My seatmate looked like he was anxious to chat. I forced a yawn and popped in my earbuds, warding off any conversation. Small talk with a stranger wasn’t something I was up to.
Despite the steady stream of cool air blowing on me from the overhead vent, my skin felt hot as I thought back to Neel’s call. The trip from LA to Ahmedabad, Gujarat, was a grueling thirty-hour journey, spanning over nine thousand miles. I had no idea what state Dipti would be in by the time I landed. Maybe she would be fine and already be discharged from the hospital! Or maybe . . . I stopped myself. I couldn’t think about the other extreme. If there was ever a time in life to put my plan-for-the-worst attitude aside and focus on the positive, this was it.
As the plane began to taxi away from the gate, a man across the aisle pulled out his wallet and flipped it open to a photo of the god Shreenathji. The man touched the feet in the photo and closed his eyes. Dad went through this same ritual every time he boarded a plane or sat in a car. I had been raised to do it as well, but after a white childhood friend saw me doing it and yanked the laminated photo of the god from my hand and crinkled her nose at it, I’d stopped doing it around my friends and eventually stopped doing it at all. My parents noticed. Especially because Neel continued the ritual, but it was just another thing on the growing list of things Neel did right compared to those I did wrong. Still, despite my complicated relationship with God—or the gods—today I closed my eyes, too, praying for the first time in at least a decade. I silently pleaded that Dipti would be okay by the time I landed in India.
The plane took flight over the cool azure waters of the Pacific Ocean. Feeling like it might be longer than I wanted before I would see it again, I leaned forward to get a better view out of my neighbor’s window, but it was too dark to see anything.
The loud hum of the jet engines filled the cabin and drowned out the voices around me. I leaned back, trying to think of happier things, trying to remember some good moments from the summers my family had spent in India. Neel, my cousins, and I would light fireworks every night, nothing major like rockets, but the small spinning tops that shot out pink and yellow confetti or volcanoes that erupted streamers. Fireworks were everywhere, and it made missing the Fourth of July with our friends back in America more palatable. During the scorching days, Virag Mama would take me to the Vadilal ice cream shop on his scooter. Sometimes we would pick up channa batura for dinner. The batura so fresh that oil still dripped off them, soaking into the newspaper they were wrapped in. I’d rip apart pieces to mop up the spicy chickpeas and gravy.
I was lost in my daydreams when I felt the pressure of another human body close to me—too close. The hairy arm of the man next to me was nestled up against mine on the armrest.
He was watching a Bollywood movie, unaware that his arm had crossed the unspoken seat barrier. I jerked my arm away and mumbled an “I’m sorry” even though I wasn’t the one who had touched him. He didn’t seem to hear me through his headphones. He was so fixated on the screen that he didn’t even notice the touch of a stranger.
He crossed his legs, his knee now jutting into my thigh. Again, he seemed not to notice. He was used to a world where throngs of people boarded buses and trains, some of them dangling off the sides, barely hanging on. Restaurants packing in as many customers as possible and people bumping into each other on streets were a way of life. I would never win a personal space war against this man, and it was futile to try. It had once been my way of life, too, but becoming an outsider had made me a keen observer. Personal space was one of the first behavioral changes I’d made when we moved to Chicago. I saw how white people kept each other at arm’s length, and I learned never to cross that barrier, and to make sure people never crossed that barrier with me. Eventually, I realized the distance kept people from getting too close emotionally as well and helped me hide any other cultural insecurities I had. Fitting in meant letting go of who I was and becoming someone new.
I folded my arms tightly across my chest and sank low into my seat, bracing for the journey ahead.
7
The hot sunlight on my face revived me from the long journey as I wove through the throngs of people outside the Ahmedabad airport. Using my fingers to shield my eyes from the blazing sun, I scanned the crowd. Every single face was Indian. Growing up in America and working in a predominately white law firm, I was used to being the one who stood out. I hadn’t been to India in so long that I’d forgotten what it was like to blend in. Yet despite looking the same as those around me, I felt exposed, like an imposter who would be caught at any moment.