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* * *
It's interesting how often the Question is asked in this city.
No matter where you are: in line for coffee, chatting with a cab driver, gatecrashing a house party, at a show, networking event, interview, date, restaurant, bar or nightclub. With family, friends, colleagues or strangers you met on the subway. In your first conversation or your hundredth, it's possible, no, it's certain, it's inevitable, you know it's coming, at the smallest of lulls, one of you will itch to ask:
"How long will you stay in New York?"
It's a trick question.
There's a broad spectrum of possible answers, but they're all problematic. Extremes like "I'm leaving as soon as possible" or "I'm never leaving” are blatant red flags, depending on where your loyalties lie. Anything else, especially those tiptoes of diplomacy ("Let's see", "For a while", "Not sure", “Who knows?" or "A few years maybe?”), is uttered at your peril because it is fuel for a lengthy, circuitous debate.
I panic whenever I'm asked this seemingly innocent question, which is once every three days if you believe the poll numbers (in this country, you have every reason not to, apparently). I can't settle on an appropriate answer, given the dire ramifications. I squirm with unease. I stutter and splutter and mumble and murmur. I try to laugh it off. I try to deflect by jumbling together some tenuous cliches.
"Umm, let's see, for a few years, I don't know, while I'm still young and have the energy," I whisper weakly.
New York and I, it's complicated.
I cannot answer this question succinctly. I cannot even answer truthfully.
It's impossible.
How do I tell you that this city speaks to my soul like no other? How it makes me feel more human, more awake, more alive, more in love with the will of man?
How do I also explain that this city massacres my mind, body and spirit each day? How it makes me feel more inhuman, more asleep, more lifeless, filled with hatred for the depravity of man?
I run on a tightrope daily in this city, either for my destiny or for my life, teetering precariously, my fate decided by the flip of a coin.
I've struggled with this question for three and a half years. I came fresh off the boat with no guardrails or backup plans. I gave my fairest shot at building a future here.
I stood at the edge of Queensboro Bridge, gazed at that skyline and held my arms wide.
I embraced the Dream.
But soon, I noticed the smoke.
Then, the fire.
I started to lean towards a response.
By the time it exploded, I had a firm answer.
Today, if some well-meaning, unsuspecting person asks me that ill-fated Question:
"How long will you stay in New York?"
I won't squirm with unease. I won't stutter or splutter or mumble or murmur. I won't deflect.
I'll look you in the eye and say:
"Not long. Not long at all."
"In fact, I'm leaving."
* * *
Heads
* * *
ae dil hai mushkil jeena yahaan
zara hat ke, zara bach ke, yeh hai Bombay meri jaan.
* * *
In 2014, against the run of play, I packed up my bags and moved to Cambridge.
I wasn't sure whether I was making the best or worst decision of my life.
I'm still not sure today.
I had just completed my second year at university. I had a routine: I spent weekends at rowdy dinners at Curry Mile or showboating at parties and cultural events. Weekdays were reserved for cricket, snooker, ping pong, pub quizzes, movie nights, silly presentations for our weekly colloquium and long, nonsensical debates in the dining hall. I had just won the student union elections. I was at the head of the largest student society. I took frequent trips across the country. I was starting to warm up to Manchester. I loved my friends.
Life had peaked.
I was indisputably living the best years of my life.
America needs four years to make you worthy of a bachelor's degree, but Britain only needs three. Consequently, my junior year would be my last year with my best friends before I graduated in this city I was starting to like. It promised to be spectacular. All I had to do was show up, engines blazing, all systems go, ready to create the greatest memories of my life.
I didn't show up.
A few months before the end of the academic year, I stayed up all night playing games with my friends, which included Call of Duty, Monopoly, acrimonious corridor cricket, and impromptu hide-and-seek in Wilmslow Park. I didn't want the night to end. We played and played, laughing, chatting, fighting, euphoric, giddy with delirium. We called quits, reluctantly, mind you, when the darkness started to wane.
The sky was inky blue when I finally left for my dorm. It was chilly, but the pleasant kind (a preposterous thought a year ago): a nice English chill, not too cold, just enough. I walked back slowly, enticed by Oxford Road's unnatural tranquillity. My mind was oddly blank. I'm sure sleep deprivation and fatigue were factors, but it felt different.
I can't remember many instances when I've felt this way: vacant, calm, and serene, but in harmony with a melody, an aura, a force.
I went to bed with the thought: whatever this is, wherever I am and whatever I have, I'm happy, I'm content.
I want nothing more.
Soothed by that conclusion, I dozed off.
I had a fantastical dream that replayed the previous night. In it, I played, fought, ate and laughed with my friends again.
Once again, I saw myself content, happy, and at peace.
The best laid schemes o' mice an' men go oft awry.
I woke up, and I knew.
I got the call in the afternoon. I stared at my phone till it stopped ringing.
They left a voicemail, but I didn't call back.
They emailed, but I didn't reply.
Alas, the weeds of reason creep on you eventually, gnawing at the whims of your whimpering heart, and I succumbed.
So, when they called again in a few hours, I allowed myself one more minute of blank stares...
...and then, I finally answered.
In that instant, I shut a portal, ripped a canvas, killed a life, destroyed a world.
It had been suspicious from the beginning, too good to be true.
It was a matter of time.
A correction was due, a regression to the mean. I've seen enough to know that happiness is never the norm but a temporary luxury. It's the curse of the vagabond.
It's a fact of life, and I've stopped taking it personally.
I had received a 12-month internship in Cambridge. These were rare and not to be taken lightly if you cared about a career. The recruiter was unnerved by my nonchalance at the news. She assumed that I'll eventually digest the achievement. I didn't bother correcting her.
So once again, the spotlights swivelled on the ring, the bell chimed, and the audience roared as the head went against the heart, archrivals in this age-old bitter blood feud, destined to do this forever.
The tale of the tape was lopsided. This opportunity was a big deal for my resume. There was no debate. I went through all the facts. I tried to spot one lie, one reason, one solitary excuse, one, just one, and I swore to call it off.
I couldn't.
All my friends went back to university in the fall semester. They went on trips, partied, played games, hosted events and lived the spectacular future that had been theirs for the taking.
Meanwhile, I sat moping in the moors of Cambridgeshire.
Armed with brutal logic, no lies, just stone-cold facts, the head stood over the bruised, bloodied and whimpering heart, hand raised in victory as the confetti rained from the heavens.
It was never a close fight.
It always won.
I rented a room near the Cambridge railway station in a dorm ingeniously named the Railyard. I heard a train trundling out to King's Cross every day, often twice every hour.
I wished I was on that train. I wanted to escape this self-imposed exile, this pretence in this odd town, this aberration in my destiny, this exodus from happiness. I wanted to return to my dorm, to my friends, to those unending nights, to my real life.
Every time I heard the fading siren, I wished I was heading home.
* * *
In the early 1900s, a young boy set out from his village.
'Set out' is a misleading depiction of events, implying agency or wilful action. His entire family had died in the plague. He had no choice: if he stayed, he would starve to death.
He hitched a ride on a bullock cart to the nearest city, the former capital of the Mughal Empire. He created a job for himself by fetching water for people from a well for do paise. He built a reputation for being respectful and reliable. As he ran back and forth, Ram Lal, a small grocery store owner, watched him daily from his perch. Back then, it was customary for shopkeepers to sit cross-legged at the entrance. Patrons would stand at the threshold and make their requests. Ram Lal would get up with a huff and a puff and shuffle laboriously into the shop to fetch the goods.
One day, after a particularly cumbersome huff, Ram Lal sat down with a groan and wiped his brow. As he massaged his knee, he drifted into miserable introspection. He was fed up with getting up and fetching and huffing and puffing, the chief requirements of his job. He preferred sitting, gossiping and counting money, he concluded shrewdly.
So he hired the boy.
The boy was overjoyed. He had copious amounts of energy and motivation, all that Ram Lal lacked. He ran around town delivering goods swiftly. He became synonymous with the store in the community, and business flourished.
Ram Lal, in turn, gave him regular meals and a room above the store. He looked after him like a son. Years later, he found a bride for him and covered all marriage expenses.
