Mornings in Africa

At first all I see are the eyes. Eyes without bodies. Big green dots lighting up the pitch darkness of the night like fireflies. As my sleepy eyes grow accustomed to the blue black darkness outside of my tent, silhouettes start to come alive.

The jagged edges of umbrella acacias fill up my horizon. A mournful wuuuu huuu huuu breaks through the quietness of the night and I see the curved outline of a bush baby crawling slowly into sight, its big sorrowful green eyes all the while watching me. The heavy built frames of buffaloes dotting the savannah, softly grunting. A flicker of a tail swooshing and somewhere out in the velvety darkness a hyena laughs at his own secret joke before running off. I hear muffled rustling in the tussock grass around the tent and turn my head toward it just in time to see a startled bush duiker dart out of one bush and into another. Up in the trees a twig breaks free, and an accusatory chattering ensues between the black and white colobus monkeys. I hear scampering and swinging in the trees, as Africa awakens out of its slumber.

The weaver birds always awaken first. Noisy and loud, bickering back and forth, chasing each other, flashing streaks of yellow into the blue hours of dawn, dangling from one nest, flying into another. The hadada ibises squawk loudly at them scolding and shaking their heads in disapproval, their loud cries resonating into the early morning. The go away birds pitch in their dissatisfaction at the scene, hopping from one branch to another calling out at everyone to just “goooo goooo awaaaay”. The noisy choir of morning birds in the air grows louder and louder and then all of a sudden there is silence.

There it is – that breathless sunrise. Just as suddenly as the first warm glow rises up from the dark abyss of the horizon, the noise of the world around me hushes into a perfect silence. It’s as if nature and I agree that this is a sacred sight that can only be gazed upon in the midst of absolute serenity. Peace and quiet fill my world for that one moment as the sky fills up with crimson and orange rising higher and higher up into the sky until a perfect fiery ball of red sets the sky aflame. It is only six in the morning but already Africa is on fire.

This isn’t the memory of a single morning, but rather the nostalgia of countless memories of waking up to countless breathless sunrises in my beloved Kenya.

~vagabond~ © 2009

Restless rain

Dark gray clouds threaten the angry sky above me. The raindrops continue to pound noisily against the rooftop just as they have all morning long. A silver bolt of lightening darts through the sky, its silvery whiteness brightening up a dark gloomy day, if only just for a moment. A loud roar of thunder escapes through the clouds, its resonating boom waking up the quietness of a lazy afternoon. I gaze out of the window and watch the water puddles swallow up the ground beneath them, growing bigger in size, one quick raindrop at a time.

When I lived in Kenya, rainy days made me feel happy inside, in an ethereal, dreamy sort of way. There is something extremely satisfying about watching the first of the long rains of the season end a stubborn drought. The dry thirst of an entire savannah quenches up before your eyes, as the yellow brown ruggedness magically transforms itself into a luscious green. Back then, I found rains inspiring. They quenched the thirst of my own parched soul. This Midwestern winter storm that rages around me just doesn’t soothe my soul quite the same way. Instead it makes me unbearably sad. And restless. And extremely homesick. Except that, for the longest time, I’ve been wandering around lost, and just can’t seem to find where home is.

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Splat! I stomp through mud puddles, a spunky five year old, dressed in my favorite bright yellow rain coat, holding on tightly to my mother’s finger as I skip along the road. We run from one side of the pavement to the other, hiding under the rooftops of various stores along the way, seeking shelter from the monsoon rains. The streets are already starting to flood and I’m just happy that school has been cancelled for the day. As we pause for a break through the rain under a rooftop, I spot a man roasting singodas (chestnuts) on a charcoal stove along the side of the road, a big red umbrella covering both him and the singodas and the stove all at once. The earthy smell of the fresh roasted singodas wafts its way through the raindrops towards me. It’s my favorite street food of all. “Pleeease mum, can we buy some? Pleease? Pleeease?” I beg and plead. “Okay, okay…we’ll get some.” She gives in. “But you can’t eat any until you get home. You’ll get the black soot all over you.”

