another old one

You get lonely here and there is barely the time to feel the loneliness and you have to bury it till it makes you do the most unexpected things. I want to go home now, back to india; I was lonely there too but not like this, where I can stand on a street corner and feel like dorothy from the wizard of oz, wondering which wind blew me here.
Brown faces I miss, familiar languages on the street, casual slang on the radio, the smells and sounds of every road. The dhool, the amaltas ke ped, the heat, the sticky sweat down my back. I miss calling friends and seeing them on a whim, dropping in to peoples houses without warning them. Eating out of their fridges. Gossip and slander but friendly. Humor you don't try to decipher. Where there is only one way to spell humor. When you look out the window and see the qutab minar. And below your house stands a chaat wala who knows just how you like it. And you ask him how his sister is doing, and does he think of her now that's she's married and gone away. The fat aunties who make extra and feed you dhokla cos they know you like it. Fat bhindis and litchis. Shehtoot on the trees, plucked; turning your lips maroon; dusky yellow evenings. The rain.