I took the 7 train all the way out to Jackson Heights on Saturday because I had a craving so specific it felt like grief.
Fafda. With the jalebi. The way my mom makes it on Sundays in Ahmedabad while complaining the entire time that no one helps her.
There's this place on 74th Street, just off Roosevelt, where the snacks taste almost like home. Not exactly. But almost is sometimes the most dangerous flavor there is.
I ordered a box. The uncle behind the counter wrapped it in that thin paper that immediately goes translucent with oil, and something about the sound of the paper crinkling undid me completely.
I have been very good at not missing my mom. That's the honest part. I've been busy and productive and curating my little life and calling her every Sunday for exactly twenty-three minutes before one of us has to go.
But missing my mom caught up with me in the back of that sweet shop, near the fridge of cold ras malai, where I stood and just leaked tears into a box of fafda like a fully unhinged person.
The uncle pretended not to see. The aunty at the register slid me a free piece of jalebi and said nothing. Gujaratis communicate everything through food. That jalebi was an entire hug.
I called my mom right there on Roosevelt Avenue under the 7 train tracks, the train roaring overhead, and she couldn't hear me and kept saying "hello? hello? beta the line" — and I was laughing and crying at the same time.
I told her I missed her. In Gujarati. The real version, not the polite Sunday version.
She got quiet. Then she told me to make sure the fafda place uses fresh oil and not to eat it if it smells off.
That's how she says I love you. Worrying about the oil.
I ate the whole box on the 7 train home. Missing my mom from 10,000 kilometers away tastes like besan and powdered sugar and a train rattling toward Manhattan.
Call your mom. Even the twenty-three-minute version.
Love,