I am homesick for Navratri tonight in a way that sits right behind my ribs, in a Brooklyn apartment where the loudest sound is my neighbor's TV.
Navratri started this week. Back in Ahmedabad, my whole family is spinning in circles right now. My cousins in chaniya cholis heavy with mirror work, the dhol so loud you feel it in your teeth, the entire street glowing. And I'm here in Bushwick eating dal chawal alone with the AC still running because September can't make up its mind.
Being homesick for Navratri is a specific ache. It's not just missing home. It's missing a version of myself that only exists there — the girl who knows every step, who dances till 2am, who doesn't have to explain what any of it means to anyone.
My mummy video-called me at what was noon for me and midnight for her. She turned the phone around so I could see the garba in our society compound. The dandiya sticks clacking. My dad, who claims he can't dance, doing his one move on loop.
I danced a little in my kitchen. Alone. Holding my phone. It's not the same. I know it's not the same. But I did the steps my nani taught me on a floor that's seen it a hundred times, and for a second the ocean got smaller.
There are garba nights here too. There's a big one in Jersey, one in Queens, my friends keep sending links. And I'll go, I will. But being homesick for Navratri isn't fixed by finding a substitute. Community here is beautiful and it is also a photocopy of the original, slightly faded at the edges.
I moved to New York for the career, the fashion world, the version of me I'm still building. I don't regret it. But nobody warns you that ambition has a receipt, and homesickness is the tax you pay in installments, usually during festivals.
So tonight I lit a diya on my windowsill facing vaguely east, which is probably New Jersey, but the intention was Ahmedabad.
Home isn't a place I can take the train to. But it lives in the steps my feet still remember.
Love,