The J train platform at Marcy Avenue was 104 degrees on Tuesday and I am not exaggerating for content.
I stood there in a linen dress I thought was a genius choice at 8am. By 8:40 it had betrayed me completely, clinging like a needy ex.
Here is the thing nobody tells you about surviving a heat wave on the J train. There is always one car with working AC, and finding it is a spiritual practice. You watch the faces. The people stepping off with a look of grief? That was the broken car. Avoid.
I found the good car by accident, the way I find most good things in this city. A man in it was eating a full plate of biryani off his lap and honestly, respect. The smell alone transported me to Ahmedabad in May, my Nani fanning herself with a folded newspaper, swearing at the ceiling fan like it owed her money.
Surviving a heat wave on the J train mostly means surrendering. You cannot fight the humidity. You can only become one with it, like a sad wilted coriander leaf.
When I got off at Delancey the sun was doing that thing where the whole street shimmers. I ducked into the bodega on the corner and the guy behind the counter, who knows my face but not my name, had mango lassi in the fridge. Cold enough to hurt my teeth. I nearly cried.
I drank half of it standing in the doorway, one foot in the AC, one foot in the furnace. Straddling two temperatures the way I straddle two countries.
Back outside, someone had opened a fire hydrant on Norfolk and three kids were screaming with joy in the spray. A woman walked through it fully clothed, deliberately, then kept walking like nothing happened. That is New York. Nobody blinked.
I thought about how in Gujarat we would say the heat is a kind of madness, garmi ka pagalpan. Here we just call it Tuesday.
I made it to work, dress ruined, dignity questionable, mango still on my lips.
Stay cold out there, my loves. Find your AC car.
Love,