In that moment, beneath the flimsy shelter of a roadside store rooftop, basking in the warm heat emanating from a charcoal stove, watching the monsoon rains flood the crowded street ahead of me, reveling in the thoughts of eating hot singodas once I got home, I felt completely at home. It was the only home I had ever known.

Mumbai, India. Where countless memories of a carefree childhood lie buried. Where the earliest of my memories were formed. Is this home?

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We’ve been driving in circles for the past hour. The rain continues to drum a steady beat atop the Range Rover as the windshield wipers sway wildly back and forth frantically trying to clear away every drop. Long branches from the trees around us reach out and grab at the windows of the car, scratching it as we drive along the narrow dirt trails carved into the forest. In the midst of the thunderstorm, the forest ahead of us looks dark and eerie and we are by all counts lost. Lost in Mau Forest. I regret ever coming out here today. I regret my year long internship with the WWF (World Wildlife Fund). We had gone into the forest to search for the mouth of a river, had found and marked the origin of the river but lost ourselves on our way out of the forest. We didn’t have any food with us, no water and we were slowly running out of gas. And the steady rain made it impossible to see through the forest ahead of us. What was I thinking when I had decided to go along? A herd of gazelles suddenly bursts out of the thick forest around us, interrupting my thoughts, darting out from the trees on one side of the narrow road, disappearing into the nothingness on the other side of the road. I never should have come.

And then all of a sudden, the forest gets thinner, and the narrow trail opens up and we look through the rain to see a small village dotted with mud huts along the edge of the forest. We search around for someone to ask directions from and then we see her. She sits by the doorway of her mud hut, watching the rain pour down, patting to sleep a baby wrapped up in a bright purple khanga around her chest. She looks at us with curiosity as we approach her, her face lighting up into a bright smile as she realizes that we’re just lost. She invites us into her cow dung plastered mud home as she calls out to her husband to help us. “Mzungu! Mzungu!” a bunch of small children surround us, touching our face, feeling our hair, exclaiming in joyful astonishment over how different it is from their own African features. As I stood in the doorway of her mud hut, sheltered from the rain, I felt safe once again. I felt at home.

Kenya. Where I first discovered what I wanted out of life. Where I first learnt to pursue my dreams. Where I truly grew up. Is this my home?

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And then there is this angry Midwestern winter rainstorm that I watch outside my window today, that bears an eerie resemblance to all the storms in my life that I’ve weathered over the past few years to create a career and a life for myself here.

America. The country that I came to in the hopes of turning dreams into a reality. The country that showed me a secret courage I didn’t know I possessed. After having lived here for eight years of my life, shouldn’t this be my home? And if it is truly home, then why does this storm outside sadden me, and make me miss home today?

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Living segments of my life simultaneously on three very different, diverse continents allows me to soar free amidst them, opening up my life to cultures and customs so different from and yet so alike to one another. And for that unique perspective of a free flowing life, I’ll always be grateful. But it also gives me the saddest feeling of fitting in everywhere and yet truly belonging nowhere. Each of these places that I’ve lived in, that I’ve grown up in, that I’ve had life changing experiences in, holds on to bits and pieces of my soul, but there is none that my soul stakes its claim on. I recognize the turbulence of the storm outside. I recognize the restlessness it brings. It’s time for me and my gypsy soul to move along, in search of a new home. I’ll wander. I’ll roam. I’ll search some more. And perhaps I’ll realize that while there is no one place that I can call home, all these places that make me me together define home.

~vagabond~ © 2009

PS. This post was eerily written around the same time that Bindu asked "where is home?". She has an extremely interesting post (read it here) answering the same question. Bindu, you have my answer now.

The Meeting

Would he still recognize me? Will he have changed? Would he be a different person now than he was before? The last time I had seen him I was an awkward teenager. A shy fourteen year old. And I was with my parents. That makes all the difference. Because back then, they did all the talking to him and I just filled in the gaps. Even so, he always knew how to bring me out of my shell. He has always been a vibrant man. Full of energy, the life of the party. When he was in a room, you heard his loud laughter before you even entered the room.

My mum has four brothers, I have four uncles, each with a personality completely different from the other. If you met them separately, you would never guess they are brothers. But for me, my Dineshmama was always the one who knew me best.

