RUMPELSTILTSKIN
In Brooklyn, nestled in the warm hospitality of a Rajvi Desai, an absolute stranger to me until the occasion of her hosting me, which she had gleefully agreed to – thanks to an Instagram story posted by a friend of mine, Haya Fatima Iqbal from Pakistan, the co-founder of a start-up ‘Malaaiyat’ that I have co-founded with her – here in this warm hospitality of this friend from India, Rajvi and I walked along the streets of Brooklyn and on an empty stomach; manically rushing towards the promised Pakistani side of the city – for the best desi food they offered there. I had been in the United States for over 33 days now, and my palette craved a taste of childhood and a YouTube video of Nihari wars between India and Pakistan a week earlier hadn’t helped. In the distance, we could hear and smell the Coney Island, or so I imagined. Along the stretches of this beautiful beach and its avenue, I had been introduced to this country exactly 33 days earlier by dear Haya, with whom at the moment, I had shared, a nasty wallop of ice-cream. The portion sizes in this country, I tell you.
Running towards, and spotting in the horizon the urdu-ised change in the streets of Brooklyn, we knew we were reaching our destination. I hurriedly threw an expectant look at my co-conspirator Rajvi, and wasting no second, she nodded. We both paced.
As this was happening, on the other side of the road, really the most distant other side of the road that I have seen, on the pavement running parallel to ours, I spotted a strange sight. Written in almost Srinagar city centre type-font was a “Kashmir Drug Store”. What? I stopped in my tracks, lightly cupping Rajvi’s forearm towards me. She followed my sights and saw what I was looking at. Who woulda thunk? A Componder in New York? Our very own Kashmiri omniscient!
Something primal came over me. My hunger, nagging and nudging me until this moment, was no longer the primary priority, or even the primary instinct. The Kashmir drug store demanded that I put my hunger on hold for a good minute and visit the store that very instant; on the other side of an eight lane road that had no business being an eight-lane road here.
Crossing roads in America is not the easy business it is in India where an entire convoy of compact SUVs may come to a begrudgingly screeching halt for a passenger wishing to cross the road. What choice do they have? Here in the US, there are proper zebra crossings – those things we thought were fiction and here in America, pedestrians actually follow these, and here in America, it works very well in everyone’s favour. Roads are crossed, cars are driven, the whole shebang; and running parallel are pedestrian universes alongside the motorised counterparts – all in maximum achievable peace. It really is a wonder of modern housekeeping.
So here I made the multiple 90 degree turns, turned all the way back in the direction I had come in, albeit on the opposite side of the road, and soon found myself standing in front of the drug store, staring up at the billboard like an infant. I took a peek inside as if checking out the house of a neighbour back in Kashmir: moving the curtain, cupping hands around my eyes, sheepishly checking if anyone is home. In the distance, a pedestrian street light turned green. A coordinated march ran itself across the street. Here in Brooklyn, the marches are slow paced, and in Manhattan, they are over each other in godly frenzy.
My peeking in had ended. I entered the store. At the far end of this abnormally big drug store, putting all Kashmir drug stores back home to shame, looking like a decathlon godown, I reached the counter of the Kashmir Drug Store in Brooklyn.
“How may I help you, what do you need” the man at the desk, who barely looked up to see my face, asked. Or something like that. He was sitting on a bar stool faced away from me in such a way that I could only see his side profile. On the bar-height counter, he was resting his elbows, and scrolling away on his smartphone. He was visibly and utterly bored and contrary to all promises made to him, the days of customer service had been no adventure, been no fun.
“Hi,” I started, already thrown off with this initial general disinterest but ready to persevere, “Hi, basically I am from Kashmir and I was walking by wondering what on earth is a Kashmir drug store doing in Brooklyn,” I said with an audacious fading delight, by now cognisant of the fact that the man I was looking at and talking to, was conspicuously not a Kashmiri. A muslim physiognomy, perhaps, but not Kashmiri. Could even be an atheist-leaning Hindu, I thought to myself, thinking god knows what.
Rajvi, on my side, the sweet sweet Rajvi, who puts her money where her mouth is, who takes a ride around the moon and back to get her friend a lovely flower, was waiting and watching. By my side, I could feel a pillar of support.
“Oh,” he said, slowly floating out of his state of disinterest and back to the world, ears slowly pricking up in the slowest motion, as if a Koala waking up from an eye-wide sleep. “Actually”, he continued, “I just work here. I am from Pakistan but my owner is from Azad Kashmir. Hence the name.”