The boy grew into a man and had a son. Life was good for over a decade until one fateful day when Ram Lal huffed and puffed a final time, leaned back and took his last breath. The store was bequeathed to his legitimate son. The heir had always believed the man was trying to usurp his inheritance. He looked down on him, wrinkled with distaste. He chastised and kicked him around.
The man decided to part ways and start his own store. He took all the patrons with him since he had been the face of the operation. Driven by searing spite and jealousy, the heir hired gundas to attack him. A mighty axe was swung on one occasion, and a chunk of an ear was chopped off. The man was found bleeding profusely in an alley.
He survived, barely. He refused to lodge a police complaint. He endured a few more attacks, which slowly faded over time.
But their ghastly scars never did.
Another two decades passed. The man had prospered; he had a solid reputation, a large family, a couple of grandsons and a sizeable lump of savings. Back then, the grandest dream and the highest mark of success was building a house for yourself. Subsequently, he entrusted the store to his son in an early retirement. He bought a small plot of land and hired a contractor.
That evening, he placed a chaarpai on the street across the plot.
This was the 1950s, after all. It was the natural sensibility of the times to oversee every brick of your dream house lest you disapprove of how it was laid.
The workers would walk in every morning to find him sitting impatiently on the chaarpai, come rain or shine, ready with instructions for the day. His unflinching presence became a permanent fixture of the street to passersby, sipping chai, shouting orders and reading the newspaper. For hours daily, he pensively watched his house rise from the dirt of centuries of stagnancy and generations of sacrifice under the brutish sun of Agra.
But despite the protracted conversations with people walking by, the slow, measured sips of chai, the stern walks around the premises and the careful perusal of every article in the daily paper, he still found a few moments when he couldn't invent any more tasks.
So, to keep himself busy, he dug a hole next to the chaarpai and planted a peepal seed.
* * *
I'm stranded at the Peterborough station on a drizzly night (or 'just any other night' in British English). My train to Manchester was delayed indefinitely.
I was sitting on the platform floor, facing the dismal prospect of waiting in the persistent cold and rain for a few hours at best or till dawn at worst.
As I wallowed in self-pity, it struck me that this was officially my first solo trip.
Inadvertently, I started fixating on random parts of the station, uncannily intrigued and lost in thought.
That station felt different. That night felt different.
I turned and scanned the impenetrable darkness, compelled by a mysterious urge, searching for a pinprick of light, that beacon that would take me home.
I gazed into the abyss, and the abyss gazed back.
A pattern emerged. The scene had a marked beauty: symmetrical tracks, a darkening crescendo, and that limitless chasm. I felt a longing so different, so ethereal, and so otherworldly.
I was drawn into the void. I took a couple of involuntary steps before I came to my senses.
I mused for a moment and clicked a picture.
I reflected on that urge many years later. There was something about trains, tracks and stations. Something. Something I found romantic, poetic, mysterious, and hypnotic. Something I found seductive, a whisper, a tease, a caressing hand pulling me closer.
An intuition awakened and planted its seed that night.
It spread its roots and has remained entrenched since:
Trains carry my secret.
*
kahin building, kahin traamen, kahin motor, kahin mill
milta hai yahaan sab kuchh, ek milta nahin dil
In Notes From A Small Island, Bill Bryson says there are three reasons to always be happy.
First, the fact that you were born is a miraculous achievement, given the biological improbability.
Second, you are briefly alive in this tiny, wonderful moment in eternity.
Third, you have plenty to eat, live in a time of relative peace, and 'Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree' Despacito will never be number one on the charts again.
If you bear these things in mind, you will never be truly unhappy.
But I suspect if you ever confront the prospect of house hunting in Manhattan, you may come close.
My Upper West lease was ending in a month, and I still hadn't found a habitable apartment. I was ready to jump into the Hudson in angst, but I built up the last of my courage to explore one final option.
The moment I emerged from the station, I knew this was it.
This confession should alarm you. You see, Hudson Yards, a newly minted neighbourhood wedged between Hell's Kitchen and Chelsea, was not popular.
Less than a decade ago, it was a rare (and probably only) underdeveloped piece of land on the island, operating as a hodgepodge industrial appendix. It was home to a sprawling rail yard for Long Island Rail Road commuter trains that assisted the rush hours at Penn Station. It housed dilapidated warehouses and stables, where Central Park's industrious, under-appreciated horses came to rest and rejuvenate every night. Gritty, grim, desolate and dangerous (honourably ranked the 61st safest precinct out of 69), it was bottom-ended by an abandoned, weed-infested elevated railway track.
It was numero uno for urban redevelopment due to its location. When proposals for an Olympic stadium capitulated, a mixed-use district was built instead, and modern-day Hudson Yards was born.
Despite good intentions, serious mistakes were made, and existing problems were ignored.
A small example: petulant trains blared a loud air horn, loud enough to cause a sonic boom, at least five times per day when they barrelled out of the West Side Yard. The ambient din is already excessively high in the city. The ruckus of police, firetrucks, or ambulance sirens is white noise. Naturally, every resident hated the unsolicited racket.
The Lincoln Tunnel was the icing on the cake. It staged pandemonium every alternate night, notably when the Madison Square Garden hosted the Knicks. The regular thrum of aircraft flying over the Hudson, whether commercial airliners, rattling helicopters or thunderous Lockheed Combat Kings, was the cherry on top.
It was common knowledge that planes, trains, and automobiles were the primary reasons New Yorkers didn't rent in the area.
There were more problems. Apartments were expensive. But the horse stables still remained in this ostentatiously posh neighbourhood. When you left for work in the early morning, dressed to the nines for essential trades trading, presentations presenting, and emails emailing, it was a time-honoured tradition to be greeted by a procession of horses waiting at the curb nearby, snorting, nickering, and deftly painting the footpath with dung. Humbled by the fact that all that rent wasn't catapulting you into the upper elite but rather literally making you wade through horse shit daily, you squelched through with a wrenched nose and a deflated ego.
These are just minor oversights. We'll skip the major issues in the interest of brevity (considering we aren't even halfway through this essay, brevity is clearly my strong suit). Just to give you a teaser, they would include the neighbourhood's incongruity, whether in architecture, culture or 'vibe', its conspicuously flashy protrusion on this city's treasured skyline (one reporter called it a disciple of the 'canons of cloud cuckoo land') and that headless cockroach that principally functioned as a Vessel-shaped suicide hotspot.
It would be fair to say that Hudson Yards was among Manhattan's least popular neighbourhoods.
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But, alarmingly, I loved it.
The natural question is why, after all the unforgivable atrocities listed above?
In retrospect, I have several suspicions:
First, the congregation of glass spires felt homely, maybe because they reminded me of Dubai. In that vein, perhaps the proximity to a mall felt comforting.
It was also reminiscent of another multiple-block-wide redevelopment project: the Rockefeller Center, my favourite structure in the city, and Hudson Yards' logical ancestor.
Second, the neighbourhood was on the western fringes of Midtown, ideally placed for my quest to become a bonafide New Yorker.
Third, that abandoned, weed-infested elevated railway track had blossomed into the High Line, an urban oasis celebrated for design, nature and art installations. It was indisputably one of my favourite spots.
Fourth, I even liked the little things others hated for some reason. I liked the 7 Flushing Local, the Orient Express, even though it was notoriously late and conspicuously absent on weekends. I liked that it took me directly to the deserted Flushing Meadows, Fitzgerald's valley of ashes, with its skeletons of the World's Fair.
I liked the stables. On many mornings, as I grumpily got out of bed and pulled up my blinds, I was amused by the sight seventeen stories below of little toy horses standing in resigned obedience.
Fifth, despite all those loud noises mentioned above, it was only deafening in pockets. For most of the day, the area was a uniquely peaceful spot, an uncommon, relatively silent retreat barely minutes away from all the chaos, equivalent to gold dust in this borough.
But sixth, and this is the one I'd bet on, poetic in my head, foolishly romantic in yours, I'm sure, I was going to sign the lease even before I stepped into the apartment.
I was sold the moment I learned about the neighbourhood's history, saw the yards, and heard that siren.
I know you're rolling your eyes, but I can't help myself. I'm built this way, sadly.
It was a done deal because, foolishly, romantically, poetically, I would once again live next to a rail yard.
*
I even liked those infuriating LIRR sirens, shockingly.