Riding along in the car, waiting for the moment of reunion after fifteen years, all sorts of memories swarmed through my head. It's funny how the most inane memories that lay buried and forgotten over the years suddenly resurface when a familiar name comes to mind. I try to tell people about him and the first image that comes to my mind is of him holding a rat by its tail chasing my cousin brother and I around the house with a mischevious glint in his eyes while we kids shrieked loudly, running around the house. I had come across the rat quite by surprise, fumbling around for my slippers under the stairwell in my grandma's house and shouted loudly for mama to come get rid of it. And then there's the day he saw us feeding a goat with vegetable peelings, and dared us to go pull on its tail. Yup. Only my Dineshmama would come up with silly pranks like that. And yet, he was gentle and kind too. Like the day I got scolded by mum and he saw me crying and took me out for a motorbike ride and some icecream. Or the day he sneaked in a stray puppy into the house just because us kids wanted him to. My grandma would be horrified if she knew.

Over the years, we grew distant. My trips to India became fewer and far in between. Other things in my life took precedence. Studies. Career. Friends. Other relationships. In a quiet unassuming way, our worlds grew apart. The relationship that could have been grew silent. Until yesterday. When I got the phone call to come see him in Chicago.

The bizarreness of it all wouldnt leave me. It felt strange and awkward to be meeting the ghost of a man that I remembered only through memories. And here in America of all places, when all I had known of him was in India. It felt disorienting and bizarre. And yet, I was excited to see him after all these years. And nervous.

What would I say to him? What would we talk about? I havent seen him in years. I have nothing to say to him. Ofcourse, we'd talk about my aunt and my cousins. He would ask about my parents and I would ask about my grandma. But what else was there to say? He doesnt know anything about my life here. And I know even less about his. He doesnt know me. And I dont know him.

I saw him before he saw me. Time always stands still in our memories. We expect the people in our memories to stay the same, to dress as they did before, to look as they did years ago. When I saw him look so old and tired and frail, I couldnt believe it was him. The years have been harsh to him. His health hasnt been keeping up well, so I've heard. I wondered if I should even have come. Time changes people. Or rather people change over time. Would he be cold and formal? Would this be awkward? I shouldnt even have come.

He rushed over toward me when he saw me. His eyes welled up with tears as he embraced me. "You look just like your mother", he said. He placed a paternal hand over my head and asked me softly, "Everything okay, beta?". And in that one gentle moment of care and concern, I knew it was going to be okay. I was glad I had come to see him. I knew it wasnt going to be cold and formal. I knew it wouldnt be awkward. Because two alienated strangers had once again become family.

~vagabond~ © 2008

The Package

My mum has always maintained that I am waay too sentimental. And as much as it kills me to do so, I'll admit it...I'm one of those nutty people you've heard about who cries over commercials. I know, I know, it's a little ridiculous. But then again, there's something just so heartwrenching about that humane society ad about the happy little dog with his big brown eyes peering hopefully out of its tiny cramped cage wanting to be adopted and taken home. Maybe it's just the dog in the commercial. Maybe it's the message of the commercial itself. Maybe it's just me. But either way, if you've watched that commercial and never secretly wanted to bawl like a baby, may I just say, you've got an icy, icy, cold, cruel heart. There, I said it.

So last week, I bawled like a baby. And no, this time it wasnt the commercial on air. It was more legit. I got a package from home.

At first I was really excited. I arrived at my apartment to find this big box waiting for me at the doorstep, and a warm fuzzy feeling came over me as I saw my dad's familiar handwriting all over it. They hadn't even told me they were going to be sending a package.

For the past month or so, my parents have been doing a mini-tour of all sorts across India - visiting my relatives scattered across various different states, and taking their dream vacation to see Delhi, Udaipur, Jaipur and the surrounding locale. I remember when my mum called me right before they were going to start their holiday and cried over the phone (alright, so maybe that sentimental thing is all in the genes). You see, this was going to be the first holiday that my parents and sister were going to take without me. We've toured India countless times over the years, but always together as a family. This would be the first time in all these years that they would be holidaying without me tagging along, and my mum was getting all teary-eyed over it. "It's okay, mumma...just take lots of photos for me, and I'll be sightseeing along with you.", I convinced her. In the end, they had a good time, and over the next few weeks, I kept hearing "oohs" and "aahs" over the phone at every mention of the taj mahal and the red fort and the pink city and the endless destinations they had been visiting. And then I got the package.

