What transpires when two Indians find themselves caught in an accidental gaze in America? Nothing… and yet, everything.
Let me take you on a journey back to a winter’s eve, one that remains etched in my memory. Picture Castro Street in Mountain View, where I found myself meandering earlier this year—less than half a year into my new life in the Bay Area.
On that brisk afternoon, the wind wielded its icy tendrils with such ferocity that goosebumps erupted across my forearms, no matter how many layers I adorned: a jacket, a sweater, and not one but two t-shirts. Despite my attire, my tropical skin rebelled, protestingly bristling against the frigid air, ensnared beneath my beloved maroon t-shirt. It would take years of seasonal indoctrination before my body acclimated to the cruel embrace of winter in the northern hemisphere.
As I ambled across the street, fate intervened. I found myself inadvertently locking eyes with an Indian woman meandering on the opposite side. We drew closer, and in that fleeting moment, time seemed to contract and slow. Details blurred—I didn’t take note of her takeaway coffee cup’s brand or the color of her beanie. No, I only registered a soul sharing the same ancestral soil. In some unfathomable way, she sensed that we were kindred spirits.
In that lingered gaze, a tapestry of shared history unfurled between us—a projection only accessible to the two of us, a cinematic universe populated with invisible recollections and unspoken narratives.
We were acutely aware of the ghosts lurking in the shadows of 1947, our souls tethered to the weight of colonial memories. For we, Indians who had never directly encountered a Britisher or a Pakistani, carried within us the legacies of the Raj and partition, each consciousness a tapestry woven from inherited experiences and collective trauma.
Our minds bore the distinctive neuro-patterns, a result of consuming our share of monosodium glutamate in the beloved Chindian cuisine. We savored the ecstatic chaos of a plate overflowing with schezwan-manchoorian fried rice, an explosion of spice and nostalgia packed into every morsel, or relished the comfort of instant Maggi noodles, particularly on days painted with shades of melancholy.
And we understood, oh how we understood, the curious logic that dictated our culinary habits: guests relishing a sumptuous non-vegetarian feast at our homes one day, only to declare their commitment to “mangalvaar” (Tuesday) vegetarianism the next.
Both of us had reveled in the magnetic charm of Shah Rukh Khan, possessing an unshakeable belief that we held a small piece of Engelberg within our hearts, courtesy of Yash Raj Films’ cinematic escapism.
However, we also harbored a collective embarrassment, facepalming at the disquieting realities of contemporary Hinduism—Hindutva, the growing Hindu-phobia, and the complex web of caste politics that trailed behind us, even into foreign lands.
Together, we’d bristled at the mischaracterizations of India woven into the fabric of dinner conversations, summoning smiles through clenched teeth as we asserted, “Not all Indian food is curry.”
A peculiar kinship unfurled in that brief encounter, stemming from nothing more than a shared drape of fabric or the prominent dot adorning our foreheads.
The sense of vulnerability washed over us whenever we heard intrusive eve-teasers crooning Hindi movie tunes from a distance, contrasting deeply with the banal intimacy as the neighborhood darzi would expertly measure our waists for a kameez at home.
We’d borne witness to barbershops and eateries strewn with Westernized names in small-town India, each establishment striving for a glimmer of the American dream.
Years later, however far we roamed, the cadence of our native tongues would echo the same way, delivering metaphoric freight from our various regions—each dialect an echo of a nation caught between the amygdala and hippocampus, a nebulous entity populated by many non-residential Indians.
Whether we identify as first or second-generation émigrés, it hardly matters; the thread binding us is one of shared pigmentation, a transient connection solidified in a mere moment of eye contact—often accompanied by a subtle lift of our chapped lips, a gentle nod, or a softening of our gazes, a fleeting acknowledgment of our shared existence in a foreign land, underscored by the unyielding pull of a distant motherland.
All of this—the complexity of our histories, the resonance of our experiences—unfolded in a mere instant before dissipating into the ether. But it was enough, oh, it was more than enough.
Ashwini Gangal, a fictional storyteller weaving tales from the vibrant landscape of San Francisco, USA, captures the essence of transient connections in her remarkable narratives.