Every time I heard those trains thudding away, I was reminded of those gloomy afternoons in Cambridge, my nose pressed wistfully against the raindrop-splattered window as I watched them depart for King's Cross.
But in present-day, as trains blared away from Hudson Yards, I didn't wish to be on them.
I didn't want to leave.
But for some reason, and I found this extremely disquieting, I still never felt completely at home.
insaan ka nahin kahin naam-o-nishaan
zara hat ke, zara bach ke, yeh hai Bombay meri jaan
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* * *
A rusty shoe shine stand lives on the corner of 5th Ave and 42nd.
An old bespectacled shoe shiner sits on that emerald throne, quietly observing the world around him. Like the man on the chaarpai, he had become a permanent fixture of his street.
As I walked past the stand every morning, he peered through his glasses and inclined his head, offering a quick shine of my worn-out shoes.
This had become a daily ritual.
I smiled at him every time, shook my head slightly and kept walking.
*
I looked for him eagerly amidst the horde as I emerged from Bryant Park's tunnels.
Often, the fanned-out pages of the daily newspaper hid his face. He belonged to an older New York, a different world, a different life, one of the last descendants of those who still sourced their news in paper form.
Sometimes, the stand was covered by a tarp, with the shiner nowhere to be seen. Even though it made no tangible difference to me, I felt slight disappointment on those days.
I might find him underneath a giant umbrella when it rained or snowed.
He didn't look at me on those days, and I didn't smile at him.
I just kept walking on.
* * *
I'm cycling to Chinatown.
Inconvenience, delays, and discomfort are part and parcel of travelling in this metropolis. You can only walk so far, and you cannot justify owning a car. Parking garage costs even deter those driving in from outside Manhattan. On days when inclement weather isn't fit for walking, no other mode of transport is conducive either. Trains get delayed. Stations are either freezing, sweltering hot, or submerged under the torrential downpour. Cabs hike their fares astronomically. Traffic is at a standstill.
Going anywhere in the city requires lots of internal convincing. Suppose your destination is Brooklyn, Queens, or Jersey, god forbid. In that case, it's much easier to not show up than engage in the ferocious battle of commuting.
Everything changed the day I started using Citibikes.
As I zoomed down the Hudson River Greenway, weaved through traffic, picked a bike here, dropped a bike there, and sliced through the bones of this dense grid like butter, this stubborn metropolis flattened like a canvas and became mine to conquer.
One morning, on the eve of the Chinese New Year, I was trundling down to a dim sum restaurant. Given the abundance of things to do in this city, months can pass before you revisit Downtown or SoHo or Williamsburg or Upper East or Hoboken or Harlem or Bushwick or Dumbo. I regret not visiting more often every time I go back.
I stopped under the shadow of the Woolworth. It was one of the first buildings that taught me that castles don't have to be flat and wide but can be high in the sky, towering over the clouds. I looked up at its regality, its majesty.
I felt a tinge of remorse again.
The song switched to Yeh Hai Bombay Meri Jaan.
You know those moments that make life worth living?
That rare moment at a pier, dangling your legs as you admire the river, or at a rooftop overlooking the masterpiece?
I set off amidst the sentinels of Art Deco, marvelling at how the lyrics complemented the milieu. The bike, streets and people melted away. I was soaring, gliding effortlessly through this wondrous fantasy, in the zone, in some flow state, in a brief moment of transcendence.
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No matter your chosen pursuit, America was the place to pursue it.
My father often wondered: Should he have tried to move to America like all his college friends when he was younger? Did he give up on a better life by settling in the Middle East?
Did he make a big mistake?
*
San Francisco was the first place I visited in the United States in 2014.
Even though I grew up indulging in American pop culture, I couldn't pin it down. What exactly was American culture? So far, it was vast and vague, ambiguous and fluid.
It started to take shape when I visited the West Coast. I heard We Built This City on every corner of the Golden City. I strolled through Union Square, Chinatown and Alcatraz. I watched long-form improv at the Groundlings. I was fascinated by Silicon Valley's broad avenues, the Golden Gate's soaring suspension towers and elongated palm trees.
I travelled further north and was surprised, embarrassingly, to find so much depth in a region as small as the Pacific Northwest. I learned about the origins of Grunge and Punk. I didn't know that a cuisine of marionberries, huckleberries, wild mushrooms, Tillamook cheeses, and biscuits could exist. I had always believed that American food was just burgers, hot dogs and pizzas.
Maybe my father had made a huge mistake.
An image emerged from the fog, painting a portrait of abundance, luxury and comfort.
It impressed me greatly.
I started respecting it a lot more, both the city of San Francisco, which is an institution in itself, and the concept, the idea, the dream of America.
* * *
The peepal tree grew fast, sturdy and permanent, looming over the house like a custodian.
It had always been there as far as the grandsons' could remember. When they grew up, they went far from home for college or work and often forgot about that house.
After a long period away, they would receive a letter summoning them back. Only when they reached a specific point in their return journey did they realise how deeply they had compartmentalised their homesickness.
It was always at the corner of Paliwal Park that they felt a rush of adrenaline, a delightful lightness, and a tug at the heart when they spotted in the distance 'woh peepal ka pedh'.
* * *
I walked ahead at the Museum of Flight in Seattle to catch up with my tour guide, a former Vietnam War veteran. I badgered him with questions, as I found him more interesting than the aircraft. The former PsyOps specialist explained how his job was to manipulate, intimidate, and psychologically break the enemy.
"It's like advertising, really," he added gravely.
I cannot tell you how much I love talking to tour guides. Across the nation, I met extraordinary people, usually old and retired, who volunteered their time at institutions like the American Museum of Natural History or the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I loved listening to their tales. Their passion for the subject was contagious. They continually emphasised how lucky they were to stand in those temples.
At the Palm Springs Air Museum, I met Major Smith, a veteran who was shot down in Vietnam. He was rescued in the nick of time, cowering as he heard guerrillas savagely searching the foliage nearby. He narrated his near-death escapades with a quiet listlessness, which I found unsettling.
On another tour, my hunched 80-year-old guide limped to our group and announced: "I will answer any question today, except about my age."
"You look great," I quipped.
"You are kinda cute yourself," he snapped back with a twinkle in his eye.
* * *
I'm heading to Harlem on the 1 train.
A black man walked into our carriage. "I play the piano only to spread happiness and laughter," he bellowed.
He placed his feet apart and played the most wonderful tune I've ever heard.
Another black man narrowed his eyes. "Brother, that ain't you," he scoffed.
The piano man locked eyes with him and played the same tune in staccato, flexing his skill. His critic's eyes widened.
"How long have you been playing the piano?" he asked in wonder.
"A long time."
I steal a quick glance as I exit the train.
I see them both smiling.
* * *
In the summer of 1994, far in the Middle East, in an unassuming part of the world named Oman, in its brooding city of Muscat, in a random alley, you would've found a woman every morning, sitting on a plastic chair, holding a baby.
The doctor had told her that the infant needed sunlight in the morning. So, she got up at the first rays of dawn, cradled her sleeping baby and hurried outside. She did it every day for months, even if it meant losing hours of sleep (and God knows she needed all the rest she could get with another three-year-old rascal son in the house).
I don't know how she never got bored; I never asked.
I don't know how she got the drive or discipline; I never asked.
But then, there's still so much I have to ask my mother, who, like only mothers can, has done so many inexplicable things that can only be explained away as motherly love.
Naturally, I have no memory of those mornings.
But I like the thought of it.
It's a shame I don't remember because I like to believe that I slept calmly as the first rays of the morning hit my face, cradled by unfathomable love, undeniably at peace, indisputably at home in her arms.
* * *
There is a memory that haunts me.
I lived a glorious life in Dubai. I made marvellous memories, met phenomenal people and had extraordinary experiences. When I left, I wrote that it was the best way to spend my early twenties, and I truly meant it.
One memory stands out. A year after I got my driving license, it dawned on me that I had started looking forward to driving on Emirates Mohammad bin Zayed Road late at night.
It didn't matter what I had done that day. I could've eaten the most incredible food: from a garlic cheese manakish, fatayer, to a falafel mathar. I could've been drugged by the curries of Delhi Darbar or the dosas of Venus. I could've overindulged, as always, at bakeries where the bread is always hot, and hummus is always fresh, or Keralite cafes that serve the warmest parotta wraps with fries wedged in between the hot sauce.
