where it is not OK to touch an uncle's shoulder. I walked to Vin's apartment with my head held high, acknowledging all the sacrifices everyone had made for me to get to where I am. Before Vin opened the door, I closed my eyes, and for one very long, very heavy moment, I prayed to God that he give that cab driver all the happiness in the world. 

Today, I was walking from far uptown to go to school. It was a complicated walk - the Pope is in town and streets are arbitrarily closed off (in the name of ceremony, perhaps). After the second time I was redirected down the street, my shoe broke in the middle of the crosswalk. I certainly couldn't walk to school, and so hailed another cab. An older man with kind eyes and a turban pulled over. I got in and told him the law school's address. "Wait, Washington Square Park and Macdougal is the school, right beta?" I nodded. I told him I would have normally walked, and I stuck my foot out and showed him my broken shoe. He looked at me intently in the rearview mirror.

"Beta, you would have walked from here all the way down?" I assumed he was about to lecture me on how I am too frail. "That makes me so happy, beta. That is one and one half hours! Walking at your age is so good for you. People here, they don't walk, they take taxis." When I told him I was Gujarati, he exclaimed, "Oh! That's why you walk so much, beta. Very good, very good."

I got excited. "Yea! And it's good for the environment. And those subway prices are so expensive, too, right, uncle?"

He agreed. And then he asked me how old I was, expressed surprise that I was 26 (he said I looked like his 18 year old niece from Buffalo), and asked me about my parents. He asked if I spoke Hindi, and I told him what I told the other taxi driver. He told me he had been in America since 1988, the year I was born. 

I told him palak paneer was my favorite food, and that I wished I was from Amritsar, where he was from, so I could eat palak paneer for breakfast instead of dhoklas (which I don't eat for breakfast anyways). I asked him if he frequented the Punjabi deli on Second Avenue, and he told me he preferred the one on Houston and Avenue A and the one on Ninth Avenue and 21st Street. He said they had more vegetarian options, since the one I'd mentioned was Pakistani. 

As I left the cab, he told me I had his blessings. He said, "By grace of God, maybe I will pick you up in a taxi again someday, beta. So nice to meet you." I smiled. "I will see you at the Punjabi deli, uncle." He shook his head, in that ambiguous way that all Indians shake their heads - not saying no because they still have hope, but not saying yes because they recognize reality. I shut the door, and he quickly rolled down the window and said, "Beta, say hi to your parents for me."

"I will, uncle," I said, and I limped off with my one shoe, praying for him and his family, and thanking God that I met such goodness this morning.

May 7, and I've discovered the single best bathroom in all of Manhattan, and possibly the universe

Bathrooms are heavily underrated. Societies measure progress by a number of dynamic factors, like infant mortality, enfranchisement, literacy rate. However, economists and social anthropologists tend to neglect one vital aspect of development: bathrooms.

Bearing this in mind in computing economic growth, I discovered that Manhattan far exceeds its peers, and has excelled in providing for its citizens bathrooms of stellar quality.

And this is due in large part to Beauty and Essex, a testament to old Manhattan, the glamour and the glory.

Last night, an old friend and I met up to both catch up on each other's lives and bid farewell to one another. Beauty and Essex was on my bucket list, so we decided to consume each other's stories and cocktails there. I was a bit surprised when I first arrived at the restaurant. It was dingy from the outside, looked as though it would implode, and, worst, was surrounded by a block of mundane, grey emptiness. We walked into what seemed to be an overpriced, cash-only jewelry store, and though I was initially tempted to buy red sequined baby shoes, I walked towards someone who seemed to work there (either as a waitress or earring designer), and hesitantly told her I had reservations. She smiled, and motioned for us to walk through a door I had not seen earlier. We walked into a spacious, grand, softly lit room, adorned with intentionally gaudy chandeliers and old frames and dusty mirrors. It was, literally, bejeweled, and yet the excessive tackiness took on a class and finesse that was intriguing, inviting, not at all suffocating.

My friend and I sat down in between two couples, and behind a group of about ten girls. The intimacy of the restaurant caused in us a surge of estrogen that had forever been dormant, and after my friend's second "Barbie drink," as she dubbed it, we were both suddenly, uncontrollably ranting about birth control and career women and long term relationships and whether or not it was appropriate to have only sandwiches at our weddings (neither of us is getting married any time soon). "I don't know why we are yelling about Plan B," I hysterically sobbed to my friend, who, shook her head with equally strong emotion and said, "I think it's because this place is for girls."

As soon as we ordered, (rather, after we were conned into ordering more food than we planned), we were given quarter sized, complimentary snacks from the kitchen. A circular, small papadum type of spicy, crispy wheat, topped with pureed beet, which was then topped with a dollop of burrata and a mint leaf. I had not been hungry until that point, when I popped about .25 cm of gustatory foreplay into my mouth.

small, tantalizing, delicious

Suddenly, I was famished.

fruity

We ordered cocktails to maximize our dining experience. My first cocktail was a mojito made with, among several other surprisingly obscure but fresh ingredients, Dominican rum and a French raspberry soda. My friend ordered something that she aptly characterized as a garden (it's actually called the "emerald gimlet"), as it tasted like all of the earth's finest in my mouth. We were so impressed by the art and adoration with which alcoholic creations were fantasized, that we ordered two more. The blackberries in my next drink were smoked on the premises, and so smoked fruit thickened and enslaved my tequila. My friend's second drink was the aforementioned "Barbie drink," which tasted like a terrifying combination of middle school and Limited 2 and lip gloss.

