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.

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.

May 10, and I accidentally walked into a rave

sitting, waiting, watching

Friday, the day after I crossed off on my bucket list "raging on a Thursday night in Manhattan," I was barely functioning. I was giddy from the night before, my soul was well-fed, but I was fatigued, my bones were hardly supporting the full weight of my idle, sandwich-ridden body.

But, against my own will, I was to go out that night. Two months ago, one of my friends sent me a link to some event called "Dark Disco." I was too busy at work to read the description, but saw the words "dim sum," "basement party," and "drink" and I immediately bought a ticket. This Friday, my frustratingly competent Outlook calendar reminded me I had to attend. I napped for an hour after work, accidentally sprayed perfume into my mouth, and headed downtown to meet my friend at the Williamsburg Bridge.

We walked to Rivington Street, in desperate need of some sort of aid to handle the situation into which we had accidentally gotten ourselves. We settled on Inoteca, which was quiet enough to ease us back into yet another sleepless night.

whiners & wine

After ranting about Cleveland, boys, diets, the New York Times over a bottle of wine whose name we could not pronounce, we walked south to 88 Palace, which was hosting our alleged dim sum rave. Before we reached the venue, we were caught in torrential rains, and so by the time we arrived, we were soaked, muddied, and whatever assistance the wine had provided in transporting us to our destination had worn off.

Hundreds of people in all types of attire (the dress code was ambiguous), were huddled together outside, some smoking, some splashing in puddles. We walked through what seemed to be a Chinese airport or mall--cold, clinical, and everything written in incomprehensible calligraphy. I turned to face my friend, and she seemed just as bewildered. We were then ushered upstairs (apparently, in Chinatown the basements are on the top floor), where hundreds of people had been herded into a significantly smaller space to pick up their tickets. We received neon fingerprints on our wrists and were then shuffled into a much larger room, which was infused with violet, magenta, black lights, the strong aroma of marijuana, and heavy, constant beats from the performers.

"I think this is a rave," I told my friend, and then we immediately walked to the bar.

We danced for hours, the feelings of fatigue and banality were quickly subsumed by exhilaration and freedom. We met the tallest man in the world, who approached us asking the location of the alleged dim sum, and then met one of Dark Disco's weekly performers, who told us that we should go to this every week, that basement/top floor raves in Chinatown were apparently commonplace.

In a couple of hours, two cops walked in. They shined flashlights across the room that only enhanced the sinister lighting effects, and their foreboding, rigid presence only amplified the sense of liberation of the souls floating in the room. The music stopped, and several people started leaving, but there had been no announcement, no restoration of normal lighting, and the room continued to reek of drugs. We asked around if the party had been shut down, but no one knew, and we had just ordered drinks, so I refused to leave till I drank my money's worth. After about thirty minutes, the music started again, and everyone who stayed benefited from a less crowded dance floor.

We stopped dancing only when we got hungry (again), and so we bid farewell to our newest friends, and walked through a damp, dark Chinatown. We stopped at 169 Bar, which appeared in front of us like an oasis. It was a funky, colorful, vibrant room in the middle of a seeming dormant block of mundane oblivion. We walked in, sat at the bar, and ordered macaroni and cheese and veggie dumplings. The bartender soon brought us macaroni and cheese covered in oil, tasteless cheese, and whole, raw vegetables. The dumplings were delicious, but for whatever reason the bartender only gave us ten seconds with the soy sauce, and then took the bottle away.

We chatted about the same topics as those that had surfaced over the expensive wine several hours earlier, though this time, we dug deeper into the issues, into our souls, and paused every two seconds only to wipe veggie dumpling filling from our faces.

Sounds of early morning birds greeted us when we walked out of the bar. The temporary stillness of the city, found only in the limbo between the end of a New Yorker's night and the start of a New Yorker's morning, not when the city is sleeping, but, rather, when the city is pausing to breathe, was shattered only by the inconceivable numbers of rats scurrying across the street. My friend and I stopped at the entrance to the Williamsburg Bridge, where she veered east, and I turned west, and we both headed home.

End of Day 10.

May 9, and I discover the greatest music on the island

New York City transforms time. Sunrises mark the end, while dusk sets off commencement. Summers are languid, coffee breaks are infinite, happy hours last through the night. And everyone goes out on Thursday nights.

