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.

One Story

I have always liked the idea of one. One favorite flavor of ice cream. One language spoken at home. One homeland.

It's a nice idea, but unattainable.

Tonight, the Islamic Center at NYU sponsored Aasif Mandvi, the tragically humorous, unheroic hero of voiceless, confused, hybridized browns. He read two stories from his new book, No Land's Man. The first story was about the way in which he tried to fit in at his high school in Florida, as a new transplant from England, where he had moved from his Bohra community in Mumbai. I almost thought he was reading back to me my life story; it was a story about youth and discovery and sky blue Volkswagens, not a particularized story about a larger, mythicized "Muslim American identity." The second story was about the trajectory of his inspiring and impactful career.

He then engaged the students - who came from all over NYU - in a thoughtful Q & A. People asked funny questions about light moments in the stories and for advice as Muslim artists and writers. People posed profound questions about race and religion and multiculturalism. He was asked about his perspective on the Broadway play "Disgraced," in which he played the role of Amir. In response to a student expressing her dismay and discomfort about the play's conclusion, which she said extended stereotypes to modernized/westernized/Muslims, he said that the playwright, Ayad Akhtar, was not trying to speak for all Muslims. Rather, he was just telling his story - what he was feeling, how he saw the world, how he saw Amir. It was not a political message, not a sermon. It was not his duty as a Muslim or Muslim American or American to spread awareness about his "cause" or "group." It was just one story. It was his story.

No matter how hard I try to fit my story into a neat package - a package of Indian American or American Indian or New York City or Law Student or Ridgewood or Woman - I can never get it to really stick. I do not adequately represent any one thing or any one person. Mandvi advised a student about this constant tension, that nauseating, irritating, gnawing sensation we have lived with in seeking to define ourselves. He said, "Your multiplicity is your source of power."

I will never have just one. I like Bailey's ice cream and mint chocolate chip ice cream. My mother blesses me in Gujarati and my father praises me in English. The boundaries of my homeland begin in Ahmedabad and end in New York City. Amid the versatility and the colors and the languages and the insecurities and the tragedies and the bounty, there is not one of anything - except, perhaps, one story. My story.

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.

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

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 6, and I meet Uncle Salman, one of the most eloquent men in history

I was horrifically ill Monday morning. My oozing, swollen, reddened eyes were open all night, in constant search for Kleenex or toilet paper or even the Economist order form paper, so I could blow my nose and maybe breathe a little. The breathing thing never happened. And I continued to look like a monster.

Still, I was compelled to venture out in the city like a floating plague. One month ago, I bought tickets through the Asian American Writers Workshop for a reading and discussion with Salman Rushdie, and so I was obliged to depart from the comfort and darkness of my sweat-drenched down comforter.

The first hour was a reception, where folks tensely mingled with each other, feigning interest in the artistic endeavors of their fellow writers while actually anxiously anticipating the arrival of Sir Rushdie. My eagerness to see him (coupled with my allergy medication) induced hallucinations, and at one point I yelped to my plus one and pointed to an older, balding, brown-tinted man at the door. "That's him! That's him! Stay cool. We're in Tribeca."

My guest gazed in the direction I was pointing, and looked back at me blankly. "That's not him. In fact, not even close. Stay cool." 

I had been too preoccupied with my red wine order to realize when the guest of honor did finally walk in. When I noticed him, I actually looked back three times, to make sure it was Salman in the flesh. I expected from one of the greatest, most transformative and powerful men in the world an ebb of light, or constant stream of harp music, or even a bit of knowing swagger. Rather, with a sense of ease and humility, almost to comparable to an anonymous passerby on the street, Sir Rushdie was leaning, almost slouching, against the wall, obliging guests with photographs and pausing every few minutes to drink his whiskey.

After staring for several minutes, we decided to walk up to him. In true Indian fashion, several people cut ahead of us, as though there was an imminent shortage of Rushdie (but, really, there is), and we waited for significantly longer than anticipated. When he finally looked in my direction, I smiled, wrung my wrists in nervousness, and told him, "Sir, you must hear this from everyone, but it's really, truly an  honor to meet you. You're the reason I wanted to become a writer." And then I continued to tell him I had one of his books with me at work, and he chuckled and said, "You didn't bring it? I could have signed it?"