I could've watched a movie (read: ruthlessly devoured nachos dipped in cheese as it played in the background). I could've hiked a wadi or barbecued in the dunes. I could've watched theatre or improv in the warehouses of Al Serkal.
I could've witnessed the gradual evolution of Dubai's artistic soul. It's so rare to catch a city of the future in its infancy; I can only imagine the thrill of living in New York in the '30s.
I could've sat outdoors with friends, karak chai in hand, recounting classic school stories, with the skyline, a genuine work of art, the modern embodiment of the will of man, of his reach into the future, watching over us.
I could've bandied with a sheikh or tap-danced with the Pope.
It didn't matter.
Everything was forgotten when I merged into the E311 highway from Al Ain Road.
I had only seven kilometres till I spotted that blue signboard in the distance, exit 30, that would take me into Motor City, my home.
The golden glow of the streetlights seeped into the car, onto my face, into my heart.
I took a deep breath.
I put on a song by George Harrison.
* * *
"Years from now, years and years, one of those ships will bring me back, me and my nine Brazilian brats. Because yes, they must see this, these lights, the river — I love New York, even though it isn't mine, the way something has to be, a tree or a street or a house, something, anyway, that belongs to me because I belong to it."
It's the 200th anniversary of 5th Avenue.
It's been closed to traffic for a giant celebration. There are stalls, music and performances. I gape at the window displays at Saks. I walk past Rockefeller and its tree, St. Patrick's Cathedral, and the statue of Atlas.
The sun is about to set. I walk in the middle of the road because it is a rare day when I can.
I can see the horizon at the end of the thoroughfare, framed by the gilded mansions.
I stop for breakfast at Tiffany's.
* * *
I love New York.
Rather, I love the idea of New York. I love what it stands for and the tribe of people it attracts.
I love what it makes you feel.
bura duniya, woh hai kehta
aisa bhola tu na ban
Should I live in this city? There's no debate. It has to be an unequivocal, resounding yes.
I cannot argue with cold, plain logic.
I've tried and failed each time. Maybe you can help: I'll list some reasons, and please stop me if you spot a lie?
Actually, a list won't do justice. Let me show you. Come and hold my hand, and let me take you on a few short walks in New York.
On one, we can trace immigrant history and influence as we stroll through Chinatown or Washington Heights, Little Italy or Crown Heights, Staten Island or South Williamsburg, Journal Square or Jackson Heights, cities within a city, living and breathing dioramas of diverse cultures and communities.
On another short walk, we can witness the greatness and sanctity of architecture as we pass Art Deco, Neoclassical, Beaux-Arts, Gothic, and Greek Revival monuments in quick succession.
They're the root causes of my tardiness. I just have to stop and look up, transfixed by the sublime divinity embedded in steel, concrete, and brownstone.
Even after all this time, always.
We can stand at a shoe shine stand, yes, that one, and see Grand Central on the left, sandwiched between Chrysler and Vanderbilt. In the rear, the ornate palaces of Fifth Avenue, Public Library in front, American Radiator behind and Empire State ruling over them all.
All in one spot, audacious, if not a miracle, and this is just one of many.
On another walk, we can quickly dismiss the stereotype that fast food is the national cuisine. We'll pass institutions serving family-style Italian platters, heroes, fifty different pizza styles, bagels, bialys, soul food, hot dogs, chopped cheese, empanadas, patacons, ramen, and cheesecakes.
Let's walk from downtown to midtown. We'll cross temples for every art form, from comedy at the Cellar, Jazz at Smalls, burlesque in the Village, Broadway in the Theatre District, classical music at Carnegie, dance at Alvin Ailey, acting at Actor's Studio, television studios at Rockefeller, to any show at Radio City or the Garden.
These are just a couple of walks, not even particularly long ones, in one borough, in one city in this vast country. Similar walks exist in Philadelphia, Boston, New Orleans, Nashville, Washington DC, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Ever since my embarrassing awakening in San Francisco in 2014, I can't deny the depth and breadth of American culture.
Despite its grandeur and magnitude, even New York is an unsatisfying microcosm of this country's cultural wealth and variance.
Tell me, am I lying?
I haven't even mentioned New York's influence on film and television. The buildings resembling vertical sails, scintillating and very light, and luxurious backdrops suspended in the dark sky to dazzle, distract, and hypnotize, inspiring Fritz Lang's Metropolis. He said the sight of this city alone should be enough to turn this beacon of beauty into the centre of a film.
He was right.
I haven't mentioned music, whether jazz or blues, rock or grunge, blues or country. I haven't mentioned the murals of Harlem and the Bronx and how rap and hip-hop are still the most authentic historians of the crack wars. I haven't mentioned history, the lores of the Mafia and the Five Families, or the echoes of the Prohibition in those clandestine speakeasies. I haven't mentioned the tenements. I haven't mentioned the national parks, the astonishing mountains, valleys, craters and canyons. I need entire chapters for the Jazz Age or the Harlem Renaissance. I need a book for each art form and subculture.
This is why my default response to "How's New York?" is always "overwhelming".
Words will never fully encapsulate the magnificence of this city or country.
Tell me, am I lying?
jo hai karta woh hai bharta
yeh yahaan ka hai chalan
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I will miss it.
More than those lofty interests mentioned above, I'll miss the small things.
I'll miss getting a bagel on the weekends, everything seasoning, butter, toasted and cream cheese, the perfect reward for a week of abstinence. My order hasn't changed since my first encounter at Absolute Bagel's. I'll miss that egg and cheese breakfast roll from the food truck nearby.
I'll miss grabbing a pizza slice at night, whether from Suprema, Vito's, or your friendly neighbourhood 99c Fresh Pizza joint. It was always the perfect meal after a night out, not too much, not too little, just enough, too many flavours and styles, all equally satisfying to the soul.
I'll miss my stupid pledge of spending an entire day at every section of the Met or MoMA, creating a blended, patchwork memory of multiple days at the same museum, only the windows betraying time and change, rain and snow, light and dark.
I'll miss being awed by a new artistic style during each visit. I was woefully ignorant of the full measure of Impressionism, Cubism, Surrealism, Romanticism or Renaissance. I went in to see the works of Picasso, Hopper, Van Gogh, Monet, Warhol and Cezanne, names I recognized even though I knew nothing about their work.
But for months, for some reason, it was Chagall's I And The Village that possessed me.
I'll miss maintaining my Excel sheet of prospective restaurants, places, and experiences. It was classified by neighbourhood, whether it was fit for the summer or winter, and morning or night. I diligently crossed off items each week, yet the list always grew bigger and bigger, the city both changeless and changing.
I'll never forget the feeling of watching Hadestown for the first time and how I kept humming Why We Build The Wall for a month.
I'll miss solving a new riddle with the clinic receptionist every month. I'll miss walking past that doggy daycare on my way back from work, with the pups waiting in anticipation by the windows.
I'll miss being paralyzed with choice on the weekends, debating between ten events that all promise to be life-changing, and naively trying to get to them all.
I'll miss walking on the High Line to a class at the PIT or Magnet, those precious moments when we created joy not for an audience but just because it deserved to be created.
I'll miss impulsively setting off on hikes or tours concerning architecture, ghosts, gangsters, catacombs, Hudson Valley kayaking, or the well-kept secrets of Grand Central.
I'll miss walking past an engraved plaque or tile, each with its own story, a tiny specimen of this city's depth. I'll miss those ephemeral conversations with strangers which said so little yet revealed so much.
I'll miss hearing music when I least expected it, whether a miscreant blasting it on the phone, their modern-day boombox, or those buskers who somehow created mystical moments in the chaos of a street, public square or subway station. It was the most self-evident display of the power of music, the magic, the real magic of it.
I'll miss the parades, where the spirit of this city outshone the cold, rain and suffocating crowds.
Speaking of, I'll miss the winte-
Excuse me?
I said I'll miss the winter.
I know. I hear the shocked gasps, fainting swoons, awkward silences and crashing glasses. This admission is not easy. I am the child of the desert, after all. My instincts were horribly tainted by the British gloom. But I cannot lie to you in good faith. In the words of Ronald Weasley, I have fraternized with the enemy.
