The 1 train at 116th is one of those platforms where you get exactly three minutes of signal before the train swallows you whole. I've learned to time my calls home to Ahmedabad around it.
Today I called my mother at 8am my time, which is her evening. She was making chai. I could hear the spoon against the steel glass, that specific clink, and I had to look up at the ceiling of the 116th St station so I wouldn't cry in front of a man eating a bacon egg and cheese.
My mother doesn't ask if I'm okay. She asks if I'm eating. Have I found good haldi here. Am I sleeping. This is how she says the other thing.
I told her about the rooftop, the samosas, the fireworks. She said, "See, you have friends, you have food, what is the problem." There is no problem, Mummy. That's the strange part. My life here is full. And still there is a corner of me that is always standing on a platform, waiting for signal, trying to reach across an ocean.
Homesickness at 24 is not what I expected. I thought it would fade. Instead it just changes shape. It used to be loud, all tears and I-want-to-come-home. Now it's quiet. It's the clink of a spoon. It's realizing my mother's voice has gotten a little older and I wasn't there to notice it happen slowly.
The train came. I said I have to go, the signal, you know. She said eat something, beta. The doors closed on the word beta.
I stood in the car pretending to read ads for a dermatologist. There's a kind of loneliness that only exists on the 1 train downtown at rush hour, packed shoulder to shoulder, missing someone across the world.
Call your mother before the train comes. The signal never lasts.
Love,