In 1994 my father was 27 years old and late to Mumbai International Airport. It was probably the worst possible time for him to be late for a flight. You see, my father had always dreamed of coming to America after getting his Ph.D. in chemistry. But after six years at a small university in central India, he hadn’t gotten a single post-doctoral offer from the states. He had, however, received a single offer from The University of Tokyo. It wasn’t America, but the pay was good, and it was a new and exciting locale that my father wanted to explore. The plane he was now running to catch was his ticket there.
I remember every vivid detail of his harried journey through the airport after listening to him recount it countless times as he tucked me in for the night as a child. The stress-induced check-in as the gate assistants seemed to purposely move as slowly as possible. Gratefully getting through security without a hitch. Running to the gate with shoes and belt still in hand as they announced that the final boarding call for BOM to HND was now underway.
And then, the call.
The call that changed his life forever, and consequently, changed mine. In the middle of sprinting down the terminal, my father’s phone rang. An incredibly old, yet sturdy and reliable Nokia. The call was from Mark Davis, director of the Chemistry Department at Case Western Reserve University, offering my father a postdoc job. Right then, right there, my father ripped up his plane ticket. Two months later, it was BOM to JFK instead.
And so, instead of growing up in a high-rise in the urban sprawl of metropolitan Tokyo, attending an international school and eating monjayaki and unaju on the weekends, I grew up in a white-picket fence suburban neighborhood outside of Cleveland, getting myself shoved into lockers in middle school like any other socially awkward pre-teen in America that went to public school.
I think about that every single damn day.
Life is full of sliding-door moments. Sometimes, you are able to squeeze through right before the chance is lost. Others slam shut right in front of your face and all that is left to do is wonder what could have been. They might re-open twenty years down the road. Or click—the lock slips shut, and before you realize it, the seemingly inconsequential moment that could have defined you as a person has forever passed.
Some aspects of life seem to have more sliding-door moments than others. Like love.
Love is a 15-foot glass door separating the kitchen from the backyard patio and I am the squishy-faced French bulldog running into it at full steam every 15 minutes, expecting it to one day disappear so that I can explore the outside world beyond.
Fifteen years ago, I had a kindergarten crush on Ayana, my only friend in the ESL program. She had the roundest glasses I had ever seen in my life and sharp black hair that framed her face in a pixie cut. On the last day of kindergarten, she kissed me on the cheek and said that we were going to get married.
We didn’t get married.
One month into summer vacation her family moved away and I never saw her again. To Tokyo of all places. In an alternate universe, there’s a first grade Srikar living in Japan who met her and fell in love.
Six years ago, I wanted to ask Lauren, the cute girl with wavy blonde hair in my English class, out to Homecoming. But tenth grade me, being terrified at the very thought of talking to girls, made a quick pit stop to the bathroom before walking over to her locker with flowers and a poster in hand.
What followed next was honestly, something out of a romantic movie. As I rounded the corner, I caught sight of Mason, another classmate in our English class, posing with Lauren as she held flowers loosely in her left hand while her friends took pictures. He had asked her to Homecoming thirty seconds before I had arrived. If my bladder had just cooperated for once, I wouldn’t have been there standing like a dummy in the hallway, mouth agape. I went back to my locker, stuffed the flowers and poster inside, and went to class as if my poor teenage heart hadn’t just been snuffed out like a candle. Years later, I grabbed coffee with Lauren, now married, and asked her if she would have said yes back then.
She gave a light laugh. “Of course. I thought you were cute.”
And so, instead of dancing the night away with her, I spend Homecoming 2015 night at home playing Mario Kart for three hours.
Three years ago, I had a crush on my best friend. After an entire semester and a half of working up the nerve, I finally decided to ask her out on a date. I knew she loved live music, and so I was planning on taking her to the Indie Rock Live festival in Pawtucket. I had it all planned out. And then, on what should have been a beautiful April weekend, a storm rained out the entire east coast and forced the festival, and my plans to ask her, to be delayed by a week. A week in which another friend decided to ask her out instead. She’s still my best friend, but every single time it rains I think about how that one storm changed my entire college experience. April showers bring May flowers, but they also bring a lifetime of wondering if you just missed the chance to be with your soulmate. At least I ended up selling the tickets for a nice profit on Facebook Marketplace.
If the last six years have revealed anything, it’s that I need to be more punctual.
This past summer in New York City I was on the 2,3-line traveling uptown back home after work. In that tightly packed, unbearably humid train, I locked eyes with the girl sitting across from me. She was about my age, carrying a tote bag from The Strand, and had the brightest green eyes that I had ever seen. Even though her mask obscured her face, I could tell she was smiling. I offered a small one behind my mask in turn. We stayed like that, eyes locked, offering hidden smiles to each other for 5 more stops. Should I ask her what her name is? Maybe see if she wants to grab coffee? Is she actually looking at me or is she one of those people who sleeps with their eyes open? At 79th street she stood, appeared to hesitate, and then quickly spun and hopped off the train just as it was about to leave. Sometimes, the sliding doors are literal ones.
Most people lie awake at night thinking about the big things. Where do we go after we die? What is this all for? What is happiness anyways? And why the hell am I working seventy hours a week as an investment banker in New York City?
Not me.
It’s the little things that get to me. Because, in life, it’s the little things that are inherently important. Behind every major decision are hundreds and thousands of inconsequential moments that create the foundation for your life. What if I got on this train rather than that one? What if I walked to work using a different route than the usual? What if I ended up attending that club meeting instead of skipping it? All of these questions eat away at me as I wonder if I just missed out on something small that could have been responsible for something big. That’s why I always try to live life as if every single moment, no matter how incidental, could be the moment that changes my life.
For those of you who don’t live life that way, well, I have no other advice for you.
Other than to never refuse a call in an airport.
Sole Magazine