I step into the house right foot first. The first few days in Ahmedabad I see nothing but walls. 49 degree heat hits different. It's like I'm boiling from the inside. My skin wants to come off but I don't sweat. Instead, my body temperature crescendos into a fever. A fever I can't sweat out. I've never experienced heat like this. I think about how climate change will make temperatures like these commonplace. Vancouver saw this kinda weather just last year. Historic lows to be expected in Mauritius this winter. I drink fluids of all kinds. Water, ginger tea, ORS, fresh mosambi juice, more water. I spend my days drinking and peeing. The fever abates. My pockets of fat glisten. Much like Bombay, car lanes are merely suggestive. There's no flight just fight. Beverages are served with a generous pinch of salt. Men stare a lot more. I order crop tops online and they come in a paper-thin envelope. Looks like a bunch of documents. Bachhon ke kapde. I've been on TikTok a lot. My FYP is an amalgamation of food, fashion, wholesome LGBT couples and body positivity. Women of all shapes, sizes, colors and textures frolic and make existing a bit less tragic.
A lot of life starts after sundown. Gujarat is a dry state and a mostly veg state. So late-night cafés with cigarette booths are a thing. We order Chinese takeout and it's astonishing. The chicken is doused in the only non spicy sauce they could think of, ketchup. I daydream about bol renverse. I wonder what a nice time in the city could be like. Interestingly, I don't miss Mauritius. I had started feeling trapped on the island, like there was little left to be amazed by. I miss Montreal like crazy though. My Can Lit package came in two days before my trip so I get to read my new books with excited eyes. I'm heartbroken that I'll never get to eat Patrice Pâtissier’s maple éclair ever again. I'm sad that I don't know the best spots for coffee and sashimi anymore. That I haven't been to either of the food halls, that I don't get to witness the Eaton Centre morph into a new self because of the new light rail being constructed. I miss the smell of the first spring rain, the crunch of October leaves, going to the movies on Tuesdays, eating knockout desserts on a whim, scooter rides with Blink 182 in my ears. I miss pleasant banter with quirky bartenders, pretending to be a Xavier Dolan stan, people watching in Park Laurier.
Online shopping is a different beast here. Some grocers have a ten-minute delivery delay. The market for single serving goods is huge because the daily wage labor force is too. I can order clothes online and request that they be collected if they don't fit right. There are so many discounts. We complain that food we Swiggied wasn't good so they refunded it no biggie. We get quality assurance calls for services we've used. 103 doctors are available to speak online. My cough won't let up. My saasu ma removes nazar. I eat lots of bhindi. I finally have the yakhni I've heard so much about. I have rogan josh and smile ear to ear.
A lot of our cultural touchstones come from here. What marriage looks like. How we pray. Why we don't eat beef. If your henna is dark that means your husband loves you dearly. It's interesting to see it all up close. Some of the clichés are true. Many aren't. Many are new. Sensory overload. I've been feeling at relative peace about my skin. I haven't seen many white people. I haven't felt that whiteness dominated the vibe anywhere I've gone. The way people feel of privilege here doesn't scare or alienate me; possibly because it doesn't have the same post-colonial texture, possibly because I'm of similar privilege. I don't feel looked down on, I don't feel like I'm borrowing aesthetics. In Coming Out As Dalit, Yashica Dutt talks about the rituals of passing that her family and other Neo-Kshatriyas/Sanskritized Dalits adopt to shake off some of the stigma that comes with being of her caste; this often entails mimicking Brahminical behaviors and affectations. Similarly, I have played white many times in my life, by polishing my English accent, by dressing like a hipster, by drinking Starbucks religiously. Here I don't feel the need to posture. Mauritius isn't Brown in the same way. I feel like we aspire and pander to whiteness more aggressively.
I’m reading Coming Out As Dalit while sitting in a Brahmin's house. The irony is not lost on me. Of the things I've learned, caste-based discrimination goes much further than reservations can ever address. It inhabits the unspoken spaces, so deeply woven into the fabric of Indian society that it feels inextricable. I have conversations about this over dinner with friends. I witness some of it play out in the real world. I know to keep checking my privilege because it’s far-reaching.
A few weeks in, the heat is familiar. There’s an occasional sprinkle, a dry thunderstorm. It no longer hurts to be outside. Last year Ojasvi was telling me about Alphonso mangoes and how nothing we get in Mauritius comes close. Facts. It takes being in India during the summer to understand. We have five mangoes in one sitting. There's mango lassi. Mango yogurt. Alphonso mango juice. Mango chunks and cream. Mango cheesecake. Mango soufflé. Aamras. I’ve never known mango to melt in my mouth. Diasporic dreams of mango aren't overrated in the slightest.