Dudurudh

Often I go into a new year thinking I want it to be a certain way. 2025, in many ways, is a year I’m not in a hurry to discard despite it being uniquely shit. It showed me, repeatedly and in the cruelest ways, that life is short, unfair, and unpredictable. But there are still beautiful things in the world.

One winter morning, someone had planted tulips outside Darjeeling Cafe with a note: “We finally have a reason to make this spot pretty.” As soon as I entered, Tashi’s mother said to me, “Hi. Go take your corner seat.”

My corner seat.

A little space for me and my irrelevant trials, where they serve me chai and momos even before I ask for it. Where I stare into my laptop for work. Where I hold up a book that I sometimes read and sometimes use as a prop while my mind is occupied with matters more pressing like life, love, certainty, and their absence.
My corner, where time moves at my leisure, and a reminder that this world – this life we have built – is greater than a collection of momentary disappointments.

A close friend died in February.

It must be said in that piercing way.

After that, everything else felt irrelevant. What could be bigger than death? It steals from us all. But in fact, everything is bigger and more relevant now – at least that which is important like three people figuring out how to open a bottle of wine without an opener. Or playing arcade games (badly) in Kochi. Or roasting butternut squash in Astoria. Or reddit deepdives on pop culture on iMessage. Or picking the perfect nectarines in Boston. Or buying flowers without an occasion.  Or tracking a flight to Frankfurt or Reno or Chennai and back. Or seeing a baby accept your gift for the first time (and liking it). Or hosting nineteen people for an Onam sadhya at home, and helping prep another one at midnight in a gurudwara across state lines. Or watching midnight qawwali in a rollerblade rink. Or practicing Kalari in Central Park. Or cheering while one friend finishes a half marathon and another recovers from typhoid or a broken leg. Or standing witness as nephews and nieces you remember as kids become full adults – going to college, getting jobs, getting married – and all the big and little things that are bigger than death will ever be.

Many full moons later, I adopted two kittens. They were so tiny they could comfortably sleep in the cups of my hands. Their lives are confined to the walls of my one-bedroom apartment and the occasional road trip to the vet. But every day they find a new ray of sunshine to bathe in, a new thread to yank from my bedsheet, a new spot to explore in an old box. At the end of the day, they always go to sleep with their tiny paws on each other’s tiny bodies, cuddling for warmth, cuddling in love. In the morning, they sit on my chest or by my head and demand belly scratches. Do you know there’s always a moment or two in a concert when the artist quietly smiles to themselves? It’s not during a crescendo. It’s not even when the crowd goes wild. It’s often a random moment in the middle of a performance which reminds them of something.  Life is in those moments.

One summer midnight I found myself in the Times Square subway station, singing a Taylor Swift song from 16 years ago with a group of random people. For the duration of that chorus (of a song I haven’t sung out loud in public since high school), everything was right with the world. Some 8 strangers on a subway platform, late at night, dancing and singing as the rest of the universe blurred around us and optimized momentarily for joy – our collective joy in our shared moment – before we must go back to our individual lives and tribulations which are ours alone but somehow also ours together. 

Sometimes time feels finite. Countable. Cruel.

But life need not be. May 2026 be full of that for you and yours.