I grabbed a pair of scissors and cut through all the tape holding the box together, all the while shaking my head in disbelief over the sheer quantity of cellotape used. I could get an anonymous package from anywhere in the world and I would still recognize my dad's trademark obsession for tape all over the package and know just who it came from. After cutting left, right and center, the box fell apart pouring out bubble wrap and styrofoam peanuts all over my living room. I reached out for the biggest small box within the main box and set about undoing the obsessive tape work holding this smaller box together. I let out a big gasp when the packaging finally came apart and I saw what I was left holding in my hands. It was a small, pure marble, replica of the Taj Mahal...just as intricate and delicate in design as I imagined the real Taj Mahal looked like. It was simply beautiful. I set it gently on the side table in my living room, and continued to sift through the styrofoam peanuts.

Two marble elephants, one with a small piece of the foot chipped off. Not too noticeably messed up, I reasoned. I could easily hide the chipped off foot by placing it at the right angle next to DVD player in the entertainement center. A box of kaju katli from Mumbai. As I opened the box and took a bite of the yummy goodies, I fondly remembered all the holidays I had travelled with my family to India. No matter where else we had been traveling in India up to that point, before flying out of the country, we would always stop by this one particular sweet shop in Andheri that we all insisted sold the best sweets. We'd buy small boxes of halwa, and other sweets to gift out to friends back in Kenya. I insist I do not have a sweet tooth, and I generally hate ghee laden ladoos, but when it comes to kaju katlis, my dormant sweet tooth comes alive. Stuffing my mouth full of the katlis, I continue to search through the package.

A couple of small, beautiful, framed pictures from Jaipur. I fantasize using them to make a picture collage to decorate the walls of my boring apartment. They'll definitely add some life to the place. A pair of silver dangling earrings. My sis sure has good taste. A few satchets of instant pani puri mix. Mmmm. I'm craving some pani puri like right about now. I could use a trip to the indian grocery store, I decide.

Clothes. A bohemian mix of western and indian styles. Tunic style tops with artistic embroidery. And just in the right colors too. No funky bright reds, greens and yellows. My beloved hues of black, white and cream. It's amazing how a single whiff can take you back on a journey through the years. I do my own version of a febreeze ad and raise the clothes to my face and suck in the smells contained in the clothes. The clothes in the package have that distinct new-clothes-from-a-shop-packed-inside-mum's-suitcase smell to them. They remind me of countless holidays spent with my family, wandering down the unknown alleys of an Indian town, admiring the endless gallery of salwar kameez, tops and jeans hanging from impromptu displays created outside the stores. The haggling over prices with shop owners and the excitement of wanting to wear the precious new clothes at the next given opportunity. I sniff at the clothes and a warm feeling of nostalgia sweeps over me.

And then I saw it. The one item in the package that overwhelmed all the emotions I felt inside of me as I opened the package and reduced me to tears. It's a paper bag and as I peek inside it, my throat tightens and I feel all choked up. I empty its contents on the carpet and pick each one up. Inside the bag are brochures and pamphlets and postcards collected from every single place that my family has visited during their trip to India this year. Postcards with views of the Taj Mahal from every possible angel. A booklet advertising the Swami Narayan temple. Leaflets collected in Jaipur. Brochures from the various mosques and temples they had been to. And as I leafed through them, a sob broke loose and I cried.

You see, my dad's most precious legacy to me has been his love for travelling. It's the one passion we share together. Sometimes to a point of annoyance to the rest of our family. My dad jots down bits and pieces of his day in a diary he carries when he travels. I blog when I travel. My dad takes an infinite amount of time positioning us and finding the best angel for a shot on his old kodak camera. I take an infinite number of photos in the hope of the best shot on my canon digital camera. He talks to rickshaw drivers about the most authentic restaurants in the area. I consult yahoo travel on the best places to eat wherever I travel. He collects brochures and pamphlets wherever he goes. I collect brochures and pamphlets wherever I go.

