I called Mummy from the Astoria Park benches on Sunday evening, the way I do most Sundays.
I take the N to Astoria Blvd and walk down to the water, where the RFK bridge hangs overhead like something out of a poster. There's a stretch of benches facing the East River. Runners, dads with strollers, a man who does tai chi at the same hour every week. I sit and I dial home.
In Ahmedabad it's already the middle of the night when I call. Mummy answers anyway. She always answers. "Beta, you ate something?" is the first thing, always, before hello, before anything.
Calling Mummy from the Astoria Park benches has become my whole ritual. The time difference means I catch her at the day's edge and she catches me at mine, and somehow the water in front of me and the quiet of her house nine and a half hours ahead meet in the middle.
We don't say the big things. We never do. She tells me the neighbor's daughter got engaged. I tell her about the sari project. She asks if I'm wearing enough warm clothes. I lie a little. She knows I'm lying. That's love, in my family — the loving lie, the not-quite-said.
This Sunday she got quiet for a second and said, "The house feels big." That's it. That's the whole homesickness, hers and mine, in four words.
I didn't cry. I looked at the bridge and the lights coming on and I said, "I'll come home for Diwali, na." And I will. I already have the flight open in a browser tab I refuse to close.
Calling Mummy from the Astoria Park benches is how I keep two cities alive in one chest. Ahmedabad on the inside, Queens under my shoes.
We hung up. The tai chi man was finishing. The river kept doing its thing, indifferent and beautiful.
Call your mother. That's the whole post.
Love,