Audio Portrait: The Girly Stuff

The Girly Stuff

Jackson Heights, Flushing, NY: What I Hear

I smell the old Indian man and his screams.   It smells like samosas and chicken curry.  He’s screaming in Punjabi, telling his employee to get the potatoes out of the truck.  It sounds like home.

Every window brings a stream of pots and pans clashing into each other, almost like glass bangles hanging on my wrist, delicately hitting each other. 

A mother cooking for her husband, her children, herself.  She opens jars of spices.   Metal against glass. 

That’s all I hear of her. 

The keynote sounds are like a Bollywood movie playing in surround sound around me.  Every saree store I pass plays a familiar 90s song that fills my ears.  

Sound signals.   They want me to walk in and buy a bright saree sprinkled with enlarged rhinestones. The call me “older sister.”   Beckoning me to look at all the sarees that would look good on me.  Their voices sound like little three year olds, begging me for something.  I don’t even wear sarees. 

Every other car that passes by is blasting modern Indian music.  Obnoxious, auto tuned, Hindi songs with moments of bad English rapping.  I call it “weshtern” music.  It sounds like embarrassment.  Like when you trip on flat ground. 

On the last corner, by the train station, there’s a little kid that’s sucking on a light green kulfi, frozen sweet cream, pistachio flavored.  He keeps sucking on it, slurping the melting cream.  It’s almost like being in the shower and repeatedly taking off and putting on the suction cup hook on the tile wall.  The loofa falls off, but you keep doing it.          

Define a Space

Gnark: After Hours