A flashback to all the trips we've taken to India together reminds me of all the brochures, pamphlets and postcards we've collected together over the years. Two of each. One for me to hang on to, and the other for him to hang on to. My mum would often complaint of all the paper "junk" that we were carrying back with us, and why we had to have two of everything. Once we were back home, we'd set aside a day to go through all the brochures and pamphlets and exchange whatever I had that he was missing and so on and on it would go, back and forth with all the postcards and leaflets, laughing and re-living the adventures of the trip through the exchange of the souvenirs.

As I looked at the contents of the brown paper bag, I realized what my dad had done. Even though I was missing on their trip, my dad had still collected twos of every brochure and postcard he had picked up during their travel - and sent me my own copy of the trip. It was his way of taking me along on yet another travel adventure.

Packages from home have a strange way of flooding your heart with a mish mash of mixed emotions. This one made me cry.

A trip down memory lane…erm…Devon Avenue

In the six years that I’ve lived in America, I’ve been to Chicago dozens and dozens of times. Well, when you live in a small Midwestern town surrounded by cornfields galore and Chicago is the largest city two hours away, let’s just say, you visit Chicago every opportunity you can get. But even so, I had never heard of Devon Avenue until a few weeks ago, when I got disgustingly, unbearably homesick.

“Maybe we should just go walk down Devon Avenue”, Joe suggested when I finished my marathon session of watching every hindi movie ever uploaded on youtube and emerged out of my post-diwali, pre-new year’s mithai ka dibba bought from the only Punjabi store in miles around here. “Devon Avenue?” I looked at him perplexed, “Where’s that?”. “In Chicago” he replies ever so casually, like this is a nugget of information he has shared with me a million times before. But I digress. Turns out, Devon Avenue is the heartland of ethnic diversity within Chicago - a single stretch of road that consists of an orthodox-Jewish neighborhood, Russian-American neighborhood, and an Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi neighborhood. Did anybody say “Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi neighborhood?!” Where have I been all this time?!

I knew we were on Devon Avenue even before I had had a chance to read the road sign. I knew when I saw the festive store signs, in everything from Arabic to Gujrati lettering, advertising everything from halal meat to electronics to luggage to fish. I knew when I saw the colorful stores with hot pink sarees, neon yellow salwaars and bright purple skirts. I knew when I saw the familiar throng of people in pyjamas and prayer hats strolling down the street. I knew when I saw the paan shop and little groups of people idling around outside the store on a weekday. I knew right then I was in Mera Hindustan. Ahem. That is, Little India. Or Litte Pakistan. Or Little Bangladesh. Or the closest it comes to home, anyway.

If I ignore the heaps of snow along the sidewalks, and zone out the icy winter wind stinging my cheeks, and focus only on the street ahead of me, bustling with crowds of people going into and coming out of the dozens of Indian/Pakistani stores lining the street, then the street ahead of me looks exactly like it belongs somewhere in Mumbai. It’s hard to believe I’m still in the Midwest.

We’ve arrived on Devon Avenue smack in the middle of lunch hour. And first thing’s first – we’ve got to eat. Driving up and down the street, one thing is clear. It’s not going to be an easy choice to make. Devon Avenue is lined with dozens and dozens of eating options – Gujrati, Mumbaiya, South Indian, Bengali, Pakistani, Indo-Chinese restaurants all lure customers in, each advertising the special cuisine of the region. A delicious smell of kabobs intermingled with sambhar, vegetarian manchurian and chaat wafts through our nostrils. I haven’t eaten Pakistani food in the longest time and so we decide on the Sabri Nehari Restaurant for lunch.

Everybody comes to the Sabri Nehari for its famous sabri nehari – a tender meat curry that the restaurant is named for. From what I have read on the internet, Sabri Nehari has the best nehari in all of America, and it’s time for us to test that out for ourselves. So undoubtedly, we order the nehari. I order the Frontier Chicken – a grilled boneless chicken dish with onions and tomatoes that is highly recommended on the menu. If the picture on the menu is anything to go by, then I’m sold already. Assuming that the size of the naans is the same size of the naans at our local eatery within our Midwestern town, we order three naans and one paratha.