To one of the greatest communicators of all time, I responded: "No, sir. I screwed up."

He waved away my filter-less mouth, and then I asked if he would mind standing with us for a photograph. We positioned ourselves so that he was in the middle of the two of us, but he decided it would be better if I were in the middle. So, really, I obliged them with a picture.

You're welcome, Uncle Salman.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that other prolific writers were also present. (Apparently, this was prior knowledge, but I stopped reading after I read "Salman" and immediately purchased two tickets.) Readings by from Zadie Smith, Jonathan Safran Foer, and Téa Obreh illuminated the love and respect for Sir Rushdie, who listened to the power of his own words as if for the first time. He was then called on stage to engage with Amitava Kumar, a journalist and professor at Vassar College. He spoke about his first encounter with Garcia Marquez, the influences on his writing, the literary theories in which he does not ground his work, which, he acknowledged, came only from his heart. He said that the way to write well, to "make a book," is to write about something in life you deeply love or hate--two emotions I've always considered to be eerily similar, exerting the same amount of passion and energy, both just as deleterious to your sanity and soul. 

Salman Rushdie, accepting his "bribe," as he cleverly noted his award

He then commented on the difficulty of writers from the Third World to shatter the expectations to only write of the third world. This dilemma of writers who are compelled to represent the developing block, even if they are, like Sir Rushdie, well educated, well bred, and not characteristic of the perception of the less industrialized nations, is the dilemma of all children of immigrants, who are only accepted as spectacles, only assimilated if they are exoticized. Our process of deracination goes deeper than migration to the U.S. (or the U.K., etc). It's an endless, exhausting, emotionally overwhelming process of having no home, and being expected to feel as though our home countries, our mythical pasts, our parents who speak another language, our grandparents who must boil water for us to be able to stomach it, that that is all home. 

I left the event with a heavy sadness, almost a nostalgia for a man I never really knew. He spoke not just from his heart, but from mine. I wanted to share my feelings, my sense of intimacy, but did not know how. 

We walked to Galli for stellar pasta and unparalleled "mozz chips", and then got drinks at the Antique Garage, a small drinks joint with live music and antique mirrors and frames adorning the walls, because I thought that my emptiness could have been hunger, or sobriety, or ennui. We spent the entire night in transit, as I was silent, dissatisfied, trying to find something to provide comfort to the unsettling sensation in my gut, the feeling of untold and lost stories.

Cinco de Mayo

I woke up on Sunday with my eyes swollen shut, and yet still allowing liquid to ooze through and roll down  my dried, itching cheeks. I pried upon my eyes to look at my phone, play a game of scramble, and answer the barrage of texts confirming Cinco brunch plans. I accidentally overdosed on allergy medicine, took two scorching gulps of coffee, and ran out the door. A piece of my hair stuck to the dried ooze on my left cheek, and, winning the title of the world's most attractive person, I was ready to take on the day, one Bellini and Mexican-inspired falsehood at a time.

Of course, as with all New York City plans, ours viciously fell through. We put our names down at every brunch place within a twelve mile radius of our initial meeting place, to the point where the only place we could avoid an arbitrarily hiked prix fixe or a two hour wait was an American Italian cafe on Staten Island. We finally discovered an uncharacteristically empty bottomless brunch joint, Bell Book and Candle, whose hostess was completely unaware of the brunch deal fine print and unintentionally roped us into paying $15 more than we'd anticipated. Exhausted and in need of something with which to celebrate this arbitrary day in May, we accepted.

It was glorious. Several different groups of friends joined, and I was bestowed the beautiful gift of seeing everyone I loved in one panoramic swoop. We toasted to nothing, cheered to everything, and enjoyed surprisingly stellar breakfast burritos. We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the rest of the west village, imbibing in a made up culture and congratulating ourselves on our open mindedness and internationalism.

cheers, loves

The day ended with my stealing a Mexican sombrero and assertively ensuring the presence of nachos at our last adventure. I woke up the next morning, eyes swollen shut but oozing, wheezing, cursing at mother nature for her need of pollen, and yet blissfully content.

Happy Cinco de Mayo, and Cinco de every month. 

End of Day 5.