My friend lives in Astoria and I was crashing on her couch this weekend, and on Sunday morning I climbed out onto her fire escape to call Amma before it got too hot.
It's a whole thing, calling home. The math alone. Ahmedabad is nine and a half hours ahead, which means my Sunday morning is her Sunday evening, which means she is usually done with everything and I am barely a person yet.
She answered on the second ring. She always does. She held the phone too close to her face the way she always does, and I could see the ceiling fan spinning behind her and a corner of the kitchen.
Calling Amma is ninety percent her asking if I'm eating and ten percent everything I actually want to say. "Khaana kha raha hai?" Yes, Amma. "Properly? Not just coffee?" And I lie a little, because coffee is technically a food group in fashion.
While we talked, someone in the building below was frying onions and garam masala and the smell floated up the fire escape and hit me right in the chest. That combination of my mother's face on a screen and the smell of a dish I couldn't even name — that's the specific ache. That's homesickness in its purest, most Astoria form.
I didn't tell her I cried a little. I turned the phone so she'd see the Manhattan skyline instead of my face. "Kitna sundar hai," she said. So beautiful. She's never been here. She's seen my New York only through this cracked screen, in vertical slices.
We stayed on for forty minutes about nothing. My cousin's engagement. The monsoon starting back home. Whether I've made real friends here or just work people. (Both, Amma. It's complicated.)
Before she hung up she said, "You'll come home for Diwali?" and I said I'd try, and we both know "I'll try" has been my answer for two years now.
Calling Amma never fixes the missing. It just makes it warm instead of sharp.
Eat properly this week. She'd want me to tell you that too.
Love,