“Oh”, I said, now fully aware and conscious of my ignorance of that region, of how I do not know zilch about the amputated other half of my motherland, and worse, how I never even bothered. An estranged sibling I made no contact with – it had been a while. So, I moved the conversation to one about his wellbeing and day to day to do. It was time for small talk. You see, him and I, a Pakistani and a Kashmiri, had nothing in common.
“Where did you say you are from,” I asked, hardly able to remember if he had specified earlier or not.
He said something which I do not remember to this day, because my question was not a real question. Only what I had added in the space that was to be real conversation.
We spoke for another two minutes, some more small talk, and I could tell he was still waking up. It was happening slowly but he was getting there. Meanwhile, exhausted further by my crashed dreams and small talk, I was growing hungry and the thought of food came to mind again. Instinct. Suddenly I had an idea. Why dont I just ask him, I turned and looked at Rajvi, ‘why dont we ask him, right?’ She nodded, her sweet smile travelling in the form of a small bout of electricity and bursting out through the corner of her eye. Ding, a sparkle.
I turned around, looked at the man not from Kashmir, but from Pakistan, and told him, “and oh, we are very hungry and are heading to the Pakistani side of this world. Would you have a suggestion for us?”
Now I saw it. A pleasant cold splash of water on his face on a sunny morning. He was fully awake. Hello sunshine, I imagined myself saying to him in my head. I didn’t say it, but I saw him blush.
Within the next 15 seconds, we had several options that we could pick from. We were thrilled. And now I was hungrier even, mouth a dry waterfall, a sand-fall really. I noticed my foot turning to the door, even though I didn’t mean it, and I saw Rajvi’s foot mimicking my foot and turning to the door at the same time. We were no longer in control. Our stomachs were calling the shots now. It was time to feast, we thought to ourselves. I knew Rajvi felt the same. The man- the Pakistani, not a Kashmiri, continued. Now with every passing second, every new suggestion from the man became irritating rather than welcoming. Our starved memories could only remember so much. We were, after all, very very hungry. Famished, lost, cast away. And oh, I said, making some last minute talk, “suggestions for dessert after?”, ready to leave at a moment’s signature.
“Oh where do I start”, he exclaimed. I knew I had messed my departure again. “Actually wait”, he warned us, as if suddenly remembering something. In fact, he did suddenly remember something. He hopped off the bar stool the way people on bar stools hop off bar stools, as if tossing crumbs of bread from their kurtas and making them jump up like winnowed rice. With a brisk and sudden movement, he ran to what was apparently a small kitchen in the back of this drug store. Good heavens. What’s more, there was a refrigerator as well, and from inside this refrigerator, he pulled out 4 bags of polythene and placed them on the table in front of us. From among these, he opened three and took one out to the back of the kitchen we didn’t have clear vision of, and returned to us.
Here, he opened the bags for us, and each of these had a different dessert he asked us to have. Jalebi, gulab Jamun, Rasmalai, and the like. As we started making our pick, he ran back to the kitchen and at the end of what sounded like a microwave beep (which was indeed a microwave beep as we found out a second later), he pulled from the machine, a bowl of gajar ka halwa/carrot pudding and gave it to us.
“Please, please, take it all” the fully awaken man said, with the biggest smile on his face. I accepted the gift – all of it. A stranger I will never meet again shook hands with me, and I stepped back out on to the beautiful cold streets of Brooklyn. In front of me, a Pakistani billboard in Urdu, and walking towards me were two women – one in a saree and another in a shalwar.
I don’t know if you have ever experienced the wonder of a subculture. It was here in Brooklyn that I myself had the honour for the first time. There is, however, a trick to it. As you walk along the pavements of such a place, you should have the company of a friend who will guide you as you walk the road. As you do this, you must look only towards the interiors of the shops – never anywhere else. Shop after shop, like frames of a movie, you will see replicated scenes of a desi aesthetic, a desi feel and the desi energy – and for a good moment, you will be transported to a place of your choosing. I forgot I was in America. That evening, I walked the streets of Pakistan, or was it India, I couldn’t quite tell. Watching the barber, the baker, and the dhaba go by, I was ready to wave down an auto rickshaw to be taken to meet my friend Haya in her hometown.
Essay has been copied from the blog of Tabish Rafiq Mir
Comments are closed.