Dudurudh

It’s the paper towels in the kitchen today – my latest target in a growing list of minor inconveniences that I’m maintaining for reasons I’m yet to fully understand. I can’t specifically describe what’s wrong with this roll of paper towels but, for instance, it doesn’t tear off the way the paper towels from the SuperFresh in Bay Ridge did. It always leaves a small bit of itself on the roll when I tear off a sheet. Worse, when I spray down the kitchen counter with the cleaning spray and wipe it down with these paper towels, it leaves a slightly damp trail. Ugh. Before the paper towels crisis, yesterday, the problem was that the water pours out of the kettle rather weirdly and if I’m not very careful, it tends to overflow. The day before, it was that the base of the kitchen sink was a few degrees too flat so while the water drained slowly, it sometimes left food debris behind. On some nights the mattress is too hard and the pillows are too fluffy. On others, they’re not fluffy enough. The mosquitos don’t just sting, they leave behind an ugly, irritating swelling. The wall fan doesn’t swing wide enough. I slide too easily off this jute-weaved chair. Milk costs Rs 28 and I’m tired of eating the Rs 2 worth of chocolates that the shopkeeper gives me instead of change.

I’ve been in Kerala for 3 weeks now. I timed this trip to coincide with the coming of the monsoons – my favourite time of the year. Thalassery is, sorry, was a quaint town. When I came here as a child during summer vacations, it seemed to me like the most exciting thing to do here was to sit at the railway station and watch trains go past. It’s been a long-held fascination of mine to live here, walk by the river every morning, drink tea at the local chaayakada, buy groceries from Jyothi’s shop, read a newspaper out in the verandah after watering the garden, go out and meet relatives occassionally and so on and on. I had every intention of doing that too. But 3 weeks in, I’ve done all of those things maybe twice.

I like to describe myself, for lack of a better phrase, as heavily domesticated. I enjoy cleaning the house. I love the routine of going out and doing laundry. I genuinely have fun washing dishes. When I’m walking around the house in between tasks, I’ll sometimes take 5 minutes to sharpen the knives because they didn’t glide into the tomatoes like I like them to. I found myself at my stablest while at home with the kettle on the boil, an incense stick glowing in one room, music playing out of 3 speakers and some hot beverage by my side. 

My move back to India was a long time coming but in the end, felt abrupt and rushed. It left me in all sorts of overwhelming anxiety. So I tried to do all those things here, in an even more serene location than Bay Ridge but far from bringing calm, all it has done is to make me more restless. 

What I’m about to tell you is not about the US Immigration system but it is an inextricably linked part of the story. So when I say that for nearly a decade now my life has felt like a fleeting set of moments sandwiched in between a series of countdowns from the end of one visa period to the next, I mean that as a commentary on myself and not as a grievance directed at the USCIS. Ofcourse going through the never ending bureaucratic logistics of applying for visa renewals every 10ish months is, to put it mildly, annoying and a plentiful fountain of anxieties. But in the end I’m always grateful that it allows me to live in a city that has been kind and welcoming and where I’ve made some of my closest friends. 

The reason any of that is relevant is simply this: I’m a bit exhausted of living out of a metaphorical suitcase – Unsure of when I’ll have to pack it all up and leave and unable to feel attachment of any kind because “surely” I’ll have to leave next year if this visa doesn’t get renewed. It wasn’t hard in the early years because I went home frequently enough to know that home is just a flight away. New York might as well have been Whitefield or Hennur – just some location of work that is far from home. COVID broke that illusion. When I had to reschedule my flight to India twice in six months because of the lockdown, I realized just how helplessly far I was from everyone and everything I cared about. Even my house in Brooklyn felt foreign and unfamiliar with its office-like window blinds, bare white walls and underwhelming room heater. Perhaps the visa stamp in my passport described it best (albeit unkindly) – I am a “Non-resident Alien”. I’m an alien here.  

Over time I bought some pretty desi curtains, new crockery, a heater that looked like a fireplace, a couple of bookstands, hung up some art and constantly played music that reminded me of home. Eventually, I settled into a routine – actually several routines – depending on the time of day and my mental state. Lighting some lamps and making origami in the morning, brewing tea in the evenings, running around Owls Head Park when I felt restless, sitting at the Pier late at night when I was too anxious, walking to the Indian store and buying ingredients for some overly complicated Indian recipe when I was homesick, taking the R train to Washington Square Park for the Vibe – a truly undefinable Vibe. I suppose I’d been doing many of these things even before the pandemic. But in the past 3 years they became the crutches I needed to anchor myself. I had built a home around me with the best people and the best things. It was different from India but in these new sounds, sights and smells I found a new familiarity. Even though the USCIS still thinks of me as an Alien, I was beginning to feel less like one. So when it was finally time to leave, a 10-year old Facebook post by one of my closest friends, Varun, is the only thing that was ringing in my head: “There comes a time when you don’t know whether you’re going home or leaving home.”

When I woke up this morning, I realized I’d forgotten to put the milk in the fridge last night and it had curdled. So my only hope of having coffee today was to go buy some more milk from the shop at the end of the street. I grabbed my wallet and discovered that I was Rs 3 short. GUH UGH. More items for the minor inconveniences list. Cleaning, washing, cooking, reading, morning routines  – everything feels laboured, harder, less fun.

The incredibly dumb but inevitable thing about the human condition is that we’re often awash in our own feelings and as much as we might want to swim through (and past) it, we drown in it. At least that’s what the last two months have felt like for me. I’m home, aren’t I? The panacea for all my anxieties? Then why, when I’m by myself, do I still feel so overwhelmed? I’ve discovered, like the Buddha before me, that the root of these problems is attachment. I’ve been seeking permanence in a world that is steeped in uncertainity. And though I’ve been blaming that uncertainity on the USCIS (entirely fairly, imho), the real truth is that everything is transient. When I left in 2015, I thought my roots were in India and that I will come back to grow more roots here. Subconsciously over the 8 years in Brooklyn, I grew roots on 68th st in Bay Ridge too. Suddenly I feel uprooted from them both and it feels like a herculean task to lay roots somewhere else once more – and it is exhausting.

But through these months and these minor inconveniences perhaps the one thing I’ve failed to appreciate is that there is a certain comfort – exhausting as it may be – in the very process of setting down roots. Of taking a house, small or big, shared or alone, in a city or a village and turning it into a home. Of finding familiarity even in the featureless white ceiling so that when you wake up from a nightmare, you know instantly you’re in a place of safety. Of remembering the sound of laughter that rolled in this house last week when a group of friends was over for chai and samosas. Of slumping on the couch, wallowing in well-deserved self-pity for some absolutely important reason (in that moment). Of looking at artifacts of friendship and love – a handmade bowl, a scented candle, a book, a message on post-it note, a plant cutting – the kinds of things friends picked out (or made with their own hands) because they knew it would make your home, more homely. Of feeling THAT kind of love. Of rolling out of bed and playing a familiar, domestic rhythm – the lazy dragging of your slippers on the way to the bathroom, * creek * of the bathroom door, * click * wrong switch for the bathroom light, * click click * this time the right one, * swrrsh * water against the bristles of the toothbrush, * flush * self-descriptive, * swoor, thud * slide open the kitchen window, * click * the stove is lighting up, *woosh* the flame is on, water is on the boil – this home is alive, another day is afoot.

Home is too abstract, too transient to find. The feeling though, I can carry everywhere. And one day (hopefully sometime soon) when USCIS finally makes up their mind, it’ll be time to do it all again. But until then, there’s roots to grow here, where I am.