New York is, at its core, a winter city.
I'll miss walking by the window displays at Fifth Ave or Herald Square. The festive season is infectious: the bright lights get brighter, and the big city gets bigger.
I know it's cliched, but I'll miss how it adopted a new mood every season.
I'll miss taking a cab after midnight from Jersey or Brooklyn via the Brooklyn Bridge and looking at that skyline in the quietness of the night.
Most of all, I'll miss the people, the strangers on the streets, the colourful characters on the subway, my friends, the most remarkable fragment of humanity. I'll miss the trips. I'll miss the nights spent playing senseless games like Name, Place, Animal, Thing. I'll miss the laughter. I'll miss the love. It'll take half a decade to form bonds like these again, at the least, if at all.
I know the memories will haunt me. I'll lose everything overnight.
I know I'll regret leaving because it was truly the best of times, the best of humanity, some of the best years of my life.
Yet, even after this Ten Things I'll Miss About You hagiography, even you know that I've barely done justice, not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all.
Tell me, am I lying?
dadagiri nahi chalne ki yaha
yeh hai Bombay, yeh hai Bombay
yeh hai Bombay meri jaan
But all of these can be discarded as foibles of the heart, the whimpering loser, unnecessary and unimportant.
Let's deal with the head, the immortal victor, the only one that matters.
Let's deal with cold, hard facts.
It's a fact that markets are bigger, and opportunities are more widespread here. Purely from a professional standpoint, I will grow faster here. There's no question. I already have.
It's a fact that money, which often skews the best intentions, is more to be made here.
It's a fact that Lady Luck has smiled at me. I've been generously handed opportunities many spend their entire lives chasing. Somehow, I got into an Ivy League. Somehow, I was recruited by a big firm without applying. Won the H1-B lottery on my first try. Live in a luxurious studio in an affluent neighbourhood. Financially stable. Can afford to travel around the world. Reside in New York, the ultimate dream city, a short walk from the highest temples of art, culture, history or sport.
I have the world at my feet and the time, health and money to afford it; god bless.
It's a fact.
It's a cold, hard fact that I have been handed the American Dream on a silver platter.
I am the tree planted and nurtured by the hard work and sacrifice of my parents, grandparents and ancestors. One lifetime at a time, we went from a village to a town, a town to a city, a city to another country, and from that country to New York.
I am the consequence of the power of an idea, a dream in motion, a thought in effect, decades in the making, and generations in sacrifice.
To leave would be madness, professionally or otherwise.
To leave would be madness, whether listening to the head or the heart.
To leave would be madness, spitting on those who sacrificed their lives to get me here.
I was in a similar spot ten years ago. I had the best years of my life before me, waiting for me to show up. It's time to show that I've learned my lesson.
To leave would be the biggest mistake of my life.
Tell me, am I lying?
ae dil hai aasaan jeena yahaan
suno mister, suno bandhu
yeh hai Bombay meri jaan
*
Over the great bridge, with the sunlight through the girders making a constant flicker upon the moving cars, with the city rising up across the river in white heaps and sugar lumps all built with a wish out of non-olfactory money.
The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world.
He's at the precipice overlooking the Dream.
He stares hungrily at that skyline, Walt Whitman's city of spires and masts, which still fills him with wonder. The first time he saw it in his cab from JFK, he felt a shock, a surge, an exultant joy.
He remembers how he couldn’t stop smiling.
He steps up to the edge and holds his arms wide.
After lots of hard work, luck and pain, he made it.
But something's off.
Despite all those walks and memories, luck and privilege, matters of the heart that were unnecessary and unimportant and matters of the head that were calculated and factual, something didn't add up.
There is a stir in the distance.
He turns to look.
Something's billowing rapidly towards him.
Something thick, dark, and grey.
He steps back in horror.
It's smoke.
* * *
Tails
* * *
Ek ajeeb sa darr lag raha tha, bechaini si, jaise kuch galat ho raha hai...
...jaise koi train chut rahi hain.
* * *
You can spot ethereal architecture from that shoe shine stand. It's seated residents daily and overheard their conversations, privy to the winds of change in the Big Apple.
That could all be true, but it could still be an unremarkable stand.
This might be foolish idealism. It can't be worth all this importance you're giving it.
It's just a plain old stand.
In that case, I wonder why it was set on fire twice.
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*
I'm in an antique store in Cold Springs.
I spot a gold coin inscribed with John F. Kennedy's silhouette in a glass cabinet. I point at it.
The numismatist, an old man with pince-nez glasses, informs me that the coin is from the year of Kennedy's inauguration. I probe him further. It's in my nature. I can't help it. I'm endlessly fascinated by these historical personalities I have only read about. It's crazy that there are still people around me who were there when these historical figures were the talk of the town, and their words made headlines and actions made waves.
"Do you remember the day he was assassinated?" I ask him.
"I was young. All I remember is people crying everywhere around me," he replies quietly.
He's looking at the coin but not seeing it.
"Terrible day, terrible," he whispers, lost to the present.
He jolts back, shakes his head and moves away.
I look at the coin and the face of the man who dreamt of making it to the moon. Who tried to stop this country's fixation with war and weaken the mob's grip. Who dared to do hard things, not because they are easy, but precisely because they are hard.
This coin, that memory, those tears are witnesses: there is, and there will always be, a price to pay for those wishing to change all that is wrong with this country.
That price is a bullet through your head.
*
One rainy afternoon, my wristwatch, discontent with the cards it was dealt, took its last breath in silent protest.
So, an hour later (or maybe two, I have no idea) (time had stopped for me, remember), I got into a rickety elevator in a decrepit building in Diamond District.
I was accompanied by an old and hunched Jewish man. He sighed repeatedly as he wiped his glasses.
The elevator stopped midway, and a handywoman came in.
"How are you today, handsome?" she asked sweetly.
I looked up with a smirk, ready to accept the well-deserved compliment. To my dismay, it was directed at the old man, who strangely didn’t seem flattered.
"Okay, okay,” he said sadly, perching his glasses hazardously on the end of his nose. "I'm seventy-two, but today someone said I look eighty-five."
He looked miserable.
The elevator chimed. We both got out. I followed him into a tiny watch repair shop. He went behind the counter, put on a convoluted headgear of loupes and started tinkering with my stubborn timepiece.
The door banged open.
A woman entered in a huff. She brandished a small watch in his face and shrieked that he had scratched it.
The old watchmaker gawked through three sets of lenses, eyes absurdly magnified in horror, projecting eighty-five seventy-two years of indignity. He wailed that he had been in business for fifty years, and watches were hallowed artifacts he treated with love and respect.
They argued for a long time, fingers wagging and hands flailing until he gave her a refund.
She slammed the door on her way out.
He turned and started fiddling with my watch again, muttering sadly under his breath, still shaking.
So Schmuel, go sew and be happy!
But Schmuel said, "No, no, it's not my lot."
"I've gotta make do with the time I've got."
*
I returned to Muscat after nineteen years, and it was a ghost town.
When my mother visited our former home in Wadi Kabir, she could still picture herself on that plastic chair against the wall of our house, cradling me to sleep under the first rays of dawn. A video started running in her mind of her little boys running here, running there, riding a small bicycle, laughing and screaming, with no worry in the world.
Despite all those fond memories, even my mother lamented that Muscat was a tough sight.
One of the reasons we left in 2005 was the 'Omanisation' program, which slowly weeded out expats from the country. I remember when my school bus driver disappeared overnight and was replaced by a local, no questions asked.
A similar sentiment forced me to leave the UK after Brexit. I sense it in America now. I'm not new to being a job-stealing immigrant.
It's a fact of life.
I've stopped taking it personally.
The deserted alleys of Ruwi were once thriving and bustling. The local economy was booming. This array of abandoned buildings housed diverse communities. These empty parking lots used to be crammed with kids skating, cycling or playing cricket, football and hide-and-seek.
I've seen this anti-immigrant wave so many times.
I've only seen it end one way.
But it's not my problem anymore.
It still hurt to see the darkness that enveloped the streets of my childhood. I've never harboured any intentions to return to Oman. But I had nursed a fanciful notion for nineteen years that I had an indestructible bond with this place.
But as I walked past the echoes of what could have been and charred remains of what did, it shut a portal, ripped a canvas, killed a life, destroyed a world, severing another place I could've possibly called home.
