On Hillcroft
Photograph by Debora Smail
When driving down 59 after work you squint
at the setting sun that glares
redly in your eye, and around you
the cars have become an ocean of unmoving metal,
come to Hillcroft.
Nothing to eat at home except what you might
pull out of the freezer. Piles of bills, TV,
unwashed laundry, and your aching feet for company.
This is not how you thought your life would turn out
when you moved to Houston. But never mind,
just off the freeway, an adventure waits.
Veer sharply to the right, past
a cacophony of honks, down the ramp,
and you’re on a street you’ve always meant
to visit: Hillcroft.
Park, step out, begin.
In Hillcroft groceries, the air smells different,
a little musty, a little like you’ve entered another land.
Bins of multicolored lentils, ten kinds of rice
in sacks large enough to feed a hundred mouths.
Packets of spices: vermilion, ocher, cadmium brown.
Ayurvedic pills, Isabgol for regularity, fairness creams.
For those in a hurry (and who in this city is not?)
bottled curries, frozen samosas, spicy snack mixes,
honey-sweet gulab jamun ready-made and waiting
in tins. But wait,
don’t fill your arms yet; on the next block,
beside the beauty salons for eyebrow threading
and gold facials, sit the sari shops,
the jewel-toned fabrics unfurling sheer as hope,
the decorous, brown-skinned Hillcroft mannequins
that sport salwars, tunics, and lehenga skirts
studded with gems for brides.
You want music? Here’s store upon store filled with song,
classical, folk, Bollywood—and movies too. Kareena
and Ash smile at you from postered Hillcroft walls
in magnified glory. Shah Rukh gyrates; a leather-jacketed
John Abraham surges forth on his bike.
It’s hard to tear away from the big-screen TV with Malaika
dancing Munni Badnaam—oh, those hips! I understand,
but in the dusk, listen, can you hear
temple bells from the back alley
and from farther away, the muezzin’s call? Lamps are lit,
deities garlanded. Incense fills the air. On Diwali
Hillcroft will transform into strings of lights,
sparklers and firecrackers, flame-fountains,
loudspeakers, and mountains of sweets
to pack in shiny boxes and take from house to house.
But enough of distant festivals!
You are famished right now, and there are
a hundred options. Stand here, under the sign
announcing that you are in Mahatma Gandhi
territory, and look around. You want
North Indian? South Indian? Pakistani?
Chindian? We have fusion too, and vegan, all well priced,
because we like value. Tandoori chicken, dosa, biryani,
dahi vada, ras malai, dhokla, kheer. On Hillcroft,
no one need ever go hungry.
Happy? Ready to leave now, your arms weighed down
with purchases? Ah, but you’ve missed
the most important part.
Close your eyes, breathe in. Smell the dreams
with which we came from our homelands,
single suitcase in hand. The nostalgic songs
we hummed those early days in Houston,
families crowded into a single apartment,
still waft along the air above Hillcroft.
Can you feel the heft of our struggle? Our uncertainty,
our hesitant backward glances?
But Houston opened its arms to us. That is why
we flower on Hillcroft today—and all over this city.
In return, we opened our hearts
and let the city in. Look now:
Around you the milling evening crowds
are brown and black and white
and smiling shades combined, the color
of Houston itself, all pulled to Hillcroft
because here we’ve brought together
everything that’s needed to feed the soul.
Divakaruni is the author of The Mistress of Spices, Sister of My Heart, and Queen of Dreams, among other novels. Her latest
novel, Oleander Girl, will be published in March.
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