There's a specific kind of friendship that gets you through a hard year in New York, and mine is named Meera.
We met on the 1 train, actually, both reaching for the same pole, both wearing kurtas, both pretending we weren't clocking each other. She works in publishing. I work in fashion. We bonded over being the only brown girls in rooms full of people who pronounce our names like they're afraid of them.
This week marked two years since I moved here, and I keep thinking about my first New York year, which was, to put it gently, a disaster.
I cried on the 1 train more times than I'll admit. I got fired from my first styling job. My sublet flooded. I ate dollar pizza so often the guy on Broadway knew my order. I was so homesick I'd play my Papa's voice notes on a loop just to hear Gujarati.
And through all of it, there was Meera.
She'd show up to my Harlem apartment with samosas from that place on 125th, no questions, just food and her whole self. She let me fall apart on her couch in Morningside Heights without ever once telling me to look on the bright side, which is the most loving thing a person can do.
The friendship that gets you through a hard year doesn't perform. Meera never posted about being there for me. She just was. She'd text good morning in Hinglish. She'd send me reels at 2AM. She remembered the names of people who'd hurt me and hated them properly on my behalf.
In India I had cousins, aunties, a whole loud web of people who'd known me since birth. Moving here, I lost that net. New York doesn't hand you a family. You have to build one, person by person, on subway platforms and over shared fries.
Meera is my net now. My chosen family. The person who'd come bail me out and then make fun of me for needing it.
We got chai this week at a place in the Village and I told her she got me through my worst year. She rolled her eyes and said don't get soft on me, Pooja, and then she paid for both of us.
That's love. That's the whole thing, right there.
Find the person who shows up with samosas. Keep them forever.
Love,