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A gruff man in a baseball cap with a hoodie pulled over it leans over the poker table.
"They say poker takes a minute to learn, a lifetime to master," he sneers.
I nod.
The dealer sweeps my chips, and I walk away.
I'm at a casino in Atlantic City. I'm just here for the vibes. I have no idea how to play. It's no surprise I went underwater in quick time.
As I commiserate, I walk past rows and rows of old men and women in front of slot machines, mindlessly tapping buttons, robotically jingling coins. They repeated the motions like zombies, glazed, mechanic, and unreachable.
I found it surreal and dystopian.
Something was unnatural about it all.
Maybe it was their eyes, long-distance, void of life.
*
America loves war museums. They proudly display weapons, uniforms, jets, tanks, cannons and swords, and screen movies of valour and sacrifice across the country.
But despite those extravagant exhibits, I was always taken by the volunteers, who were all veterans.
Many of them limped with an awkward gait. Some pointed with quivering hands. Quite a few missed a limb.
But the hardest were the eyes.
All smiled warmly but carried some sadness in their eyes.
They reminded me of the living dead in Atlantic City.
Every time I looked at the shiny displays, bright and polished, I couldn't help but feel that this country wasn't preserving its real treasures.
*
I'm walking home at night, holding a large bag of groceries. A woman walks up to me with McInerney's long-distance eyes and out of her mind. She twitches uncontrollably as she asks for change.
On a whim, I hand her my entire bag of groceries and walk away.
After a few steps, I look back.
I see her jumping on the spot, laughing maniacally, pointing and giggling at the heavens, running in circles.
A homeless man chuckles as he watches:
"Say no to drugs, eh?"
*
The smoke rises thick and fast. It congeals into a dark cloud.
His eyes widen in terror as deathly tendrils inch closer and closer, darkening the scene and creeping over the skyline.
He looks around for help.
He can now see the fire.
*
I'm taking a driving lesson. My instructor, a brother from Bed-Stuy, was in good spirits. He growled when he spotted the competitor's car and mimed throwing a box of nails on the road. He rattled insults for the examiners.
"Examiners think they Gods, but I have only one God, and that ain't you, yes sir, it ain't!" he preached to the skies and beat his chest as I started to park in parallel.
Suddenly, he spotted something in the mirror, and his face soured. He lunged across, took the wheel and swerved out violently. He told me to hit the pedal.
I looked in the rearview mirror and saw a homeless man trying his best to come in our way because getting run over was his only ticket out.
*
I'm waiting for my driving test at Red Hook with an instructor.
He had done this for so many years that he knew each examiner's exact route. He could tell whether the car would pass or fail by how it took the first turn. He knew where the car would be every second of the test.
A lady walked by with a dog barking mad, struggling against the leash.
"That dog will run away the moment you remove the leash. It's not the dog's fault. It's the owner's fault," he said with a grim smile.
*
I'm at a Spectrum store, talking to an agent.
A dishevelled man walked in and started smashing the kiosk at the entrance. The agent lowered his gaze pointedly.
The smashing continued.
"You need to treat a computer like your woman, no slammin' or bangin'," he murmured.
*
I'm waiting at a signal near Port Authority on a Citibike.
Two men walked up to me.
The first kicked my bicycle with vehemence. I hopped on one foot as it fell, barely holding on.
The second man shoved me forcefully.
I crashed to the ground with a thud. The bike fell on my legs.
As the sequence unfolded, an old lady next to me screamed, "Oh!" and "Oh my!"
The two men strutted away, cackling.
Disoriented, I scrambled up and dusted myself. The lady looked but didn't help.
"Everyone's going crazy these days," she said ruefully.
I shrugged.
There are some things I understand and some things I don't.
No matter where I go in the world, there's a non-zero probability that I will be kicked and shoved, even by strangers I have never met and will never meet again.
This is something I understand.
It's a fact of life.
I’ve stopped taking it personally.
But for that incident in particular, there's something I don't understand.
I was in New York, where drugged, crazed, knife-wielding, gun-toting, eve-teasing, harassing, and abusive freaks are always around you. In fact, many of them were around me at that crowded junction at Port Authority.
But the fact that I was the biggest freak for those men, lowest in the pecking order, a bigger freak than all those other freaks, purely based on the colour of my skin, is something I don’t understand.
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Somehow, ten years passed after my first visit to San Francisco before I returned again.
I was impressed by Waymo's driverless cabs crawling through the city.
That night, a friend told me she wasn't comfortable taking them at night. An autonomous vehicle would pick the optimal route. But half of downtown isn't safe for a woman alone in a car she can't control. She had heard stories of men jumping in front of the vehicle and forcing it to stop in the middle of a deserted street.
The Bay Area's dominance in futuristic technology wasn't keeping pace with its deterioration of humanity.
Even on foot, it was an open secret that I should avoid walking below 4th street, definitely at night, preferably even in the day.
In 2014, I had sat on my bags for hours outside Union Square. I had waited on the street in the middle of the night for my bus to Los Angeles. Today, it was unthinkable.
I was repeatedly told the Bay Area was the place to be back then.
Today, I wanted to get away from it as fast as possible.
As I walked past rows and rows of tents and living corpses, I couldn't rid myself of a troubling thought:
When did one of the greatest cities get destroyed?
...and why is no one talking about it?
*
He sees an inferno.
There's a colossal eruption every minute. Flames climb higher and higher. Embers scorch the sky.
It's the fall of an empire.
But there are still some more explosions to account for.
*
I'm celebrating my golden birthday with a superhero-themed picnic at Central Park.
I planned it for weeks. I was looking forward to playing games with people I like.
It was going to be the perfect celebration.
Just then, a friend called to say she could not make it as a man had just spat on her at Times Square.
*
I'm taking the subway with a friend.
We got out one stop ahead by mistake.
As we walked to our destination, we got an alert that a bystander had shot bullets through the windows of our train at the next stop.
I always walked home from the Columbia campus.
One night, after some intense cricket at I-House, I booked a cab. This was out of character. I wasn't tired. This wasn't a habit, as I was mindful of my expenses. But I was compelled by some strange, inexplicable reason.
My friends joked about it, rightfully.
An hour later, we received news that a madman had gone around stabbing students on that route at the exact time I was supposed to be there.
*
My father visited, and he saw, and he said it was clear. A question had been answered, and a burden had been lifted.
Should he have moved to America when he was younger?
Did he make a huge mistake?
No.
*
"Your people really enjoy marching at Columbia."
I'm at the French market in New Orleans with friends. We were indulging in the finest Cajun and Creole delicacies that the Big Easy had to offer when a middle-aged man at the adjacent table started addressing us. He was wearing a sunhat and a tropical shirt. His grown, adult kids were sitting next to him with shopping bags. They were clearly on vacation. Yet, for some reason (I guess you can add it to the list of things I don't understand), he saw us happily existing and decided it was incumbent upon him to share some wisdom.
He asked us where we were from. He snarled when he heard New York and started prancing around in a circle, holding an invisible placard.
His grown, adult kids stared pointedly at their phones.
He completed a lap of the mock picket and looked at us.
"If you did that in my neighbourhood in Atlanta, we would kill people like you," he sneered, drawing a finger across his throat.
His wife walked to their table behind him with a food tray. She rolled her eyes in a manner suggesting 'he's at it again'.
I guess in this family, it was customary for her husband to make death threats.
*
Plenty have hoped and dreamed and prayed
But they can't get out of Klimovich
All that remains is the final explosion.
He stepped out on Queensboro Bridge, engulfed in flames.
The world burned around him, around everything he had once considered beautiful, aspirational and sacred. There once stood a mighty scene, a mighty city, a mighty Dream.
Now, it lay barren and scorched.
The sky was crimson with death as a giant fireball hurtled towards him.
He raised a blazing hand over the valley of ashes and traced a cross with his outstretched finger.
*
The peepal tree withered and swayed.
It creaked a little.
It creaked a little more.
Then, with an almighty roar, it snapped, leaned over and crashed right through the house that man, my great-grandfather, had built nearly a century ago.
*
"Abhi hum ko dekh ke aapko samajh mein nahi aa raha hoga, sir. Lekin hum jab Allahabad mein stage pe gaya karte the na...