In the last six years of my being part of this beautiful world, I was not one for raging on the weekdays. In fact, until this week, I never used the word "raging." I had a routine--flexible, yes, but still a routine. I was healthy, I was alive, I was scheduled. But, on Fridays, on Saturdays, I would let loose, I would imbibe, I would play, I would explode.

With my imminent departure, I knew it was necessary to introduce new words into my vocabulary, and so on Monday, I endeavored to plan a serious, legitimate "ragefest" on Thursday. All I wanted to do was dance (and I needed an excuse to wear a spontaneous dress purchase that I already regretted). Manhattan, while I consider it one of the greatest loves of my life (followed closely by 24 and my mother's spinach), is evasive, pretentious, expensive. My one wish to go dancing caused a flurry of emails, texts, calls from friends about promoters, about friends of friends, about "people" to know. Every hour for three days, there was a new plan, a new venue, a new friend's cousin who owned a bar. And until the hour before I met up with everyone on Thursday, we still had no idea where we were going.

After discussing Lavo, Greenhouse, Grace Hotel, Marquee, Finale, Santos Party House, EVR, and Ten June, my friend and I met up with her people (the ones who knew people), at the Box, a surreal, almost magical place housing circus performers, beautiful, agile women hanging from ceilings, and orgies on stage. Despite the conspicuous motif of sex, it was less vulgar, less mediocre, less trite than other Manhattan nightclubs. I was mesmerized by the ballerina in the air, and did not notice that there were drinks awaiting my friend and me at the bar. I blinked, poked myself, and began my Thursday night.

A group of about seven people, mostly male, were to meet us there. Though the Box seemed to be more authentic than other venues, it was still essentially a New York City club, and so I feared that the six males in the group might be turned down, my credibility would be lost, I would have to stop watching the orgy on stage and start Yelping.

And I was right. My friends could not get in, my credibility was lost, and we all trudged over to Fat Baby.

The most frustrating and rewarding aspect of New York City is that a good night is necessarily serendipitous.  The more we seek, the more we plan, the more we are disappointed; and yet, in our quests and explorations, we unearth the city's gems, those places for which New Yorkers are enchanted by their city, by their home.

Fat Baby was a little empty, but the music was loud and the drinks were strong, and there were enough of us to populate the dance space. My friend, one of the few who truly understands the pain of my departure, and my subsequent need for a bucket list, wanted for me to continue exploring that night. And, so, though it was already 2:30 in the morning, six hours before I had to be at work, we continued the party at Arlene's Grocery, the bodega-turned-into-music-hall. Everyone but the aforementioned friend decided to go to Mamoun's, effectively ending their nights, ending the raging.

And then there were two. My friend and I walked into Arlene's, and it seemed like a large, dingy living room, two men drinking beers in the far back corner. I looked quizzically at my comrade, and he grabbed my hand, and led me to the stairs. "Live music. It's downstairs. That's why I wanted to take you. I promise, it's incredible."

We walked down a narrow, graffiti splattered flight of stairs, and pushed through an inconspicuous, blue-grey door. And I was bewitched.

He was right. The music was powerful, it surged through cracked walls and the clamoring pipes and the stained counters and enslaved us with a spellbinding, mystical engagement. It was jazz and rap and blues all at the same time, genres converging, flavors emerging. After an hour, we thought we should leave, thought we should acknowledge our Friday obligations, but every time the band started playing a new set, we smiled knowingly at each other, closed our eyes again, and raised our hands to celebrate the beat.

Finally, after I used a bathroom with no toilet paper (and yet another serendipitous discovery), we decided to conduct closing ceremonies, and bought $50 worth of wraps from Wolfnights, before heading home.

I woke up three hours later, wearing the same eyeliner and same idiotic, giddy smile. The week of discussing logistics and promoters and short skirts was rendered obsolete by an accidentally glorious night of sleepless, spontaneous delirium, with the best music and the best sandwiches and the best people.

And that is how you use the word "raging" in context.

End of Day 9.

May 8, silence after the storm

Today, I looked out at the view from our balcony for five minutes, then came back inside, wore a sweatshirt, and quietly thanked everyone I knew--my friends, my family, my foes--for bringing me to this point in my life.

I'm going to sleep tonight, and dream dreams of my fortunate reality.

End of Day 8