Our food was staggered, so we were able to enjoy the flavors--both eclectic and traditional, much like the city--of each dish without the unfortunate mixing and forgetting and neglecting of the artistry of each dish. At the risk of sounding like a trite food reviewer, I'll say that the "classic" pan con tomate, which we had with creamy burrata with which I played with my tongue, made it seem as though bread, tomatoes, and cheese were the only three ingredients one would ever need for any meal, for any moment, ever and forever. The empanadas we ordered tasted eerily like samosas, and, coupled with the papadum type freebie earlier, I was not sure if "India" was actually another theme of the restaurant. The pieces of eggplant on my "pizzetta" (which is a sexy way of saying large personal pie), were baked till crispy  and encrusted with Parmesan and bread and all things delectable.

After consuming great quantities of Barbie drinks and Barbie foods, I naturally had to pee. I was waiting on a long line for the single bathroom at the end of the restaurant, when a waitress came up to me and said there was another bathroom by the entrance. I nodded insincerely, because my bladder was too full to walk, and she shrugged and said, "I mean, there's free champagne."

rosé, candles, toilets

I blanched, and then immediately texted my friend the news, who replied in capital letters and exclamations and sheer wonder. After we paid the bill, we walked down to the exalted bathroom, and walked into the a room that may have been larger than most NYC apartments, and that smelled of lavender and love and lilacs. It was warmly lit, with couches and coffee tables in a carpeted area of the room. Across from the seating, there was a champagne bar. A lovely, tall, Swedish looking woman was popping bottles of sparkling rosé, and, thinking that we could have been delusional, perhaps because of the aforementioned artistic cocktails, we reluctantly hovered around the bar. "Um, can we have a drink?" She eagerly obliged, and filled two delicate flutes of sparkly, bubbly, pink, complimentary, bathroom drink. We sat by the lounge area, still in the bathroom, and sipped and appreciated and savored, and when I had to pee again, I was grateful all over again for the convenient location and luxury of Beauty and Essex and of America and of Manhattan. We decided to have seconds, and took our drinks to the lobby, after passing the men's bathroom, which, in gorgeously heteronormative fashion, smelled like beer.

bars and bathrooms

Still shocked that our dreams really had come true, that there actually was a land of milk and honey,  where happiness and champagne and bladder relief saw no bounds, we parted ways in silence.

Manhattan may not be the greatest city in the world, it may not be the center of the universe, but it can, like few others, boast of wonderfully luxurious bathrooms. New Yorkers really like to pee.

End of Day 7.

May 3, unintentional discoveries

The best nights in New York City are those that begin as epic failures. The past week, I've been neurotically rounding up my friends to ensure we went dancing Friday night. I wanted to cross off Lavo from my bucket list, and, more importantly, create an opportunity to wear a new dress I impetuously ordered online in between meetings at work.

Ultimately, due to a permutations & combinations of logistical issues (i.e., no one wanted to spend money on Lavo tickets), we settled on Riff Raff's, a place of which I'd not known, but that was on my friend's bucket list. She told me the dress code was "hipster hott." Since my preferred attire is a grey t-shirt and jean shorts, I desperately scoured Google images and ultimately concluded that I could not wear that new dress, but I could wear a cotton wife beater endorsing a Thai beer. (I actually have one.)

Some obligations after work prevented me from eating dinner, and so I clumsily ate Greek yogurt as I put on my stockings and red lipstick and ran around with one contact lens in. All of us were meeting up at different times and places, and so while I wiped honey off my chin, I was also texting my friends to coordinate our eventual encounters. Finally, we all found each other on the line at Riff Raff's.

fruit platter, with a side of sangria

We're living in times of scarcity. Even an allegedly low key venue rejected our group. Freezing, sleepy, and still hungry (the latter was probably just me), we went into the Hurricane Club to warm up and brainstorm over overpriced drinks.

A random, vagabond promoter from Riff Raff's followed us into the Hurricane Club, and like the self-proclaimed coolies on train platforms in India, almost forced us back to the place from which we were rejected. Dignities intact and expensive drinks recently ordered, we said no.

Instead, we decided to walk over to the Gansevoort Hotel, (where I probably should have worn my new dress instead of a worn wife beater). Miraculously, we got in.

the music was enthralling, the view was captivating, the friends were  inspiring

The music enslaved us. The beat was constant, tantalizing, and yet not overbearing, not suffocating. I danced more than I anticipated, more than I had planned for, more than my Payless ankle booties could withstand. We lounged by the pool on the rooftop, from which the Empire State Building appeared so close I could hear the residual awe from this morning's tourists. By the end of the night, most of us had dispersed, confirming brunch plans for Cinco de Mayo before heading home. I was still at the Gansevoort with a few eager stragglers, and so my friend and I got into the Red Room, which, true to its namesake, was a room infused with flashing red lights. Again, we danced, we threw our hands in the air, we rejoiced the delicious turn of failed events that transpired, that led us atop a stage in a red room, in the Red Room.

By the time a friend lost one high heel and the DJ repeated a Sean Kingston song, we decided it was time to make our exit. I took a cab home, made myself a spinach hummus wrap, viciously killed a cockroach, and slept peacefully till the next morning, when I was awoken by the sounds of my own heart beating excitedly to the prospect of a new day, of a new adventure.

End of Day 3.