Kaizar and I finish our ice cream cones as we make our way towards the Castro District in San Francisco. It is one of those perfect contradictions of a San Francisco day. The sky is a beautiful sunny blue, but the cold wind doesn’t seem to care.
I always thought of San Francisco as a boisterous, cosmopolitan city. But today it seems strangely quiet. Though the Castro is busy, other neighborhoods seem devoid of people. The sidewalks are missing Delhi’s pan-wallahs and vegetable sellers. Motorcyclists don’t jockey for space where sidewalks should be. And no one is calling out that they will pick up your recycling or trash.
There is order here. And the order sounds eerily quiet to my Delhi-accustomed ears.
As I continue my wanderings, I come across a home that is selling off its old clothes and books. I spot Ender’s Game, an old favorite of mine with its childlike meditations on the darkness of competition and conflict.
My mind wanders back to another copy of the same book. This copy sits on a bookshelf in Panchsheel Enclave in South Delhi. It is a lovely bookshelf in a lovely home — where a kind soul lives. In another country, like so many of my Delhi friends.
