There is a specific kind of quiet on the 6 train at 7AM that nobody talks about. Not silence — the doors still ding, somebody still clips their nails (why), the conductor still mumbles like he's hiding a secret. But a softness. Everyone half-asleep, half-praying we make the express transfer at 14th Street.
I got on at Spring Street today and my phone buzzed. A four-minute voice note from Mummy. Four minutes. That's a short film in voice-note currency.
She started with the monsoon. It came early in Ahmedabad this year and the gulmohar tree outside our flat is dropping orange everywhere. Then she pivoted, seamlessly, to Sharmila aunty's daughter who got engaged. Then to whether I'm eating. Then back to the engagement. The 6 train rattled through Astor Place and I just smiled at my reflection in the dark window like an idiot.
This is the thing about the 6 train at 7AM. It's the only time my two worlds touch. Ahmedabad waking into evening, me hurtling toward Midtown, her voice stitching the gap.
A man next to me was eating a bacon egg and cheese with the focus of a surgeon. A woman did her eyeliner perfectly between Bleecker and Astor — I will never not be in awe of that woman. I replayed Mummy's note twice. Once for content, once just for the sound of her.
By Grand Central I texted back: "Eating fine, ma. Tell Sharmila aunty congrats. No, I'm not getting engaged." Three dots appeared immediately. She is always awake when I need her to be.
The 6 train at 7AM is where I do most of my missing. Not at night, not on Sundays. Here, underground, between two stops, surrounded by strangers who will never know that the woman smiling at the window just got told the gulmohar is blooming back home.
Some mornings the commute is just a commute. And some mornings it's a phone line halfway across the world.
I got off at 33rd and the city swallowed me whole, but I had orange flowers in my head all day.
Love,