...bandh jaati thi janta."
*
My biggest problem is that I'm tired.
I'm just tired.
kahin satta, kahin patta, kahin chori, kahin race
kahin daaka, kahin phaanka, kahin thokar, kahin thes
There's a formula for most Indian kids who want to make it in life: leave home.
It's simple. After your bachelor's, aim for a master's degree in the US, UK, Canada, Germany or Australia. Then, find a decent job and settle in for the indefinite future. Visit home once every two years on average. Get the visa. Become a citizen. Buy a house, and tell yourself this is the highest quality of life, the ultimate stamp of 'having made it'.
It's time to squash this hallucination.
There are problems with every step in that formula.
Let's talk cold, hard facts.
It's a fact that aiming for a master's degree requires years of preparation and cutthroat standardised tests. If your English scores don't match up to your math proficiency, you must give up your dream college.
It also requires a quarter of a million dollars of privilege at the bare minimum, and access to quality education and training resources. The cost compounds in poorer countries.
It's a fact there's no guarantee you'll get a job after all the physical, mental and monetary investments. It's the same sob story every year: vacancies are hard to find, and unemployment is high in a country where the market is supposedly bigger, and opportunities are more widespread. If an employer isn't in the mood to sponsor your visa (few can be bothered, frankly), you must give up your dream job.
It's a fact your future is still not set in stone after all that trouble. Your visa depends on a lottery, where the latest odds of winning were a resounding 16%. Some get three shots at the lottery. Some get only one. Even if you spent all that time and money, gave those tests, applied to a hundred companies, interviewed at fifty, and finally nailed a role, you must leave if the cards are stacked against you.
Even if the wind blows in your favour, you are bound to an employer due to visa complications. You might have travel restrictions. The sword of a flip-flop in H1-B, PERM, I-140, I-485 or green card policy hangs over your head always, especially when a new administration comes into power.
It's a fact that you need to get used to chains and shackles in the land of the free.
It's a fact you earn more here, but after you've deducted the hefty taxes and cost of living, you'll wonder if the savings are worth it.
It's a fact you pay a crippling price for settling here. You see your family in single digits in a decade. You learn to love substandard ethnic food. You miss birthdays, weddings and festivals. You won't be there for your loved ones during health scares.
How do you quantify that?
Your friends will move on. Streets will change. Faces will change. Your city will change.
It'll be gradual at first. Then, you visit one day, and home no longer feels like home.
Your parents will preserve your bedroom just like you left it, a time capsule of your memory, hoping you will visit often.
They will count down the days till you come back.
But that will fade over time.
Just like that, you wake up one day, and your life has passed away.
You will wonder: was it worth it?
That's what it takes: lifetimes of preparation, privilege, sweat, tears, savings, luck and sacrifice.
That's what it takes to come to this country and steal your job.
bekaaro ke hai kayi kaam yahan
zara hatke, zara bachke, yeh hai Bombay meri jaan
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I won't miss it.
I won't miss always carrying $20 in change in the high probability that you come face to face with a gun or a knife, and there's a price on your life.
In the moments I squirm out of this city's clinch, I feel a marked lightness, like a burden is off my shoulders. I won't miss how I'm never calm at night anymore. How I've stopped looking at the blue sky when I walk. How I've stopped looking far into the horizon when I sit.
I won't miss how I got so caught up in the energy, the madness, the chaos of this city that I lost myself.
E. B. White was right when he said for people who desire such queer prizes, New York will bestow the gift of loneliness and the gift of privacy. I won't miss how a man or woman could walk shoulder to shoulder in the crowd or sit an inch away yet remain alone and lonely on an island of isolation in a city filled with people.
I won't miss looking down and not making eye contact with the homeless or walking past a McDonald's where a ragged man opens the door for all the patrons and rattles a cup for the favour. I won't miss stepping around drugged and homeless, lying in the middle of the streets like cadavers strewn on a battlefield. You spare change whenever you can, but at some point, you'll be overpowered. It's imperative to stifle your empathy and build some insensitivity because if you look up, you'll be overwhelmed by the injustice you see daily.
This city's disregard for beauty isn't limited to destroying ancient wonders like the original Pennsylvania Station, Madison Square Garden, the Singer Building, or Shea Stadium.
It has contempt for its own residents, its life force.
I won't miss the crumbling infrastructure. I won't miss being unable to get home, helpless, and not in control, especially when it rains or snows.
I won't miss paying taxes blood money to a war machine masquerading as a righteous country. Everyone knows how it blasted through the doors of Nicaragua, Guatemala, Grenada, Afghanistan, Chile, Cuba, Venezuela, Vietnam, Iraq, Iran, and Palestine. But there are others where it crawled under the door like a cockroach. I've seen some with my own eyes. I've seen Tehran ravaged and ostracised by sanctions. I've seen rooms filled with surveillance contraptions in the local US Embassy, colloquially called laneh-ye jasusi, the den of espionage, and the corridors peppered with posters of Iran Air 655.
The military-industrial complex is America's most profitable venture. As Kennedy discovered in Dallas, the buck of freedom of speech stops here. According to the New York Times, your purported bastion of truth, only allies can be 'slaughtered'; enemies are 'compromised'. Allies 'strike' and conduct 'military operations', but enemies 'bomb' and 'invade'.
They are the harbingers of freedom. We are the terrorists.
I won't miss funding this lunacy with half my income.
I won't miss the blood on my hands and the scars in my heart.
I won't miss the open secret that Asians need to stand with their backs against a pillar at subway stations if they don't want to be pushed onto the tracks.
I won't miss saying get home safe and really mean it.
Talking about short walks, I won't miss always being a short walk away from threats, hate crimes, spittle, kicks, shoves, muggings, rapes or gunshots.
I won't miss the relief after receiving a kick or shove or a death threat. Yes, the relief, doesn't that sound absurd? But given the frequency and intensity of violence, it's still better than a bullet or a knife. Your number will come soon in the law of averages; just pray it's a light offence, a reprieve.
The Question 'How long will you stay in New York?' is both probing and perceptive because it's a cold, hard fact that you cannot live here all your life and still preserve your sanity.
Despite this lengthy Ten Things I Won't Miss About You spiel, even you know I've barely scratched the surface, not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all.
beghar ko awaara, yahaan kehte hans hans
khud kaate, gale sabke, kahe isko business
I've told myself I'm exaggerating.
I've tried reasoning that the bigger picture is still worth it.
But what dream am I trying to defend?
One where you avoid parks every night? Where Grand Central has no seats? Where they remove benches at bus stops and spike flat surfaces in public?
Where public washrooms are rare and deadlier than the streets?
When they say Dubai feels fake, is this the reality they prefer?
Where one unforeseen medical emergency will put you in financial ruin? Is that why vigilantes who murder healthcare CEOs are welcomed as heroes?
Where pharmaceuticals prioritize profits over well-being? Where rampant obesity is a feature, not a bug?
Where women are casually set on fire in trains?
Where their primary concern is not stopping rapes but what the woman does with the fetus?
Where school shootings are so frequent that they're no longer top headlines?
Where their primary concern is not stopping the deaths of school children but the lunatic's freedom to carry a gun?
This?
This is your dream?
I'm not just talking about this city. New York, once the dynasty of human achievement, the capital of not a state or country but of the world, can't do justice.
Despite its decadence and degeneracy, it's an unsatisfying microcosm of this country's decline and demise.
A great exodus saved them for now, but when Austin goes down, where will they run?
How will they pointedly look away when everything burns around them?
How can I defend a nation that, despite all its wealth, power, and technology, isn't even trying to solve the problem but rather is compounding the issues in Tenderloin or Skid Row? A small chunk of those billions in military aid could solve half these problems forever.
'American exceptionalism' is a hollow meme. The rest of the world laughs at the audacity. Many other countries have caught up and, in many aspects, even surpassed the quality of life. Back home, we walk with abandon in the city centre, at worst fearing pickpockets but rarely gunshots. Our supermarkets don't place products behind locked glass cabinets. Our kids don't practice safety drills for school shootings.
I think America is exceptional, just not in the way it thinks it is. It's exceptionally more barbaric than countries it ironically considers weaker, filthier, backward, those 'third-world' projects, those darker nations.
