I took my Ba's call on a bench under the Manhattan Bridge in DUMBO, because it was Sunday and the light was gold and I didn't want to be alone in my apartment when it happened.
It being the crying. Which I knew was coming. It always comes.
She propped the phone against the atta canister the way she always does, so I get a view of her chin and the ceiling fan, and she made thepla. Just casually. Rolling them out on the same steel patlo she's used my entire life, flipping them on the tawa, telling me about my cousin's engagement and the neighbor's leaking tank in the same breath.
And I sat there in DUMBO, tourists photographing the bridge behind me, a guy selling mango slices with chili, and I watched my grandmother make thepla nine and a half time zones away and I could not smell a single thing.
That's the cruelty of the video call. You get the picture and none of the air. I could see the methi, see the steam, see her hands that taught mine. But the kitchen that raised me was just pixels and a delay.
Homesickness in New York isn't loud. It doesn't announce itself. It waits until your Ba is flipping a thepla and asks, in Gujarati, whether you're eating properly, and then it takes you out at the knees on a public bench.
I told her the thepla looked perfect. She said, come home and I'll make you a hundred. I said soon, Ba. We both know soon is a word we use so we don't have to say the real number.
A woman walking her dog gave me a small nod, the New York nod that means I see you're having a moment and I'll pretend I didn't. I loved her for it.
After we hung up I bought the mango slice with chili. It wasn't the same. Nothing is the same. But I sat there and ate it anyway, watching the F train cross the bridge, tasting home from the wrong angle.
Distance is just love with worse Wi-Fi. Call your grandmother.
Love,