Stay

In an instant it all makes sense. It's time to go home, you think, as the reasons to leave loom large and the excuses to stay slowly fade away.

Years ago I remember standing at the Bombay International Airport, waiting outside in the heat for my Indian American relatives to check in, get their boarding passes, and get through immigration lines. They were headed home. I longed to follow them, if only for a little while, see this world that they talked so highly of. I yearned to visit other countries, see other cultures, learn to say "hello" in seven different languages and "goodbye" in six.

And in that longing, I lost sight of my own country. For in the few brief moments that they would return to tell us they were checked in and hoped to see us in their homes soon, I clutched on tight to the sight of their spotless streets and organized chaos. And when they left, we left. And as the car bumped through potholes on the road that directed us home, I sat in the backseat of our car, closed my eyes and boarded the plane with them.

Years later I landed. "Welcome home," the customs officer said, as he checked my India to Zurich to Fort Worth labels. 10,000 miles away, I couldn't be further away from home if I tried.

But home has been anything I've wanted it to be. Home has been Missouri, home has been Memorial Union, home has been the Columbia clock tower, home has been Stephens Lake, home has been the beach in Norwalk, home has been holiday photographs, home has been a sunset on the Arabian Sea, home has been a sunrise at 40,000 feet, home has been the London tube, home has been the Paris metro, home has been missed deadlines and stomach cramps, home has been mama, home has been papa, home has been.

I suppose then that I never left home. Only built more rooms to an existing place in my life. And in that instant it all makes sense.

I'm here to stay.

Babbling Brooks and Scorching Summers

Last Friday I was walking down old cobbled paths of the French countryside. The Friday before that I was dining with some of my favorite people in India's most populated city, Mumbai. Today, I've spent the evening at Dupont in Washington D.C. listening to street performers make music with large empty tins.

Thank god for Saturdays.

Grim Hairy Tales

"What's going on?" he asked me in Hindi.

Here he was: the star hair stylist who, I was duly informed, has been cutting movie stars' hair his whole life (a huge deal in this city), has endless years of experience under his belt and is quite the charmer.

"Well not much really ... I'd like a quick trim ... some style perhaps, without cutting too much off," I responded.

"Hmm"

I could tell he wasn't listening. Regardless of songs of his praise, I should have been suspicious the minute I walked into this salon located in Basement 2, 27 feet below ground level desperately lacking oxygen and, as I was soon to find out, a hair stylist that listened.

I've been told never to tell a hair stylist (and few others for that matter) to "surprise me!" And so I didn't. I told him I didn't want my hair any shorter (Oh, but we'll have to cut something, he grumbled) and hated that it curled (Oh, but that's what God has given you, he snarled). I protested a little, he shot down all arguments and proceeded to hum a little tune as he began to snip-snip-snip-your hair looks good short-snip-it should always be short-snip-snip-remember to oil it-snip.

Fifteen minutes later the damage had been done. I stared in horror at the ground, then the mirror, then his face. It's short, it's awfully curly ..."It looks great, doesn't it?" He smiled broadly.

Too bad my country doesn't encourage me to sue. I would have made millions off of his smiling face. For now, millions are smiling (laughing really) at this wonderful haircut from the stylist who has cut hair for many a movie star who, it turns out, were all men.