The naans and paratha arrive first, and they are humongous in size! Had we known how big the naan would be, we’d have ordered fewer pieces. A complimentary salad arrived next, along with sweet chutney and a coriander based green chutney to dip the slices of cucumber, onions and tomatoes in. Then the nehari and the chicken arrived…after which I blanked out over the next half an hour, because I was lost in a happy daze of good smells, finger-licking good food, and the soft instrumental background music of “Ajab si” from Om Shanti Om. The food was excellent and quite possibly the best Pakistani food I had eaten in a really long time. The restaurant itself too is quite clean and has a charming ambience. Ironically, the walls were graced with paintings and decors reminiscent of Italy rather than India or Pakistan, but the attempts at creating a romantic atmosphere within the restaurant clearly didn’t go unnoticed.

After leaving the restaurant with bellies full and boxes with leftovers to carry back home, we decided a walk down Devon Avenue was in order. All around me are immigrants bustling down the street armed with plastic bags filled with the unique groceries and knick knacks available only along Devon Avenue. We join the army of immigrants and proceed into Patel Brothers – the biggest Indian grocery store along the avenue. The store inside has aisle after aisle filled with every imaginable variety of paratha, all types of Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi spices, bottles upon bottles of all kinds of pickles, bags of different species of rice, ingredients for the most remote recipes, and snacks that I remember seeing only in India. I shop my heart out…enough food to stock up my Midwestern pantry against a blizzard of nostalgia.

After dropping the grocery bags in the car, and adding some more quarters to the parking meter, we continue our stroll down the street. We do what everyone else on this street does. Enter random stores, check out their interesting wares and walk out of the store and enter the next store. Music stores selling Bollywood’s top hits, book stores with their displays of Movie and Stardust magazines and gift shops with interesting trinkets – we cover them all.

Joe has never eaten kulfi in his life. I decide this is something no individual should ever have to go through in their life. So I take it upon myself to introduce him to the glorious taste of kulfi. We enter King Sweets, a café/shop that sells all sorts of barfis, mithais, sweets and savory snacks. I wasn’t even sure that they would sell kulfi, and I skim through the food items in the display window. Not seeing any fridge around or any kulfi eating customers, I hesitantly ask the store owner whether they sell kulfi. “Aaah. Kulfi. Yes.”, he answers smiling broadly at me. He seems rather pleased that I’ve asked for an item that isn’t even on his menu. He disappears into a back room and reemerges with a stick of plain kulfi and another of mango kulfi.

Kulfi is India’s answer to ice-cream. Like ice-cream, it is made by boiling milk, flavoring it and then freezing it. I am not sure what the recipe differences between kulfi and ice-cream are, except that kulfi tastes phenomenally better than ice-cream and is extremely decadent. If Joe’s slurps are anything to go by, he clearly agrees.

Business taken care of, we continue our pilgrimage down Devon Avenue. Everywhere around us are people buying stuff, people selling stuff. Within the everyday transactions however, I notice an exchange of more than just cash and commodities. “Sarlaben, haven’t seen you here in a while” “When is Mansoor’s sister’s nikaah?” “Are you going back to India for good?” “Archana, don’t forget to buy the aachar for dadi amma”. A burst of laughter amidst old friends. A wailing child sobbing for a candy. An old man and his cane inching along the sidewalk, stopping to spit out paan. Young girls giggling as they pass a group of desi boys. It’s not just cash and commodities on Devon Avenue.

Soon it’s dinner time and we’re on the search for yet another exciting place to eat.

Back in India, we have these small roadside restaurants known as dhabas. They are nothing too fancy. If anything, their ambience (if at all any) consists of crude sitting arrangements and is designed out of sheer practicality rather than aesthetics. They are just small, simple shacks designed to serve travelers along the road and are largely frequented by truck drivers and rickshaw drivers. Yet ask any local driver to direct you to their favorite restaurant in the area, and they’ll tell you to go to the dhabas – that’s where they have the real food. Ghareeb Nawaz reminds me of those dhabas in India where I’ve enjoyed some of my best meals.

