I took the 7 train out to Jackson Heights on Sunday, which I do maybe once a month when the homesickness gets too specific to ignore. Not the general kind. The very specific kind. The kind that wants kaju katli and nothing else will do.
Jackson Heights on 74th Street smells like home in a way that ambushes me every single time. Fried things, marigold, someone's speaker playing an old Kishore Kumar song into the street. I turn the corner and suddenly I am eleven years old in Ahmedabad, holding my Papa's hand.
The sweet shop had the good stuff. I pointed like a child. Kaju katli, a little box of soan papdi even though nobody actually likes soan papdi, we all just keep it in circulation like a cursed gift.
And then the auntie behind the counter asked me, in Gujarati, if I was eating properly. That's it. That's all it took. "Barabar khai che ke nai?" Are you eating okay. And I stood in a Jackson Heights sweet shop with a paper box in my hands and my eyes just went hot.
Because nobody here asks me that. New York asks if I'm busy. If I'm crushing it. If I'm free Thursday. Nobody asks if I'm eating properly. That's a home question. That's a mother question.
I told her yes. I was lying. I've been living on iced chai and cereal.
On the 7 train back I ate a piece of kaju katli straight from the box like a feral raccoon and let myself miss home fully, without cutting it off early like I usually do.
Some days you have to travel an hour on the 7 train to be asked a question your heart was starving for.
Love,