I’m totally and utterly lost.
Dressed in a lime green party dress, adorned with the glittering gold highlights usually found on saris, I’m a cross between east and west. My dress is perfect for where I’m headed: a very posh Diwali party in New York.
What’s less perfect is the fact that I only recently flew into New York from London, and I don’t know a soul at this party I’m trying to find.
It’s taken me 20 minutes to figure out which subway train I need. I find myself terrified of the constant threat of violence on New York’s streets. The train grinds to a halt. I wait and wait. The driver announces that we may be stuck here. I decide to make progress by stepping out into the freezing night. I come out of the station, clutching my coat closer to my body. I open maps on my phone – and my phone decides, at that very moment, to not work.
It had seemed like such a good idea back in London, booking a ticket to a Diwali party. I was in New York to celebrate the US season of my Masala podcast. I’d organised a launch party in a brand new city, where I knew no one, where I didn’t know the names of the venues. My friends in London thought I was nuts. But the podcast party – organised using online searches – had gone stupendously well.
The trip to the Diwali party, however, is not going so well. I don’t know which street I’m on, I don’t know how far the venue is or how to get there.
What would Carrie Bradshaw do? What would Monica Geller do? I start walking into the dark street looking for a yellow taxi. Not as easy to flag down as TV shows make it seem.
After 10 minutes of tottering about in my heels, I spot the iconic yellow car and wave my arms furiously. Twenty minutes later and $35 poorer, I’m dropped off at the venue.
I’m about to enter what sounds like a nightmare for most people: a party with hundreds and hundreds of strangers. I take a deep breath, square my shoulders and go in.
It’s a sea of beautiful people, dressed in the most gorgeous south Asian outfits, wafting expensive perfumes. This is obviously the crème de la crème of south Asian society in New York.
I grab a few samosas – I was so nervous I didn’t eat lunch – and stand in the corner, watching the action. Most of the women are in designer Diwali outfits, people look kind of “famous”. Sequins and shimmering outfits are everywhere: the saris, the suits, the lehengas (ankle-length skirts) are stunning. There’s cool Bollywood music playing; some people are already making shapes on the dancefloor.
I’ve finished my samosas but I still don’t move. My hope was that I’d meet interesting new people at this party, but how do I approach them? Everyone seems to know each other, engrossed in their own chats or greeting friends as they arrive.
I feel like a total outsider.
I queue up to get photos in the event photo booth. A young south Asian woman is behind me. I smile at her, she smiles back.
We start chatting, she tells me she’s here from New Jersey and introduces me to her friend who flew all the way from Washington DC to be at this party. Photos done, they head off to the dancefloor.
I decide that I’m here to make friends, and do memorable things in New York – not just stand around. I join the girls I just met on the dancefloor, and they look happy to see me.
We dance. And we dance. For the next two hours. My body moves to the familiar beats of the Bollywood songs I love. The bodies of my new friends move with me. We are joined together in that moment, all of us mouthing the words of the songs we know so well. We are from different countries, of different ages, but we all speak the same cultural language. The bright, bold south Asian colours of our outfits fuse together to form a multicolour medley of shapes on the dancefloor.
I’m home. Yes, it’s a new country, a new city. These are strangers. But my body is at home with the music, with these new friends. In the midst of our dancemoves, we talk about our work, our dating lives, our plans for the coming year. We swap social media handles, posting videos of us dancing together, showing off our best moves.
A few hours later, I’m all danced out but feeling so much warmer in my body and in my heart. The girls give me a lift to the nearest subway station, going out of their way to make sure I get on the right train.
Suddenly, New York’s streets don’t look so scary.
Sometimes, the scariest and the most liberating thing you can do is just “turn up”. And trust that the world is a good place.
Sometimes, life is about dancing with strangers, grabbing moments of joy even in the middle of all the darkness and the fear.
Sangeeta Pillai is a south Asian feminist activist, founder of Soul Sutras and the creator of Masala Podcast
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