From the outside, Ghareeb Nawaz is hardly anything fancy. If you are on a date and are looking for romantic ambience, go to the Sabri Nehari, or go to the dozen other Indian/Pakistani restaurants a little further down the street…but if you’re looking for good food, REAL good food then keep walking right on in through the doors of Ghareeb Nawaz.

Ghareeb Nawaz loosely translated means “Place for the poor” or so I’m told (my hindi is pretty pathetic and my urdu barely exists). And if the prices on the handwritten menu at the lone counter inside are anything to go by, then “place for the poor” it is, indeed! Meat thali for $4.50?! Veggie samosa at 50 cents a piece?! Khorma for $3.50?! Ethnic food doesn’t get any cheaper than this in America! The skeptical me would have rationalized that at those low, low, prices, the food cant be any good, and that the only reason the prices were so low was because the quality of the food wasn’t any good and the low prices were the only way the restaurant could attract any customers at all. But the skeptical me wasn’t rationalizing. The skeptical me was too busy sniffing, drooling, and ogling at all the delicious food floating past the counter into the hands of heavily salivating customers.

“Biryani!” I’ll get chicken biryani, I decided after soul searching through the menu that was full of so many food items that it was literally spilling all over the place. Yup, literally. Be sure to look left, right and center when searching for an item on the “menu”, because the menu isn’t just contained on a board behind the counter, there are additional items on scraps of paper along the side of the counter, as well as scribbling on a chalkboard next to the counter. There are just so many food items available that if you’re anything like the indecisive me, it will take you a while before you commit to just one. Joe selected the lamb biryani and sheikh kabab.

As we waited for our order, we looked around. There isn’t much to look at, other than a few posters on the walls of Mecca, and a donation stand on the side, accepting donations for the renovation of some masjid. At the back is what looks like a prayer room. The seating arrangement consists of bright yellow, plastic seats. Some people have described the interior as dingy and depressing, but I actually thought the bright yellow gave the place some cheer, and while it might not exactly be as fancy as is expected from a restaurant in Chicago, it is what it is – a restaurant with the spirit of a dhaba. Inside I see friendly cabbies stopping for a lunch break, two Somalis huddled around a biryani, a Punjabi family equally confused over what to order, and a few Pakistani men dressed in pyjamas scraping out the last bits of their curries with naan. Everywhere around me is animated conversation in all different dialects and the jolly banter that can only be found surrounding a well enjoyed meal. Dingy and depressing? I hardly think so.

“Holy crap!” I exclaim, when I taste my chicken biryani. For one thing, with the tricolored rice dotted with pieces of chicken, it looks so good. For another, it smells divine…of cloves and elaichi and fragrant rice and spicy chicken. And the taste is like no other biryani I have ever tasted out of India. I think I’m in love. The biryani is spicy but just spicy enough. Not spicy to a point where all you’re tasting is just red pepper and all you can feel is the the throbbing of your tongue as it pulsates to the hot chillies…but just spicy enough.

Joe is equally exuberant over his lamb biryani. I’ve never been a fan of lamb or mutton…they all have a distinct sheep-y smell as far as I’m concerned, but Joe insists I try the sheikh kabab. In the end, I’m glad I did because it changed my definition of the words “mutton” and “kabab” forever. The kabab is so richly seasoned that I wouldn’t even know I was eating lamb were it not for the very succulent, soft texture of the kabab.

“Deeelicious!” is what I’ve got to say. And here’s the best part – for the meager $10 we spent on the meal, the portions are so huge that we have plenty of leftovers for dinner.

As we head back to the car, ready to return back to our small Midwestern town, I feel lighter at heart. After a day bustling in and out of the little stores along Devon Avenue, I’ve realized that for immigrants like me, Devon Avenue isn’t just about the interesting merchandise or the exotic restaurants lining the street…for immigrants like me, Devon Avenue offers a glimpse of home. And I can leave knowing that whenever I get nostalgic for home again, there is a street around my Midwestern corner where I can transport myself home.

~vagabond~ © 2008