I've tried to chide myself for this foolishness. Stop pontificating these lofty morals, yeh hawa ki baatein. Put your house in order before trying to change the world. Stop preaching like you're the last of the advocates of reason or the first of their return.
Stop being naive. Life is meant to be difficult. Grow up.
Hard times create hard men, after all.
Let's say you mind your own business and smother your moral compass. Let's say you stop drawing attention to yourself and mute your exoticism. All you ask for, hands folded, heads bowed, eyes lowered, is peaceful coexistence.
But you will always be a job-stealer, dog-eater, petty criminal, rapist, and a curry-smelling, dirty thug, the root cause of this nation's problems.
In that case, let me preserve this unrealistic innocence.
I'd rather be the catcher in the rye.
ek cheez ke hain kayi naam yahaan
zara hat ke, zara bach ke, yeh hai bombay meri jaan
*
I saw him straining, knees buckling, arms trembling, and chest dripping with blood as he held the dream on his shoulders amidst the raging inferno.
The greater the effort, the heavier it bore down.
He tried to keep it aloft with the last of his strength.
What did I tell him?
To shrug.
I'm calling for a boycott.
Every time Lady Luck smiled at me, whether with admissions, interviews or lotteries, I wished it didn't. It would've been easier to submit to fate, my maktub. Walking away is making a mountain out of molehill-shaped champagne problems, tone deaf to my privilege. It took a hundred years for us to get from that chaarpai to this studio in Manhattan. It's spitting on the silver platter that feeds me. It's mocking all those who were dealt a worse hand, who would die to take my spot, the nameless, faceless, poor, huddled masses that dream this dream.
It's a maddening conflict; damned if I do, damned if I don't.
Hence, I can only make a simple argument: I don't want you if you don't want me.
If they want America First, then let them have it. When the settlers are gone, the ones who came with a quest and gave this city its passion, let's see if they still want it. I won't let you sanction the victim. I, an absolute nobody, am trying to muster the last dregs of my dignity.
I'm taking John Galt's advice and calling for a strike of the mind.
This was supposed to be a respectful collaboration. Basic creature comforts were all I asked for selling my soul: a decent home, safety, comfort and wealth, and I'd mind my own business. I don't see them in any big American city. I'm not built for the suburbs, nor do I see the point.
I refuse to glorify the daily struggle of being a New Yorker or an American as a badge of honour when it's a target on your back. If I'm a parasite you openly disparage but secretly leech, I'm out.
I'll definitely come back at some point. I'm a fan of your temples, after all. This city has left an imprint on my soul. I have a memory at this restaurant here, that fence, this bench and that park. It's a part of my story, for better or worse.
But I'll only return as a visitor. Our relationship will be openly transactional.
When I come back, for a change, it'll be on my terms.
apne hi paani mein pighal jaana barf ka muqaddar hota hai
In that case, I'll light my tiny, little bulb in my town, where it's darker.
Where the light will be brighter.
If I have to fight a war daily, if I have to face racism, bigotry, discrimination, sexism, censorship, surveillance, terrorism and fascism, if I have to fight corruption and crumbling infrastructure, if I have to put my life at stake every day then why not do it alongside my people?
This is particularly rich coming from me because I don't even know who my people are and where my town is. I grew up in the Middle East, but I'm not Arab. My parents are from India, but I never lived there. I lived in the UK, but I'm not British. I'm in New York now, but I'm neither a New Yorker nor an American.
I am the eternal cultural orphan, the master of all nations but the citizen of none.
Here I am, too foreign for home, too foreign for here, never enough, never enough.
Despite my perpetual quest for an identity and a place to belong, I'm still voluntarily walking out after solving the formula and holding the dream.
I'll scream to the world to look on my works, ye mighty, and despair, and see that nothing remains amidst the decay, the colossal wreck, boundless and bare.
I'll be a detached, desolate shell of a man, westwardly brainwashed, ethnically cleansed and culturally vacant.
I'll end up trading my heroes for ghosts.
I won't be afraid of dying because I won't be alive.
I'll win in some aspects, of that there is no doubt. But I won't be able to avoid another Question. One that'll make me panic and squirm, stutter and splutter, mumble and murmur. This time, I won't be able to laugh it off or deflect with cliches.
I won't be able to run away because at the smallest of lulls, it's possible, no, it's certain, it's inevitable, I know it's coming, there will simmer another Question between me and the other world, itching to be asked:
"What did it cost you?"
It's a viler evil, instead of murdering a man, to sell him suicide as a virtue.
Tell me, am I fucking lying?
* * *
"Hmm... Hero ho tum? Hain?"
"Nahi sir, yahaan toh hum rickshaw wale hai.
Yahan koi mai ka laal humko pehchaan nahi paayega, sir.
Andar se kuch aur hi hai hum.
Aur bahar se majboor."
* * *
I'm driving on E311.
It's been three years since I left and Dubai has stopped feeling familiar.
It's a cruel thing about time that when you leave a place, you truly leave it. The big things and even the small things, mentioned in passing, will pass away without mention. When you say goodbye, you permanently say goodbye to not just the place, but to who you were and the life you lived.
It'll never be the same again. I knew it then, and left with tears in my eyes.
Earlier that day, I was driving on Umm Suqeim, stealing glances at the hazy silhouettes of Dubai Marina and JLT on my left and Sheikh Zayed on my right.
"You belong in this picture."
I looked at her in surprise, sunlight hitting my face.
"You, here, in this frame, it just feels right, you know? I never had that feeling in New York, but this just… feels right. Your body is wandering from place to place, but your soul? I think your soul will be here forever."
I stared blankly, at a loss for words.
And so, that night, I went on my drive again. Like clockwork, I put on George Harrison as soon I exited Al Ain Road.
Even Dubai, let's face it, is a forcefully adopted sanctuary.
I'm one of this city's midnight's children. Only if you’ve grown up in the Middle East in those decades, you will know. If you're forced to visit on a tourist visa.
Muscat, Manchester, Cambridge, New York, and even Dubai, it's the curse of the immortal vagabond.
I've stopped taking it personally.
All you can do is desperately look for moments to steal and make your own. You know, those moments at the rooftop, pier, or walking on Oxford Road at dawn, or god forbid, cycling through Downtown Manhattan on a winter morning?
This moment at E311 is one of the few I have, and I'll take it.
When it's late at night, the highway creates an illusion if you know where to look. The bright gold lights permeate your vision. The periphery recedes into the darkness. The fog heightens it in the winter. Roads, cars and buildings melt away. A golden railway track, a stairway to heaven is all I can see. I have only a few minutes till I spot that blue signboard, my peepal tree.
I'm soaring. I'm floating in transcendence, bathed by the gold radiance, heaven above and below, as George Harrison serenades a higher power. The music is in me. I've caught my train.
The last time I was this calm was probably thirty years ago in the alleys of Wadi Kabir when my mother cradled me to sleep under the first rays of the morning.
I feel it, a presence, a shock, a surge, an exultant joy. I can't stop smiling.
I'm in the arms of my sweet lord of Exit 30.
I'm alone and, somehow, with all the world.
A brief moment is all I'll get, and I'll take it, because I'm content, I'm happy, at peace.
You could say I'm taking my ball, tucking my tail between my legs, and running away.
Or finally, after thirty years...
...finally, I'm going home.
* * *
Author's Note: At the end of monstrous writing projects like these, which often take months, if not years, of effort, I typically request that if you liked what you just read, then please help me by sharing it on social media platforms of your choice.
In this case however, I'm confused what this is: it's definitely more than just a story, and I genuinely have no idea how it deserves to be promoted, if at all.
However, in case you figure it out, this might help:
- Share wherever you like (quick share buttons below for most popular social media channels).
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Note: I'm a huge fan of paying homage to works of art in these writing projects, and I have done so here as well. Here, I have referenced (and this is in no way an exhaustive list): Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, Here Is New York by E. B. White, Notes From A Small Island by Bill Bryson, Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tamasha by Imtiaz Ali, Jab We Met by Imtiaz Ali, The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. Du Bois, My Sweet Lord by George Harrison, Yeh Hai Bombay Meri Jaan from C.I.D., The Schmuel Song from The Last Five Years, Of Mice And Men by John Steinbeck and Swades by Ashutosh Gowarikar
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